"Guy na, stand up!"
This was the second time now that the same person had bugged me. I thought,
"can't you see I'm having my late afternoon beauty sleep?"
I couldn't quite make out who it was that would want to disrupt my favorite time of the day. Here I was in dream-land where I won't have to worry about assignments and tests, living the best life, drooling over my arm. Of course, no nap is complete without the drool. Now, I was half awake and I was angry. With my head on the desk which sat the center of the classroom, my whole lifeform was teleported back from dream-land to dread-land. Yup. It was the sound of teenagers at school, doing what they do best, being loud. Only the SS3's were in school. We were just in the middle of our exams so we had to come to school everyday that holiday to learn and write exams.
I flipped my head to face the other way. Maybe the pesky mosquito would scurry off this time. It was time to get comfortable once more. Whoever that person was, "he sure doesn't know just how difficult it is to get into the right drool position," I thought.
"Tch." I hissed.
"Guy, Obinna wake up jaree!"
This time it felt like an earthquake. Ah, I could recognize the voice now. Literally nobody in the whole classroom had such a bass voice. It was my trusty sidekick... oops, I mean best friend, Adeolu. Of course the voice might have not been enough to convince me that it was him, but once he began to continuously tap me on the shoulder, I just knew that it had to be him. Adeolu's palms were like none other. I had always told him that I'd preferred to slap a wall so hard than to give him a handshake because his palms were so tough. Yup, these palms that repeatedly tapped me were definitely his and I most definitely couldn't bear the pain on my shoulders from the continuous tapping any longer.
"This guy has been tapping me for two minutes now," I thought.
Yup, classic Adeolu. He never gives up on anything, especially inflicting pain on me. It's always been that way since we were kids.
"What is it now?" I replied and raised my head up immediately. I looked down at my drool and wiped it off, though unhappy that I didn't drool enough. I wiped my mouth, looked at him and gave a long yawn. Then, I asked him with so much drowsiness,
"Guy, wetin happen?"
"School is over na."
I took a look at my digital watch. These watches were the best for students. A timepiece, stopwatch and an alarm clock, all in one. Of course the rather cooler kids wore gold watches but that didn't really bother me. In fact, Adeolu was one of these 'cool' kids. No, his watch wasn't working, but it was gold, more like an ornament.
"Woah! This is 2:45 already."
"Yes na. You've been sleeping since 1 o'clock. You never tire to dey sleep?"
"Biology teacher didn't come for her class?"
"Nope. They said she was not feeling fine."
"Tch," I hissed again. That was how rumors spread round the school. An unknown person who apparently goes by the name 'They' would say one thing. Next thing, everybody is saying it and nobody ever knows who Mr. They is. I looked at Adeolu. For some mysterious reason, he beamed at me as though I had given him some very good news. I could see he was excited by something.
"What?"
"Guy, don't you remember..."
"Hey guys!" A voice that we could instantly recognize came from behind us. Two palms hit Adeolu and I on our shoulders at the same time.
"Ow!"
It was Chidinma, our fair, slim childhood friend. Come to think of it, I think was the only person that didn't have super human palms. They were as soft as pillows. I would say that while Adeolu's palms could break bones, Chidinma's palms could bruise the skin. She brought a chair from behind her closer to the both of us and sat smiling for a few seconds. That was just who she was. Chidinma was the smart popular one who surprisingly never studied but always came out on top in class. She even joined boys at times to play football. Of course, she was very good. She had been playing with Adeolu and I since the second grade. No, she was not boy-ish. She was still as girly as any other girl could be but with touch of fun.
"So what are you boys up to this time? Hope we'll still be going to the game house today."
"Ohh, that's right! The game house," I exclaimed.
"That's what I've been trying to tell you since, guy," Adeolu added while yet again, hitting me on my shoulder.
We had planned the day before with our parents that the three of us would be returning back home a little late. We decided to go to Tiffany Gaming Co that afternoon to go play some video games.
"And this time, Chidinma, get ready for some serious defeat."
"Please, spare me the lecture. You'll make everyone in class laugh at you right now."
Ah, yes. Adeolu and Chidinma had a FIFA rivalry for so long. Chidinma used to have a console at her home where we would stay and play FIFA all day before it got faulty the month before. Adeolu had a hard time winning Chidinma. Come to think of it, we both never won Chidinma at FIFA. She was a master. I was cool with it but Adeolu never gave up even up till then, three whole years of losing to her since the console was bought.
"Well boys, school is already over. Let's get going before it gets late. You know that..."
Kpaaa! Kpaaa! Kpaaa!
It happened so fast. Everyone in the class got down on the floor closing their ears. People began to run out of the class. We were all in panic. We knew what we had heard. Three gunshots! They sounded so close to us as though the gunshots were fired in our school compound. What was happening? I had never felt like this before? My whole body was literally vibrating. Chidinma was flat on the floor too with Adeolu and I. She was already crying. We could hear some men shouting outside;
"Hey! Hey! Make una no move. Make una no move or we go scatter una now!"
Then came some more gunshots.
Kpaaa! Kpaaa! Kpaaa! Kpaaa! Kpaaa!
Adeolu grabbed the both of our arms and stood us up so we could find somewhere to hide. We got up and instinctively began to run towards the football field in our school so we could jump over the fence and escape. Adeolu was very shaky as we ran. Every student instinctively ran towards the field. I hadn't seen Tough Adeolu shake with fear before. There was noise everywhere as we could hear men shouting within the school compound. As we ran towards the old football field, thousands of thoughts coursed through my mind; "what's happening?" "who did they shoot?" "The gunshot sounds came from the gate." "Are our security personnels still alive?" "Who else got shot?" "We're all going to die!"
We all got to the field. The sight of students struggling with each other to jump over the fence was horrible. Some girls sat on the field grass and just wept because they couldn't climb the high rugged fence. My classmates that managed to climb over the fence were the first to get captured. Terrorists had surrounded our school fence! It was a nightmare. We could just hear from over the fence, "hey! no run oh! we go shoot una! we go shoot una!"
Before we could say Jack Robinson, we could hear from behind us;
"Hey hey! Everybody there lie down. Lie down sharp sharp!"
We couldn't even turn our backs to see who these people were. Everybody in the field fell flat to the ground immediately. There were no two ways about it. The weeping that filled the field was just damning. I felt like I would get a heart attack and die. At that moment, I would have preferred to die that way. I didn't want to get shot. I didn't want to get kidnapped. Chidinma cried right beside me. I hadn't heard her cry since primary school. Everybody was faced down. All we could hear was one particular voice telling us, "If I see any of your eyes open, I'll blast off your brains!" Before two minutes passed, we heard the sound of vehicles coming into the school field.
"Oya, everybody get up now!"
As we got up, what we saw escalated our fears to a maximum. There were terrorists everywhere. All of them wore black. Just at a mere glance, they couldn't have been less than fifty. They all covered their faces with bandanas and hats. Some of them tied pieces of cloths round their faces leaving just their eyes exposed. I hadn't seen so much guns before. They all held guns of different kinds and wrapped bullets across their upper bodies. To accompany all of that, they carried grenades round their waists. I thought, "what! What do they want to do with us?" There were also three black vans right in front of us. My guesses were that the other of my classmates that managed to jump over the fence were already in the van. We were all so scared.
"Make all of una enter bus sharp sharp!"
The man who spoke motioned to us with with his hands to get into the van. My guesses were that he was their leader. He stood so huge; he was in fact one of the tallest of them all. His face was also covered like the rest of them.
"Don't waste my time oh. I'll shoot somebody here," he said while cocking his gun, 'krack-krack.'
At that, the forty two of us ran into the vans and they zoomed off. I sat with Adeolu and Chidinma near the door of one of the vans. As we approached the gate of the school compound, we met a gruesome sight. Three of our security personnels laid dead on the ground with gunshot wounds on their heads and chests. Their brain matter was smeared everywhere on the pathway and their bodies laid in pools of blood. That was my first of seeing anything like it.
We left the school compound and took to the main streets. The men who were driving took of their disguises to avoid suspicions. We were told not to make even a single sound or else, we would all perish. Our school was in a rather secluded place so I wasn't surprised how these heartless men came in unnoticed. I just kept on praying in my mind that some people heard the gunshots. I was sure that some people should've. They were so loud. I didn't see any of our teachers dead in the compound. Some of them were having a meeting in the staff room at the time of the kidnappers' arrival. I'm sure they locked themselves in the store room immediately they heard the gunshots. It should've been big enough for them to fit in. They were just nine teachers and the principal who were around. "They should've called the police by now," I thought. Then I remembered, "this is Nigeria. How long will it take before the police get to our school"
The van I sat in with Adeolu and Chidinma was the last van in the convoy of three. I was still in the middle of my thoughts before Adeolu who had been shivering beside me entered into fight or flight mode. Being a tough teenager, he punched one of the men sitting near the van door and immediately opened it while the van was still moving. He fell off the van to the road and began to run away.
"Shoot am! Shoot am!" That was what someone said from behind the van.
The man that was punched dropped out of the van that had already made a halt. The next sounds I heard forever haunted me. The sounds of five gunshots, people in panic, running around shouting and Adeolu screaming still rests in my head till this day. The man got into the van and we continued to move, even faster. We all looked through the back windshield in panic to see what had happened. There laid my best friend on the road, dead. I just couldn't believe my eyes. I thought to myself,
"This is only meant to happen in movies, right?"
HEY THERE, THANKS FOR READING馃槉. THIS IS THE FIRST CHAPTER OF MY NEW FICTIONAL STORY, THREE DREAD YEARS. IT'S A NIGERIAN SETTING AND CONTAINS SOME PIDGIN ENGLISH BECAUSE I PLANNED IT TO BE HIVE-NAIJA EXCLUSIVE. HOPE YOU ENJOYED IT? DO LEAVE A COMMENT WOULD YA馃檪鉂わ笍?
all images were edited on GoDaddy Studio and Canva
