CHAPTER 1

This book is going to be written from a third person POV.

*********

Lagos, Nigeria.

2012.

Maliya stared through the windows at the endless trees, she could feel the burning gaze of her parents as they occasionally glanced back at her.

She should feel happy that she was leaving, but she didn't consider Lagos her home.

In her opinion, she had no home anymore.

She would not cry.

Calmed by the soothing words of her favourite song, Maliya lay her head on the cool glass and exhaled deeply.

She glided the pad of her left thumb across the scar that ran across the inside of her right palm.

This was her life.

Transported like an animal in the car, she ached to be free. She wanted to scream to her parents to let her out, but alas, she had become a master at bottling up pain.

She subtly began to scratch at the mark, she didn't want her parents to see what they had done to her.

What they had exposed her to.

How much they had ruined her

And in that state of desolation, she welcomed her best friend, even if she knew it would bring back her nightmares.

She craved it.

Her bestfriend, the darkness.

*******

Mrs Jamil watched her daughter as she slept, hot tears filled her eyes as she watched her once bubbly daughter drown in despondency.

Her husband's calloused hands found hers, as sobs wracked through her body.

She, and her husband had made a grave mistake, one that couldn't easily be amended.

Sobs rose once again in her throat, but she swallowed them down.

She had almost lost her daughter.

She fisted the fabric of her scarf, using it to muffle her cries, not wanting to wake her daughter up.

If all her mother had said was true, this was the first time their daughter had slept in the span of a week.

Her crying seized when she began hearing whimpers, she looked back to find her daughter murmuring things in her sleep.

Shaking the girl awake, she cleaned the sweat on her face with her scarf.

Maliya, now awake, stayed that way through the rest of the journey.

Three hours later, she sighted the familiar gate that led to the place she once called home.

"Captain Jamil" she heard her father say to the naval personnel, who slung a long fire arm— probably a rifle— around his neck.

The man then signalled another personnel to open the gate, after greeting her father with a crisp salute.

The car rode smoothly as she once again stared out the window, eyes lingering on the newly erected buildings.

The barrack had changed so much.

Maliya looked forward as the car glided across the smoothly paved road, much different from the bumpy one she was formerly accustomed to.

"I'm sure your grandmother had told you we were moving" she heard her father's gruff voice say.

"Yes sir" she responded in a whisper-like voice, that was the first conversation they had made since they boarded the car over eight hours ago.

The car pulled into an unfamiliar street, and her father parked in the driveway of a two storey building.

There were six flats including the two ground floor houses.

She alighted the car, and trailed after her parents as they opened a door, revealing a stairway.

The sound of the trolley's tyres was deafening, but she didn't care. She carried the trolley in her arms as she climbed the stairs.

Her father rang the ball, as a familiar face emerged from behind the curtain.

The door opened as she entered the house, frozen still as her older brother hugged her.

"Maliya" he muttered as she patted his sister's scarf clad head, but Maliya wouldn't wrap her hands around him,

....she couldn't.

Distinctly, Maliya could hear her mother's muffled sobs, but she just didn't care to comfort the woman.

"Zaharadeen, allow your sister to freshen up, and then we can talk when the rest are back"  Maliya stiffened at the word talk but nevertheless, followed her brother as he escorted her to her room, obeying his father's words.

She forced an akward smile at her brother, Zaharadeen who had tears in his eyes.

Zahar usually could see through his sister, but the haunted look in her features had blanketed her once expressive eyes, now leaving hollow empty orbs.

He smiled at her, and watched as she observed the room.

She had taken almost all her books while she was going, and they had given away all her clothes, knowing they wouldn't fit her anymore.

Zaharadeen retreated to his room, hoping his sister would return to her former self.

Maliya unpacked her bag folding the clothes into her wardrobe. She looked around the empty room.

There was a new queen-sized bed with a dark brown frame, on it were two new pillows, and beside it were two book shelves made of the same wood.

Opposite the bed, attached to the wall was an air conditioner, and beneath that was it's remote, atop the holder.

A tv set was adjacent to that wall as well as a decoder, and a little to its left was another door with a switch by its side.

Opening the door, she walked forward to the sink and checked if the taps were working.

The bathroom was spacious enough, and unused.

After some scouring, she found some toiletries in a shelf above the sink, and freed them from their plastic encasements.

Dust had accumulated around the furniture, and some cobwebs had accumulated in the corners.

Repulsed, she looked around for a broom and got to work.

*******

An hour later, Maliya had swept and mopped every inch of both rooms, polished the furniture, laid the bed, fixed the curtains, and unpacked all her things.

The once empty book shelf, now filled with more books than she had left with looked more appealing.

Sighing heavily in exhaustion, Maliya padded over to the bathroom and  proceeded to wash away the filth from her body.

She welcomed the warm shower water as pelted steadily against her skin, removing the filth of her body.

Once done, she performed her ablution, cleaning her tainted soul.

*****

Zaharadeen hesitated, he wanted to knock on his sister's door, to beg her to talk to him, he craved the melody of her laughter, and the comfort she brought him.

"Liya?" He called out to her, pressing his ears to her door, waiting for something.

Anything.

He stepped back as he heard her lock click, followed by the opening of the door.

Maliya looked at her older brother questioningly.

"Aren't you going to eat?" He asked the impassive young girl who stood in front of him.

She was donned in a black gown, and had her wet hair fall in waves down her neck and rest upon her shoulders.

"I'll be there" was the only reply he got before his sister retreated back into the room.

What had they done to her? He mused, head hung low.

*****

Maliya walked languidly to the dining room, seating on the only empty chair at the dining table, to Zaharadeen's right.

She met the eyes of her two other older brothers who weren't home when she came back.

"Assalamu alaikum"(Peace be upon you) she said to them, the feeling of betrayal gnawing at her insides.

She didn't want to be with any of them.

... they had caused her too much suffering.

Captain Jamil watched his family eat in uncomfortable silence, knowing the silence wouldn't last for long after the talk they all were going to have.

He gazed upon his daughter, the feeling of guilt wrapping around his insides like a coiling snake.

His plate dropped onto the table with a soft clang, his appetite long forgotten.

The remembrance of the call that had caused Maliya's return hit him with guilt and anger.

He had been sitting in the sitting room that morning, with his wife in the kitchen, his three sons resting away tiredness from their journey home the previous day.

His wife finished preparing lunch and called for her sons, while setting the dining table.

Zaharadeen was woken up by his mother's yelling, and when he was dully awoken, he woke up his older brothers.

Mr Jamil watched his groggy eyed boys drag their legs to the dining table, one after the other.

Not too long after he dipped his morsel of tuwo in the mouth-watering vegetable soup, his phone had begun ringing, displaying his mother-in-law's name.

With his hands inside his bowl of tuwo, he used his elbow to pick the call

Mrs Jamil sensing her husband's distress had turned on the loud speaker.

"Assalamu alaikum, mummy" she said, just as her sons chorused their greetings.

"Mali..Maliya" the woman uttered before crying into the phone.

By now every one had stopped eating, urging the aged woman to talk, and Mr Jamil grabbed the phone.

"Maliya tried to commit suicide"

Immediately his mother-in-law's choked-out words registered, Captain Jamil's world started to spin, sight flickering as he saw his children moving towards their mother.

He collapsed onto his chair.

In a barely audible voice he muttered into the phone "I'll be there".

*

The presence of Maliya's hand as she picked up the tray of food snapped him out of his reminiscence.

When everyone was done eating, they all gathered in the living room, with Zaharadeen on the couch next to his seemingly dauntless sister.

Maliya sat down, discreetly trying to shift away from her brother who didn't seem to get the hint that she didn't want him around.

He had been her favourite in the house, her immediate older brother.

She was his Liya, and he was her Zahar.

He was who she considered her protector, her guide.

A frown set on Maliya's face as she remembered how he betrayed her trust, how easily he had replaced her.

Mr Jamil looked at Maliya squarely, and the next question he asked, sent her spiralling down the stairway of despair.

"Why did you do it?"

The despondency gnawed at her heart, but she stood strong, holding her ground.

She would not waver, she was strong.

In a firm, clear voice, her eyes travelled the expanse of the room, looking each and every one of them in the eyes, her orbs blazing fiercely.

Maliya didn't answer, instead she fixed her gaze on each and every member of what was meant to be her family with hatred blazing in her eyes, and a heavy heart.

Zaharadeen watched as his sister stared at his twin brothers, flinching when her gaze met him.

"You dragged me to that school when I said i didn't want to go" she looked towards direction of her parents.

She directed an anguish-filled smile at Zaharadeen "You supported my eviction, favouring someone else over the sister you promised to protect".

She looked towards her older brothers, their identical eyes cast on the ground. "Both of you attend a college less than an hour away from my school, and for three years, you didn't see it fit to visit your sister, I was that worthless to you".

She closed her eyes shut tightly, and in a broken voice whispered.

"I feel very guilty for trying to take my life and I can only hope God forgives me" Maliya said, her voice cracking.

This was draining her strength.

"You all don't understand me. Figures  right? What did you say to me that day?" Maliya walked towards her sobbing mother, who clutched her father's hand tightly.

'I'll send you to your grandmother's so you can learn how sane children behave?'

" That's what you said to me. A mother called her own child insane" she breathed, anger gnawing at her insides, rattling the demons she'd fought so hard to suppress.

"You sent me to be disciplined, and you've achieved your goal and more" she smiled wryly.

"Congratulations, you all have ruined me" and with that said she walked into her room, finding solace in her books, where she could relate to the protagonist's struggles and pretend her life was like every other fifteen-year-old's.

The distinct sound of her mother's sobs outside the room lulled her to sleep, and in a twisted way, she was happy to hear her cry.

At least, she wasn't left to her pain that night, she enjoyed knowing someone felt a fraction of the pain she kept bottled up for the most part of three years

***

How was the first chapter?