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Running From My Prison Cell
#WritcoStoryChallenge
The footsteps following me sounded closer. I ran through the empty corridors of the hospital, my heart pounding with terror.
I turned a corner and stopped short. I had reached a dead end.
Breathing in heavily, I tried desperately to suck in enough breath to keep my lungs working, and keep the throbbing in my head at bar. I needed to figure a way out. out of this predicament. or else my life was over even before it started.
I was just 23, and still had my life ahead of me, but the footsteps getting closer, and closer with every minute, might just be the end of me. I Strained my eyes, and immediately stood as still as possible, when I heard my uncle's voice just by the corner. A third party looking at me would probably think I was a statue, because my white alabaster skin , had in the past two weeks lost all it's color. And taken up a dreadful white hue, as if I were made of white clay. I had lost so much weight, so much that my frame now looked tonned as if I worked out. My hair had lost it shine, and became bristle, And my eyes had lost all the life and will power to live.
Frankly I had even been surprised when my legs had broke out into a run, on getting to the hospital ward. I did not know I had that much power in me. I thought I had lost all my resolve when my uncle had locked me up in my room for 2weeks, so I wouldn't try to do something funny. How wouldn't I, they were planning to sell my kid sister into slavery, under the guise of a marriage. They were trying to marry Fati off to a man was twice her age. Just because he was rich and could afford to shower my Uncles and relatives with money. They did not care that Fati was just 14. No! they did not care that she was just a child, All they cared about was the wealth Alhaji will bring to my family through this Union.
When I had cried and protested that Fati, my only sibling was too young to be married off to anybody. Uncle had jeered at me, and told me the age of consent in the state was 13, hence Fati at 14 was old enough to me married off. Then he had accused me of jealousy. "you are just angry because you are the older sister and no one is asking for your hand in marriage" he had jeered. " you watch and see, with this attitude you will die a old hag" he had taunted. Before discarding my concern as if I were a piece of trash. " Father would not want this," I had cried in desperation. "Father wanted us to go to school and achieve something with our lives " I had wailed in hopes of detering him, of changing this looming doom threatening to envelope my dear sister.
But my uncle's retort had spun my world off it's axis into a spiral of doom that had only gotten worse with each passing day.
"Father"! he had boomed back at me a smirk on his face. "father" he had laughed. "you call that vegetable laying in the hospital father?" he had asked with sacarsm and anger? "that man who is already dead?" he had thundered, looming over me like a panda. "call him corpse Maryam!" he had ordered , ignoring my gasp of shock and bewilderment. "corpse! thats what he is", he had jeered. "Someone who is in a coma of...
The footsteps following me sounded closer. I ran through the empty corridors of the hospital, my heart pounding with terror.
I turned a corner and stopped short. I had reached a dead end.
Breathing in heavily, I tried desperately to suck in enough breath to keep my lungs working, and keep the throbbing in my head at bar. I needed to figure a way out. out of this predicament. or else my life was over even before it started.
I was just 23, and still had my life ahead of me, but the footsteps getting closer, and closer with every minute, might just be the end of me. I Strained my eyes, and immediately stood as still as possible, when I heard my uncle's voice just by the corner. A third party looking at me would probably think I was a statue, because my white alabaster skin , had in the past two weeks lost all it's color. And taken up a dreadful white hue, as if I were made of white clay. I had lost so much weight, so much that my frame now looked tonned as if I worked out. My hair had lost it shine, and became bristle, And my eyes had lost all the life and will power to live.
Frankly I had even been surprised when my legs had broke out into a run, on getting to the hospital ward. I did not know I had that much power in me. I thought I had lost all my resolve when my uncle had locked me up in my room for 2weeks, so I wouldn't try to do something funny. How wouldn't I, they were planning to sell my kid sister into slavery, under the guise of a marriage. They were trying to marry Fati off to a man was twice her age. Just because he was rich and could afford to shower my Uncles and relatives with money. They did not care that Fati was just 14. No! they did not care that she was just a child, All they cared about was the wealth Alhaji will bring to my family through this Union.
When I had cried and protested that Fati, my only sibling was too young to be married off to anybody. Uncle had jeered at me, and told me the age of consent in the state was 13, hence Fati at 14 was old enough to me married off. Then he had accused me of jealousy. "you are just angry because you are the older sister and no one is asking for your hand in marriage" he had jeered. " you watch and see, with this attitude you will die a old hag" he had taunted. Before discarding my concern as if I were a piece of trash. " Father would not want this," I had cried in desperation. "Father wanted us to go to school and achieve something with our lives " I had wailed in hopes of detering him, of changing this looming doom threatening to envelope my dear sister.
But my uncle's retort had spun my world off it's axis into a spiral of doom that had only gotten worse with each passing day.
"Father"! he had boomed back at me a smirk on his face. "father" he had laughed. "you call that vegetable laying in the hospital father?" he had asked with sacarsm and anger? "that man who is already dead?" he had thundered, looming over me like a panda. "call him corpse Maryam!" he had ordered , ignoring my gasp of shock and bewilderment. "corpse! thats what he is", he had jeered. "Someone who is in a coma of...
