SURVIVORS

PART I: Surviving. (CHAPTER ONE)

   
     Never have I ever felt the kind of peace I felt that day. It was almost as though no one else existed. I desperately wanted to forever remain where I was. I laughed as the birds chirped my favourite tune.

Could this be paradise? I asked myself. Fear gripped me as I searched for master, but I couldn't find him there too. I danced to the tune the birds were chirping. It was mom's favourite song and had become mine also.
   
     Suddenly, the voice of the birds gradually ceased. They were other sounds. Someone was shaking me violently and calling my name.I didn't want to leave wherever I was but whoever was calling me had much greater control.

I opened my eyes to see Nurse Muja and her assistants peering at me anxiously, she shouted that I had woken up and Samira came with a bottle of water. I realized how thirsty I was and drowned  the whole bottle. The familiar smell of drugs filled my nostrils, forcing me to neglect my nose and breathe with my mouth instead so I wouldn't perceive it any longer.

Apparently, Samira told me I had been unconscious for two days and Master planned on getting rid of me if I still wasn't conscious after a week, it would be assumed I had died.

I lifted the wrapper used to cover me and sat up. I was lying on a mat made from palm fronds, it was the type of mat you found while looking up your history books. I used the wrapper instead to cover the naked mat but Nurse Muja collected it and told me she only had one to spare and that I could go back to my room since I had finally woken.
      
I still felt weak and couldn't feel my body but I knew better than to stay back. Samira assisted in walking me back to our room and I could swear I saw everything including her in two.

"You shouldn't have spoken to him that way you know." She smoothed my hair back.

"I couldn't keep it in any longer." I leaned towards her, needing comfort.

She gave me what was left of her food that day to eat. She had intended to eat it later in the evening. I felt sorry but I was really hungry that I didn't refuse.
It was very little and I gobbled it up quickly.

We were fed only once a day, twice if the foodstuffs were getting spoilt and rotten and master didn't want it to be wasted. Eating thrice happened once in a blue moon which is on Ahmed's birthday, master's first son.

We always looked forward to the 17th of June, the day master smiles the most, the only day we get the day off not to do any work, the day we play round the quarters, showboating our dancing and singing skills for Ahmed.

Even the sky respected that day, it never rained and shined its brightest.

But after that, we were back to our normal lives, working expeditiously 18 to 19 hours daily.

The boys making ammunitions, bullets, machine guns,bombs, anything meant to destroy lives.
The more older boys would later be trained to learn to use them incase of war.

The girls farming, cooking, carrying the materials for the construction of a new hideout, washing, cleaning, and most dreaded of all was when master or any guard choose you to warm their bed.

No one knew each other's actual names. I was called Shafatu, others shorten it to Shafa. Whereas my actual name is Jessica Daniel.

Master threatened and made us swear not to tell each other our actual names. I never knew his real name, no one did. At least none that I knew of, we always referred to him as 'master'.

     I finished what was left of the beans Samira gave me but I wasn't still satisfied.

If a fortune-teller had told me five years back I would eat half–cooked or even uncooked beans. I would have probably laughed and waved it over. But here I was, finishing it and very much unsatisfied.

True, at first I vomited each time I was served food. That was when I received my first beating from master. He told me I would stop eating since I was wasting his food. I preferred to stay that way than eating what my stomach rejected.  

But after four days, my stomach was no longer satisfied with just drinking water. It bit at me continuously like nails driving into a wall. I began to feel hunger in its worst form. I became ravenous.
I didn't have any energy left to work but Danladi, master's acolyte, would hear none of it. He assigned me a bigger portion of land to harvest yams.

While harvesting, I slipped the raw yam leaves in my mouth and ate them hurriedly. Running my tongue over my teeth, I pulled at the leaves that were stuck in between spaces in my teeth. No way would I be stupid to let that slide, the most irrelevant things you did could raise suspicions. I thought of sneaking a tuber with me, maybe I would bury it in the middle of my legs, but that would be foolishness.

I ate more of the leaves without minding the dirt going down my stomach along with the leaves. I managed to hide some in my underwear for when next I would be hungry.

Unluckily for me, I wouldn't get to work in the farm again for a while and that also meant no food. That was when I started eating whatever I was given, the food suddenly began to not be tasteless. I can't tell if the hunger caused it though. It seemed like my body also sensed there was nothing else to eat and I stopped throwing up.

     
       *                       *                        *

    By the time I finished having my cold bath,  it was time for Maghrib prayer. I knew because the sun was setting. I could tell what time it was merely looking at the sun, moon or sky. This was among the first tasks we were trained to understand.

The stitches were less painful, and I could now stand with no assistance. I'm sure it was the anodyne Nurse Muja gave me earlier. I slipped my hijab over my head and grabbed my praying beads under my sleeping mat.

Samira and I performed the compulsory abolution and went to the prayer ground. I mumbled the words, knelt and stood when it was time.

Throughout the years I've been here, I've never fully understood the Islam religion and I don't think I would ever. If it was a textbook, it would be one of the numerous ones I had, that will eternally remain hidden in my attic.
   
My heart was fully rooted in christianity, which made master despise me more. I said this to him the first day I was forced to put on the hijab given to me. I couldn't imagine myself looking like something I despised. I wished I had a Bible, but I wasn't opportuned to bring it with me.

Nevertheless, I prayed each day with the verses I remembered. I wrote all I could remember with a matchstick on the wall beside where I slept, lest I forget them one day.

But these days, I prayed less, spoke to God less, felt his presence less. I still manage to say the Lord's prayer when it crossed my mind.

When I was first kidnapped, I prayed like I never had. Whatever I or was doing or wherever I was, I mumbled  and spoke in tongues, but quietly, so I wouldn't be caught.

We were told Islam was the only religion we could practice and violating that rule proposed death.

I had cried to God, remembering him of how he delivered his apostles from death claws and freed them from several prisons.

Months passed, I cancelled each day from the fake calendar I wrote beside the Bible verses .

After a year, my hope began to deflate. I was never the patient type, the Bible verses on the wall were fading with the weak paint.

I wrote them again and again. I pray now to satisfy my conscience that I haven't forgotten God, deep in me, there wasn't any hope left.

Author's note:

Cover by: Ahmmad Malik
Profile: @DesignedUp
Portfolio: www.designedup.weebly.com
Photo by: Eye for Ebony on Unsplash