Broken ✔

Chapter Three

Song: KiDi - Odo (😍)

**Unedited** (Because tomatoes are red)

"Are you done Elorm? You must scrub the bathroom before you eat," Dada told me just as I was about to sit down to my meal of gari and groundnut soup after thoroughly cleaning all the louvre blades in the house.
The family had eaten hours ago. I had finished cooking at five o'clock and it was seven.

"Yes Da," I said, not wanting to argue, even though the hunger pangs were making me weak.

I scrubbed the tiles and toilet till they were pearl-white, then mopped the floors and unclogged the drain. When I was done, my hands looked like they I'd swam a mile and my shoulders hurt. My food was cold when I got back to the dining area and I was too hungry to waste time starting another fire to heat it, so I ate it cold.

"Elorm, where's my machete?" Fofo asked me as soon as I was done eating.

"Are you going to the cocoa farm?" I asked, worried that he might ask me to go with him.

"That's none of your business. I asked where my machete is."

"It's in the storeroom."

I washed my plate and was about to head to my room when Dada came out of the room with Elikem, who was screaming his head off.

"Take him. He's been crying for quite a while now," she said, handing him to me.

He stopped crying as soon as he was in my arms.

"His forehead is hot," I said, feeling him up. "He has a fever."

"Boil some herbs for him."

"But we don't know what he has. What if anything I give him makes him worse?"

"Shut up and do what you're asked," she retorted and headed back to her room.

I sighed and placed him on the living room's only sofa.

"How are you?" I asked him, even though he couldn't understand. "I'm going to make sure that you don't turn out like your brothers, okay?"

I tickled his belly and he giggled. I put him on my hip and went to the back of the house. There, I placed him on a stool and got to work starting a fire. When I got the fire going, I filled a pot with water and placed some leaves in it.

"I hope you are okay baby. You're the only family I have," I said.

He smiled.

By the time I'd finished giving Elikem the herbs, it was a quarter to nine. Dada and Fofo were in their room and the boys were in theirs. Elikem was soundly asleep in his crib. The house and its surroundings were silent, minus my pounding heart.

I sneaked out of my room with sweaty palms, remembering that if I got caught, it'd be the end of my life. I took in a deep breath to muster courage.

The door was only a foot away. I walked towards it with fear eating my insides, and opened it. The cool night air slapped me in the face immediately. The first thing that came to mind was that my ancestors were trying to warn me to stay home, but I shook my head vigorously.

The sounds made by the insects made my heart thump with fear. I wondered how sounds as harmless as chirping of crickets and hooting of owls could seem so ominous.

I took a deep breath, swallowed, and took three cautious steps outside, closing the door behind me. Then, I ran for my life.

The area in which the white people settled — I assumed that that was where he lived; it was obvious since he didn't bother informing me where his house was — was developing faster than the village itself.