When Amina awoke, everything was darkness.
Her head throbbed, her wrists ached, and her mouth was dry as the Harmattan wind. The air smelled of sweat, dust, and smoke. She blinked slowly, trying to remember.
The school. The screams. Emmanuel's voice.
Then: hands pulling her, rough voices shouting in a language she barely understood, the smell of diesel, and the slam of a metal door.
Now, she was lying on a mat of dried leaves inside what looked like a large canvas tent. Around her, soft sobs floated in the dark. She wasn't alone. Other girls were here. The moonlight trickled through small holes in the fabric above, and the sound of crickets mingled with muffled prayers.
Amina tried to sit up, but her legs were weak. Her hijab was gone, and her school bag, too. She touched her neck instinctively, missing the worn silver necklace with her mother's pendant.
Footsteps outside. A shadow passed by the tent entrance. She flinched.
"Stay still," whispered a voice beside her.
She turned. A girl, slightly older, her hair tied with a torn strip of cloth, reached out. Her eyes were dark and hollow. "They don't like noise. Pretend to be asleep. Always."
"Where are we?" Amina's voice was hoarse.
"The forest," the girl said. "Somewhere near the border, maybe. They keep moving us."
Amina's heart pounded. The girl leaned closer.
"My name's Falmata. From Gwoza. I've been here four weeks. Maybe more. You?"
"Bauchi. I... we were in school. Then they came. I..."
Her throat closed. Tears stung her eyes.
Falmata squeezed her hand. "Don't let them see you cry. They like it when you're afraid."
---
The days blurred. They were fed once a day—a scoop of rice, sometimes cassava, and water in rusted tins. Armed men watched them constantly. The girls were forced to memorize verses, chant slogans. Some were taken. Some never returned.
Amina kept her head down.
She prayed in silence, whispered verses from the Quran, and remembered her father's voice: Courage is not the absence of fear, but acting despite it.
Each night, she dreamed of Emmanuel. Of the neem tree. Of the way his eyes held hers when the world was kind.
---
Two weeks passed—or three, she wasn't sure. Then came the worst night.
Rain hammered the forest. Thunder rolled like artillery. The captors were angry, shouting, moving fast. A truck had been lost. Soldiers nearby. Maybe a raid.
They gathered the girls in the mud. Amina held Falmata's hand. The leader—a tall man with cruel eyes called Malam Bakura—paced before them.
"If they come, we leave no one behind," he barked. "You will walk. Or you will die."
They marched. For hours. Through thorns, across rivers. One girl collapsed. Amina tried to help her, but a guard raised his rifle.
"No stopping."
Amina bit her lip until it bled.
---
Finally, they reached another camp. Smaller. Tents. Smoke. Boys with rifles. A compound of mud and corrugated iron. But less guarded.
That night, Falmata whispered, "We can escape. Just one night. One storm."
Amina nodded. She had made up her mind. She would not rot here.
---
Then came the chance.
It was a Sunday night. Rain again. The guards were distracted—drinking, shouting at the radio. Some had gone for patrol.
Falmata signaled. Two others followed.
They slipped beneath the torn edge of the tent, crawled through brush, hearts pounding. Amina's knees bled from stones. But she didn't stop.
Then: a shout.
"HEY!"
Gunfire cracked. They ran.
Branches tore at her arms. One girl fell. Falmata screamed. Amina grabbed her arm, pulled. They ran again.
A cliff. Water below.
"Jump," Falmata said, breathing hard.
"What?"
"Jump or die."
Amina looked back. Flashlights. Dogs barking.
She jumped.
The world turned to water and silence.
---
When she came to, it was morning. Falmata was beside her, coughing.
They had survived. Somehow. Wet, shivering, hungry, but alive.
Amina laughed—a strange, cracked sound.
She whispered, "I will find you, Emmanuel. I will find my way back."
In the distance, she saw the outline of a village.
And hope, fragile and flickering, returned.
But the road to freedom was not paved with miracles.
As Amina and Falmata neared the edge of the abandoned village, drenched and exhausted, hope flickered for a moment. They had walked for hours—barefoot, silent, hearts pounding with each step away from their captors. Rain lashed the cracked earth beneath them, and their clothes clung to their skin like second flesh.
Then voices. Sharp. Male. Armed.
From behind a rusting truck and crumbling cement walls, figures emerged. These weren't villagers or soldiers. The way they moved—methodical, trained—told Amina everything. These were not mere bandits.
A man raised a weapon. "Get down!"
Falmata raised her hands slowly. "Please, we escaped—we're not—"
Before she could finish, the butt of a rifle struck her jaw with a sickening crunch. She crumpled to the ground, a cry of pain choking from her lips.
Amina screamed. "Stop! She's hurt!"
Another man silenced her with a backhand across her face. She tasted blood.
"Silence!" barked the one with the cruel eyes, younger than the others but already hardened. "You think you can leave and just walk away?"
There was something different about them—their uniforms were coordinated, boots newer, weapons better maintained. The black flag they carried was marked not with the crude insignia of their previous captors, but with a strange emblem and Arabic script.
"ISWAP," the young man declared. "You're lucky we found you before the army did."
They didn't feel lucky. They were seized, blindfolded, hands bound, and thrown into the back of a waiting Hilux truck. Falmata moaned softly, her face swollen. Amina held her hand in the darkness, whispering her name, even as the vehicle bounced violently over the rugged terrain.
They drove for hours.
---
The ISWAP camp was nestled deep in the brushland, far from any town or outpost. Unlike the chaos of the previous camp, here there was order—and an eerie silence. Discipline was enforced with militant precision. The compound was surrounded by trenches and barbed wire. Armed patrols moved like clockwork, and the men spoke in clipped, rehearsed tones. These weren't thugs. They were soldiers.
On arrival, Amina and Falmata were separated. She never saw Falmata again.
Amina was led to a tent with six other girls, some no older than twelve. There, a woman with a stern face and hollow eyes examined them, not like a nurse, but like a trader inspecting goods. One by one, the girls were stripped of their identities. Their hair was shaved. Names were replaced with numbers. Amina was now "Subject 37."
They were dressed in identical gray robes and ordered to kneel before a television playing jihadist propaganda. Lectures followed—hour after hour—preaching martyrdom, loyalty, and submission. They were told that to die for the cause was an honor. That the West was corrupt, and their old lives were shameful. That their families had abandoned them. That they were now wives of the caliphate.
The choices were clear: marry a commander, serve in the kitchens, or be punished. Amina said nothing. She looked down, bowed her head, and obeyed.
But inside, she was far from broken.
She remembered the day her school was attacked. The sound of gunfire. Emmanuel's voice calling out. The crack of the rifle against his head. His eyes—wide with pain and helplessness. And then darkness. Everything that had come since had been a nightmare wrapped in more nightmares.
But nightmares had an end.
She bided her time.
She learned the layout of the camp. The number of guards. The times they prayed. The ones who slept too deeply or drank fermented milk after dark. She memorized where the food was stored, the path from the girl's barracks to the vehicle shed. She even marked the moon's phases, timing her thoughts with the passage of light.
She befriended another girl—Hassana, a wiry, sharp-eyed teen with a voice like wind rustling through dry leaves. Hassana had been captured twice. The first time, she'd been rescued by the army. The second, she was caught while fetching water for her family. She didn't speak much, but when she did, it mattered.
"There's a raid coming," Hassana whispered one night as they scrubbed cooking pots beneath a flickering lantern. "I heard the guards talking. The army knows where we are. They're waiting for the right time."
Amina didn't look up. "When?"
"Within days. Maybe sooner. But they're ready. So are the men here. If a raid comes, there will be chaos."
Amina scrubbed harder. "And chaos means a chance."
Hassana glanced at her, eyes glinting. "If you're brave enough to take it."
Amina said nothing. But her jaw tightened.
That night, she lay awake under the mosquito netting, listening to the snores and whispers of the other girls. The air was thick with fear and heat, but she wasn't afraid anymore. She had reached the place beyond fear.
Her body bore the marks of captivity—scars, bruises, hunger—but her spirit had sharpened. Like iron through fire. She had knelt and pretended. Had obeyed. Had swallowed her rage. And now, she waited, every nerve tuned for a crack in the order, a fracture in the silence.
Every time a soldier walked by with his boots thudding on the packed earth, she listened. Every time a distant rumble echoed from the mountains, she wondered—was this it? Had Emmanuel made it through? Was he still out there, fighting?
Her thoughts were full of him. Not the boy from under the neem tree, not even the boy who'd knelt in prayer before school. No. She imagined him now as something else—scarred, battle-worn, fierce. She imagined him tearing through the camp gates, rifle raised, calling her name.
But she wasn't waiting for rescue. Not entirely.
She was readying herself.
Amina had already survived what many never would. She had endured horror after horror. Now she stood on the edge of something else—not quite freedom, but the glimpse of it.
And she was ready.
Not for martyrdom. Not for surrender.
For escape.
For vengeance.
For home.