Saved by my nightmare (A Nigerian Story)

CHAPTER 21

Awfar peeps.

Rayyan fans today's your day.

On to the story

Unedited
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Lagos,Nigeria
2012.

Being home during the weekend was something Maliya always looked foward to.

No matter how much it interested her to learn about certain things, her alone time was something she never joked with.

But on that particular weekend, she was far from enjoying herself.

Rather than reading the new novel her father bought when he came home the past week for a three-day-visit, she had been cooped up in her room the whole day battling with a severe cold and catarrh, owing to her and Zayn's time in the rain.

A knock sounded at her door, and in a voice so hoarse it didn't sound sound a bit like hers, she answered.

"Come in"

Zaharadeen who was home due to the ASUU strike entered, a cup of something piping hot in hand.

"Hey, how far na?" Sniffling, she looked at him pointedly as she fought the urge to sneeze.

"Sit up" he said to her, propping a pillow behind her, after which he held the cup out to her.

"Thanks" she muttered, taking the cup from him.

Ever since she forgave Rumaysa, it had been easier for her to overcome the anger and bitterness she had been harbouring towards everyone.

Gradually, she had began putting everything behind her. To forgive, but never to forget.

And although it had been a conscious decision on her part to forgive them all, she knew Zayn had been the key factor influencing that decision.

He had been the one propelling her to put behind all annoyance she felt towards them.

And it seemed they all knew it too, because everyone in her family had come to see Zayn as one of theirs.

She wasn't fully there yet though.

There was a lot she was yet to forgive them for, but she was more than half-way there.

And she had never felt lighter.

That is, if the way she felt presently-like a woolen sweater drenched in a viscous fluid- was excluded.

Zaharadeen, who had taken residence at the foot of her bed smiled at her in his creepy way.

Feeling like a million bugs were crawling on her skin with the way his intense, creepy gaze was fixated on her, she chucked a pillow at him.

"Stop it abeg" she groaned, turning on her left side to face the wall.

Ignoring Zahar's manic laughs and snorts, a smile spread across her lips as she was pulled into memories of her childhood.

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Lagos, Nigeria
2005.

"Oya, let's watch Bakugan" Zaharadeen said to his sister, her best friend and his best friend as they all huddled on the three-seater sofa, protected by a thick woolen blanket from the cold of the air con.

"No" both Maliya and Rumaysa yelled in unison at him, as he glared at them with as much evil as his hazel eyes could muster.