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OLA Chukwu- writes, Awka (2026)

31/07/2025

EPISODE 2

🌍 KARMA'S FRIEND 👁️
By:© OLA Chukwu- writes

MAERRA

Mum was the sweetest human being on earth.
But sweetness doesn’t save you from the world. It never saved her.

They said that after her mother, Asanta, died, Laura wandered through the village barefoot, dust clinging to her skin, flies buzzing around her dry lips. She was only ten, just ten and the world had already decided what it wanted from her.

The hunters knew where to find her.
After hunting, they would sit by the trees behind the old market square.
“Come,” they’d call softly, motioning with fingers blackened from smoke and blood.
And she would go, and they would take turns sleeping with her.
Not because she wanted to, but because hunger makes you say yes to shame, and she was just a child who knew nothing.
They gave her twenty naira.
Dirty, folded notes with blood stains from their killed meat or palm oil on them.
The money not even enough to buy garri, but just enough to stop her stomach from screaming.
Money that meant nothing.
But when you are a child alone, anything that stops the pain becomes a kind of god.

It happened just behind someone’s hut.
One man, older, silent used to sit near his window and watch. Not because he enjoyed it.
But because his soul had already died once.

One evening, when the hunters had left for hunting and Laura waited again, squatting beside the woodpile, that man called her.

He didn’t say much. He just opened the bamboo door.
And when she came in, he wrapped her in a wrapper, packed his few things, and left with her that night. Just to protect her from those wicked men because Asanta when she was alive, used to bring food for him and his sick son until the son died and he became a lonely man whose wife left after the child became sick and there was no money again.

They never returned until Laura became a woman.
It was years later, and her body had changed. But her eyes still carried the same hollow silence.

The man, whose name was Damba, brought her back to Kpalansa, a ghostly village tucked between old mountains and whispers.
They returned to the same hut where Damba lived. Where Laura's childhood ended. The same hut where men took turns in sleeping with her.But now Damba he was old, and dying.
He wanted to die where his bones belonged.

Laura was twenty then.
And the river had begun to hum again.

That was when she met Sefu.
He was a hunter too but not like those ones years ago.
His steps were soft. His hands never reached unless invited.
He lived close to Azhara, the river that carried curses in its belly.

After hunting, he would come to Laura with fresh bush meat, still warm in the cloth.
He would roast and grill it beside her hut.
Laura would sit beside him, watching the red charcoal glow in the dark.
Sometimes, he brought soft cheese wrapped in banana leaves and warm palm wine that tasted like fermented banana.

After they ate, Laura would take a bowl to Damba.
The old man would nod, eat in silence, and stare at her as though seeing the daughter he never had.

Then she would boil his bathwater, place the pot down gently in the corner, and tiptoe to Sefu’s hut.

There, they would walk to the river together. Sefu is always carrying something: a piece of meat, a calabash of wine, or dried fish bones.

He said it was an offering.
Laura never asked to whom.

One night, while they sat beside the river’s edge, toes brushing wet sand, moonlight dancing across the water like broken mirrors, Sefu turned to her.

"You know," he began, voice low, "Nyara gave my mother a son. Me."

Laura turned to him, the smell of river moss thick in the air.

"My mother begged her. Promised her anything. And so when I was born, she said I must come here every night. No matter the weather. Rain, thunder, joy or death. If I stop, I die."

Laura stared at the water, still and dark.

"I thought all these river stories were fallacy?" she asked, voice barely above a whisper.

Sefu didn’t smile.
"Nothing is fallacy if you believe it. I believe it. That’s why it’s true."

"And if I don’t believe?"

He turned to her slowly.
"If you're bound to something, belief doesn’t matter. You belong."

That silenced her.

The river hissed. It didn't flow like other rivers. It was breathing. Laura often felt like something just below was watching her. Not watching her with eyes, but watching her with memory.

Somewhere behind them, frogs croaked a hymn.
And Laura felt the chill crawl up her spine.

That night, after Sefu walked her back, she heard the voice for the first time.

It came softly at first.
Then louder.

"Laura… Laura…
Whether you believe it or not—when you are bound, you belong."

She sat up on her bamboo mat.
Damba was already asleep.
But outside, the river was whispering.

Then another voice.

"Your mother came. And now, you are here."

Laura shivered.

Now,at night,Laura would wake up breathless,heart racing as if running from shadows no one else would see. Sometimes, she saw hunters in her dreams- not as men,but as faceless smokes, circling her, offering her dirty notes.

They never told her Asanta’s warning.
No one told her the last words spoken on Asanta’s deathbed:

Asanta had felt the Rivers pull too on her deathbed, she kept muttering names no one knew , "Nyara is watching... keep her away from the river..." She had whispered before her breath left her chest. But no one was there to understand. Only the wind carried the message.

“Tell my daughter to tell her daughter never to pray near water.
Never beg near something that listens too closely.
Not near anything that takes more than it gives…”

But who was left to tell Laura?

No one.

And Azhara was awake again.

Nyara remembers, even if people forgets.

~

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'sFriend

29/07/2025

EPISODE 1

🌍 KARMA’S FRIEND👁️

By: © OLA Chukwu- writes

MAERRA

I was just a child.

A child who thought the world was soft, that grief was something that waited until you were old, until your hair was grey and your back bent. But it came early for me. Before I even understood what it meant to have a mother.

I was four when she died.

They said she belonged to the river.
That her death was not sickness.
It was payment.

A blood price.

They said her mother, my grandmother, had made a plea to the river. Not to God. Not to the stars. But to something darker. Ancient. Hungry.

Because her husband had threatened to leave her.

He wanted a son. And all she had was Laura. My mother. Just a girl.

And so she ran. She left in the dead of night, past the borders of our small town, beyond the scattered lights of Kpalansa, past the last hut before the wilderness, until she reached the edge of the sacred forest where nobody dared to fetch firewood.

Where even the wind moved differently.

Where time slowed.

There, behind the thick banana trees and the sleeping hibiscus flowers, she found the river.

Azhara.

The villagers called it “Mmiri nke-echeta”- the River That Remembers. They say its waters held the memories of every prayer ever whispered in desperation. That it carried not just water, but vengeance.

Its surface shimmered like broken mirrors. Still, but never silent. It breathed.

And beneath that shimmering skin… was her.

Nyara. A water goddess

But something made of all the water beings.

They say she was not born but formed- gathered from all the women who drowned begging . All the children swallowed by their mother's grief. Nyara was never born. She was remembered into being.

Ageless. Beautiful. Cold. With skin the colour of dusk and eyes like something ancient blinking from beneath ice.

When Asanta called out to the water, it responded with no thunder. Not with wind. But with a voice. Low. Silky. Like grief dressed in camouflage.

“You called,” Nyara said, rising from the mist like a memory that refused to die.

Asanta trembled. “I heard… I heard you give children. I’ve come to beg you. My husband wants to throw me out. I only have one daughter, Laura. Please, give me a son. I promise to give you whatever you want in return.”

She doesn't know that the river is not God, when it wants to take,it takes more than the bargained.

Nyara smiled. It was not kind. It was hunger smiling and she stretched her hands.

“ Come closer. The river hears desperation. And it always answers. You are her kind one who speaks without knowing the weight of her words.”

Asanta stepped closer, her bare feet sinking into the wet, mossy earth. She swallowed , trying not to get close enough to Nyara, the goddess, or step into the water.

“I will not step in. But, what do you mean, I’m her kind?”

“This river chooses people who speak from impulse,” Nyara whispered. “People who say ‘take anything’ before thinking about what ‘anything’ could mean. This water is desperate and it searches for desperate souls "

Asanta’s knees buckled. “No, I… I didn’t mean it like that. Please. don't ask for what I can't give. Don't ask for my daughter , she is all I have. If you give me a son, I’ll still never be whole without her.”

Nyara’s smile widened. “You already spoke. The river is awake now. The pact has been heard. You cannot withdraw. You said you would give anything if I give you a male child . Give me anything? Anything can be your life ".

" I'm no longer interested again, goddess, let my husband throw me out" Asanta said

" Do you not know where you are? This is river Azhara , the river that kills and takes more than given. Ruled by Nyara. You can't back out because you woke the river up and it had heard your request " Nyara said, then she moved fast.

She reached out with fingers like water made flesh, gripped Asanta’s head, and plunged it into the surface of Azhara.

What Asanta saw was not water.

It was a vision. A memory that had not yet happened.

“In nine months, you will bear a son,” the river whispered inside her. “But your daughter will die at twenty-six. She will bear no sons. You will die before her—on your fortieth birthday. Your son will die at two. Your husband will follow a month later. The river will collect.”

Asanta screamed into the river.

But it was done.

Azhara does not bless.
It bargains.
And it collects. With interest.

Nine months later, Namir was born.

A beautiful child with river-blue eyes. Quiet. Too quiet.

The village midwife, Thaleia said he didn’t cry like other babies. Just stared like he already knew.

And on the day Asanta turned forty, she died.
Just like the river whispered.

Namir died one month later.
Pneumonia, they said.
But his skin turned dark before he stopped breathing. Like something inside had drowned him.

Asanta’s husband died a month after that.
They said it was heartbreak. But he died with water dripping from his ears. The doctor had no explanation.

Laura ,my mother was ten.

She never knew the truth.
Nobody knows.
Only the whispers of Azhara…
and the silence of grief.

She married. She never bore a son. And at twenty-six just like the river promised she fell critically ill. Sickness that has no cure.

Gone.

Just like that.

And me?

I was only four. I still had nightmares of the night they laid her in that white box and the sky cried heavier than the mourners.

They say my grandmother’s last words, before she died, were:

“Tell my daughter to tell her daughter to never pray near water.
Never beg when near something that listens too closely.”

But no one told me.

Until now.

Maerra. That’s my name. The last living girl from the line of Asanta.

I should not be here.
But I am.
And this is my story.

Not of magic.
Not of myth.
But of memory.

Of what happens when a promise is made to a river that remembers.

But the river does not sleep. It stirs again. And I think it's calling me now

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'sFriend

26/07/2025

When He Stopped Being Him

You see, this story is not for the faint-hearted. It’s the kind of tale that demands a seat, a deep breath, and water with ice. The heartbreak that made me temporarily allergic to WhatsApp notifications.

We were together for one year. One full year of “Good morning, baby,” and “I’m thinking about you,” The kind of love that made me smile at my phone in public like a girl receiving a huge alert.

Then it happened - pregnancy. The double lines that made my world pause. I told him. I expected something. A plan, a hug, panic, maybe even a badly cooked apology. What I got instead was a meeting.

We met. We talked. We cried. And I, in my naivety and loyalty, chose to end it. The pregnancy, I mean. I aborted it. Not because I wanted to. But because we were “not ready.” That’s what we agreed, or rather, I was made to believe.

I expected that would be the turning point, that we would get closer, rebuild. Instead, I met a new version of him. Cold. Complaining. Distant. He started acting like love was a loan and I was owing.

“You’re always asking for money.” “You don’t even have transport fare to visit me.” Suddenly, my crime was being broke and in love.

But I tried. I still tried.

I visited him again. Laid beside him, pretending everything was fine. The next day, I returned to school with a half-broken smile and a full heart hoping for magic.

Then it started.

Two days. No message. No “Did you get back safely?” Just WhatsApp silence. I texted him, “Are you okay?” Nothing. I called. Voice mail. Texted again. No reply.

Then, finally, the man came online.

Not to say anything o. No reply. Instead, the guy had gone fully corporate. His WhatsApp was now a business account. His name changed. His picture changed. The vibes vanished. I didn’t know whether I was texting a human being or his new receptionist.

No breakup. No fight. Just silence. A very proud and intentional silence. That’s how everything ended.

I, the one who once texted “I miss you” a hundred times, became a ghost customer at his business line.

And you know the worst part? A small part of me still believed he’d explain. But days passed. Then weeks. Then it hit me - it was over.

No closure. No care. Just a new WhatsApp identity and the coldest fade-out.

Till today, I don’t know if it was him handling that phone or if he hired a personal assistant to ignore me.

But guess what?

That heartbreak? The whole ride from pregnancy to abortion to ghosting gave me tears, yes. But also a fine-tuned nonsense detector and a PhD in silent suffering.

Today, I can laugh. But back then? I cried as if my life depended on him alone. I cried in public and still told people "thank you" like nothing was going on with me.

Now I know better.

When he stopped being him, I started becoming me.

OLA Chukwu- writes ✍️✍️✍️

26/07/2025

EPISODE TWENTY-ONE

© OLA Chukwu- writes
ROOM 309
(Do not copy ❗❗❗)

What killed my mother was love or maybe duty. Maybe desperation. Or maybe it was the kind of silence that women carry so deeply in their chest it breaks them from the inside.

Mama wanted her to marry. She had been single for years after my father disappeared from our lives. For a long time, she focused only on me and grandma. But one day, Mama said something strange when I came home for holidays.

"Blessing," she said, her back to me, grinding pepper in the kitchen, "a woman is still a woman, even if she's a mother."

I didn’t understand her fully then, but I nodded like I did.

When she eventually agreed to marry the man Mama chose.
I thought maybe she was finally getting a break from pain. I hoped it would make her happy.

But she got pregnant barely three months after the wedding. And the labour came early rushed and breathless. It was a girl . But neither of them made it. Neither did she.

They said she screamed my name before her last breath.

Mama collapsed the minute she heard the news.

Her heart stopped before she hit the floor.

I buried them both in one week. No one in that village had seen that much sorrow wrapped in one small coffin and one large one. I didn’t cry much at first. I stared. I stayed up all night and watched the ceiling and forgot how to eat. It felt like the world had yanked my heart out and left me bleeding quietly in a corner.

That was during second semester of 200 level. I couldn’t pay my fees again. I couldn’t afford food, transport, or even data. I almost dropped out.

But I didn’t.

Because I made a vow the night after the funeral.

I said: “If my life is a story, let me write it well"

Four years later, today,
I’m graduating.

Standing in front of the mirror in my gown and cap, I looked at myself and didn’t recognize the girl from Room 309 anymore.

Gone was the shy fresher who got dragged into the stink of dead body water, who watched her roommates sleep with demons and money, who saw too much, who nearly broke.

In her place stood a woman.

A warrior.

During my final year, I shot a short movie just something for class. But it became everything.

It was titled "Under Her Skin".

It told the story of a quiet girl who was r***d by her best friend's brother, silenced by guilt, shamed by society, and yet found the strength to reclaim herself.

I wrote every word from the pain I never told anyone. From the night I bled and couldn’t scream.

When the movie dropped on YouTube, it went viral in a week. The views shot up like fire. Nollywood noticed. I got a message on Instagram. Then an offer. Then another.

Now, I act.
Now, I own land.
Now, I’ve invested in two small businesses—one back home, one here.
I don’t say these things to brag. I say them so that if anyone reading this has ever thought of giving up, they can believe again.

This morning, I received a message.

It was from Abike.

“Hey B. Just wanted to say I saw your film. I cried. I’m sorry for everything. I don’t know how we got so lost.”

I read it and held the phone for a long time.

What do you say to someone who once tried to sell your soul for their own gain?

I didn’t reply.
But I didn’t block her either.

Closure is not always in words. Sometimes, it’s in the silence you choose.

The graduation ground buzzed with laughter, camera clicks, flowers, and proud parents. Hauwa hugged me tight, crying into my shoulder.

"We did it, Blessing. We really did it."

Victor brought me a box of cupcakes with the words, “THEATRE QUEEN FOREVER.” He looked me in the eyes and said, “You changed my life, you know that?”

I smiled, blinking back tears. “I just survived. That’s all.”

“No,” he said firmly. “You became.”

I walked up the stage when my name was called:

“Blessing — B.A. Theatre and Film Studies. First Class Upper Division.”

Applause filled the air, but in my ears, I only heard Mama’s voice.

“You’re going to be something, Blessing. You’re going to rewrite this family’s story.”

I stepped down slowly, one foot at a time, tears rolling, smile shaking.

I wasn’t just graduating from school.

I was graduating from pain.
From Room 309.
From everything I buried inside and called “normal.”

Later that night, I visited the hostel again.

Just to see.

Room 309 was still there. Same wooden door. Same cracks. Same creaky handle. But something in the air had shifted.

A new girl sat outside the room, plaiting her hair in the dim light. She looked up and smiled.

I smiled back and whispered under my breath.

“Be strong. That room doesn’t like weakness.”

Then I walked away.
And I never looked back.

Some rooms break you. Others build you. But the strongest ones? They are the rooms you walk out of alive, wiser, and ready to rewrite everything.

This is my story.
This is my fire.
This is Room 309.

BYE
THE END

25/07/2025

EPISODE TWENTY

ROOM 309

Ola Chukwu
(Do not copy ❗❗❗)

There’s a strange silence that follows after you survive something that could have broken you.

It isn’t peace, not really. It’s more like your soul is catching its breath, tiptoeing around the pieces of your past, trying not to trip again.

That’s what the new Room 309 felt like. Hauwa’s room was quiet, warm, and painted in soft cream with floral curtains that danced slightly with the wind. The scent of jasmine oil hung in the air. Her prayer mat was neatly folded in a corner. Her space was tidy, everything where it belonged.

Unlike me.

I lay in bed after lectures that day, my journal beside me, eyes tracing the ceiling like it held answers. Hauwa had stepped out for group discussion. Victor had gone home after walking us to the hostel earlier. I was alone but not scared.

Just still.

I picked up my journal and began to write again.

Day One: New Room 309.
Still me, but not the same me. I’m carrying less rage today. Maybe healing is not a destination but a daily choice.

I paused, then looked at the window. The light was golden, soft, the kind of sunlight that makes you think everything might just be okay one day.

I tied my wrapper around my waist and stepped out to stretch my legs.

A few girls were gathered near the corridor, laughing in Hausa. They glanced at me curiously, then one of them waved.

I smiled shyly and waved back. “Ina wuni,” I tried. It came out crooked, but they laughed kindly.

“Lafiya lau,” one responded.

Back inside, I checked my bag and pulled out my phone. A message from Victor popped up:

“Hope you’re settling in. Let me know if you need anything.”

I didn’t reply yet. I didn’t know what I needed.

Later that evening, Hauwa returned from her group work, bringing along a small pack of suya and soft drinks.

“I brought your favorite,” she said, handing me the suya with a proud grin.

I blinked. “How did you know I like suya?”

She raised a brow. “You talk in your sleep, Blessing.”

I gasped. “Hauwa!”

She laughed, the kind of laugh that filled a room. We sat and ate together. The suya was spicy and warm. My tongue danced from the pepper, but I didn’t mind.

As we ate, I told her little things about my childhood ,how my mom sewed clothes for neighbors in a small verandah, how my dad left without any trace, how I started writing on my journals because I needed somewhere to put the pain.

She listened fully, like I was telling her something sacred.

Then she said something I never expected:
“The people who hurt us don’t own our stories. We do.”

I sat still with that.

I didn’t speak, but I wrote that sentence down later.

The next morning, school felt... ordinary again.

For the first time since that night, I didn’t panic when I heard a man laugh. I didn’t shrink away when someone touched my shoulder lightly. My breath didn’t catch in my throat when Victor walked close all because of what Anthony did.

Victor bought me Fanta and puff-puff during our free period.

We sat quietly on the bench behind Mass Comm Block. He didn’t say much. He just passed the bottle of Fanta to me, and we ate in silence.

Then he said, without looking at me, “I’ve seen people drown in their silence. Don’t be one of them.”

I glanced at him, trying to figure him out. He wasn’t trying to fix me. He just wanted me to stay alive. To stay real.

“I’m trying,” I said softly.

He nodded once. “That’s enough.”

Back at the lodge that evening, Hauwa played soft Hausa music from her speaker. A song by Ali Jita flowed through the room.

“Zuciyata ta buga... na rasa natsuwa…”
(My heart beats restlessly… I’ve lost my calm…)

We didn’t talk much. Just sat there : she scrolling through her phone, me writing quietly in my journal.

But peace doesn’t last long when you’re still learning to breathe.

The following evening, Hauwa walked in from the hallway, her face unreadable. She stood by the door and looked at me.

“Blessing,” she said.

I turned. “Hmm?”

“Where’s the ₦5,000 Victor gave me for the group printing?”

My chest tightened.

I swallowed hard. “I… I used it.”

She blinked.

“What?”

“I thought— I mean, I was going to tell you—”

“You used it?”

“I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten all day that time and, I meant to replace it.”

Her lips pressed into a straight line. She didn’t yell. That made it worse.

“You could’ve just asked me.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

She nodded slowly. “I trusted you.”

She placed her bag down gently, then walked past me and lay on her bed. She didn’t say another word.

Victor didn’t call that night either.

The silence of Room 309 felt heavier than it had when I first moved in.

This was a different kind of pain. Not from someone hurting me but from me hurting someone else.

That night, I wrote:

Sometimes healing shows you the ugly parts of yourself too.
The parts that take what’s not theirs. The parts that lie, even when they’re scared.
I’ve survived trauma. But now I have to survive my own mistakes.
This isn’t about being a victim anymore. This is about becoming a better human.

I closed my journal, placed it by the pillow, and rolled to my side.

Room 309 was quiet again.

But this time, I wasn’t sure I deserved the peace.

****

Hauwa’s new roommate had finally returned after a week away. Her name was Queeneth. And from the first moment she stepped in, I knew peace had packed its bags and fled.

She was tall, slim, and carried herself like she owned air. Her makeup was flawless , long lashes like butterfly wings, sharp brows, and lipstick as red as sin. She didn’t greet. Just rolled her eyes as she flung her tote bag ontop of the big bed and scanned me from head to toe like I was an uninvited stain.

“This your new friend, abi maid?” she asked Hauwa without blinking.

“She’s not a maid,” Hauwa replied calmly, but I could already see the tension burrowing into her soft voice.

That first night, Queeneth stayed out till past midnight. Her entrance was loud ,perfume thick as smoke, heels clacking, a deep male voice laughing behind her. She didn’t even pretend to be discreet. The door slammed. A guy stumbled in behind her. Then laughter. Then bed creaks. Then silence.

I turned to the wall and cried quietly. Hauwa lay stiff beside me. Neither of us said a word.

This was Room 309 again. A different one. But worse in a quieter, more sinister way.

Weeks passed, and chaos took root.

Queeneth started using our foodstuff without asking. My milk disappeared. Hauwa’s golden morn vanished. Our pot turned black from her burnt stew attempts, yet she never washed it. Boys trailed in and out, some smelling of w**d and desperation. One even tried to touch me in the kitchen. I slapped him. He hissed and called me "local virgin.”

I avoided the lodge as much as I could, but there was nowhere to run. School wasn’t any better.

I was now in 200 level. The courses were harder, the lecturers colder, and life heavier.

One Tuesday afternoon, after a long lecture on Development Communication, I sat under a mango tree near the School of Social Sciences. The tree’s shade wrapped around me like a hug. Students passed by, laughing, pressing phones, rushing for cold zobo and buns. I wasn’t part of them. I had my journal and silence.

Then my phone rang. It was Uncle Mike.

“Blessing,” his voice was heavy, thick like boiled yam. “You need to come home. Your mum? she didn’t make it.”

I stopped breathing.

“What?”

“She died while giving birth. She lost too much blood. Your grandma collapsed immediately. She died later that evening.”

My throat dried. My world went quiet. The mango leaves above swayed lazily. The bell from a nearby class rang. Someone hawked groundnuts in the distance.

But I couldn’t hear any of it. I dropped the phone. It fell on the grass.

Hauwa found me hours later, still sitting there, knees to my chest, eyes wide and dry. The tears came later. They didn’t stop.

The burial happened fast. People cried. Wailed. Talked. But it was all background noise. I stood there like a forgotten statue. My mother's coffin was white with tiny pink flowers. My grandma’s was brown, older, with a carved cross.

Just like that, both were gone.

Back in school, reality slapped me with full palms.

No one to send me money.

No one to pay my fees.

I started skipping meals. I fetched water for girls in the lodge for ₦500. I helped with assignments, typed long projects for lazy final-year students for ₦5000.

The once bright Blessing, first-year girl with innocent eyes and dreams, was now a shadow with chapped lips and hunger buried deep in her bones.

One rainy night, Queeneth returned drunk. She tripped over Hauwa’s prayer mat and cursed. Hauwa warned her gently.

“I just dey tolerate you,” Queeneth barked. “All this hijab no mean say you holy pass. I know your type!”

That was the last straw. Hauwa stood up, calm but firm.

“You have no respect. And now you’ve insulted not just me, but my faith. I’ll report you to the caretaker.”

Queeneth laughed. “Go and report na. Nonsense girl.”

The next morning, she poured water on our bed. I found Hauwa crying silently, trying to dry it up.

I snapped.

I went to the caretaker, explained everything. He said, “You girls should learn to manage yourselves. I can’t keep moving people.”

I knew I was tired of running.

Weeks later, I went to my old hostel. Curiosity drew me up the stairs. I stood before the original Room 309.

The door was half open. Inside, the room was different ,new girls, new screams, different perfume.

I walked in quietly. Sandra was still there. She turned and gasped.

“Blessing?”

“Hi,” I said. My voice broke.

She looked tired. Older. Her eyes flickered with something I couldn’t name.

“I heard what happened to your mum… I’m really sorry,” she whispered.

I nodded.

“I heard Anita packed in here"

Sandra shook her head. “No. She was arrested last month. Something about ritual money. Police came."

Silence hung between us.

“I just wanted to see you guys " I said

" Yes, Abike was released. She's found innocent because it was later discovered that Dorcas was actually used for ritual by that man she slept with. Dorcas died anyway and the man was arrested " Sandra narrated

"Hmmm!" I sighed

“You look different,” she said. “Quieter. Stronger.”

“I am,” I whispered.

Then I turned and left. I didn’t look back.

One evening, Hauwa brought home a surprise.

“I found you a job,” she said, smiling gently.

“A job?”

“Yes. As a library assistant. It’s part-time. Small pay, but… steady.”

Tears welled in my eyes. I hugged her.

The next day, I started work at the campus library.

I arranged books, cleaned shelves, and read during breaks. The silence there was healing. Rows of knowledge. A place where I didn’t feel poor, or broken, or haunted. I was just Blessing. A girl rebuilding herself, book by book.

That night, as I sat by the window of our room, watching the moonlight dance on rooftops, I wrote in my journal:

"Life has given me too many losses. But I’m still here. Breathing. And noting down everything.

They took my innocence. Death took my mother. Poverty took my comfort.

But I refuse to let them take my soul.

I am Blessing.

And this is not the end.”

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~ follow OLA Chukwu- writes for more

OLA Chukwu- writes

31/07/2025

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