Broken ✔

Chapter Fifty

Song: MzVee — Who are you?

*Unedited*

Somewhere in my swirling mind, I knew I had to get up and run as fast as I could. The flow was steady and each rock was just getting more painful than the last. The wind blew against my already open wounds, making them burn and hiss under the scorching sun.

I made sure to protect my face with my arms, before I finally struggled to sit up. There was a bit of muffled shouting that my brain could barely process as I did so, but I ignored them and tried standing.

Almost immediately, I was shoved back down viciously. The hailstorm stopped.

Wondering why they would stop their attack and who had pushed me, I lowered my arms, just to stiffen at the sight of the person before me.

It'd been months since I'd seen him. His eyes were red and he was considerably thinner than before. His head was bald in some places and his clothes were dirty. A nasty odour emanated from his body and his face had gotten a thousand more wrinkles; making him look older than he really was.

"Fofo," I whispered, my voice getting caught in my throat. We never agreed completely, yet seeing him like this, so emaciated, it made my heart hurt.

"I am not your father!" The rage in his eyes was fiery enough to burn through my soul.

He wasn't here to save me.

"You..." his sentence was left incomplete as he looked at me like he was wishing I was never born. His lips settled into a grim line, then he brought a bottle from behind him. It was a bottle of alcohol.

To my horror, he lifted the bottle and poured its whole content on my head. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a box of matches.

I knew what he was trying to do, yet I couldn't move. The fear had taken hold of my body and made it its own. The thought that the man who brought me into this world was the very same one who was trying to take me out... it wasn't something that my brain could process within those few minutes.

"This, is for my wife," he struck the match against the box. It caught fire.

"Father," I whispered again, numb. I couldn't remember how my limbs worked. I knew I had to run, but I couldn't. I couldn't get my own body to obey me.

There was a distracting sound that prevented my father from dropping the match; he turned around instead to look at Kofi who had opened his door. That single distraction saved my life.

With energy I had no idea was stored inside of me, I let out a strangled cry and jumped up, pushing my father to the ground. He wasn't expecting it, so he fell easily. He was watching me with wide eyes, while struggling to push me off.

I wrenched the lighter away from his hands and threw it away from his reach. I realised too late that that was a terrible mistake, because anyone could grab it and I was still doused in alcohol.

I took my attention off my father for a second, just to gaze at the lighter desperately, praying that it would somehow come back to me. Luckily, Kofi was having the same thoughts, because he dashed forward and grabbed it before anyone else could.

Fofo grabbed onto my hair and shoved me down. He pinned both my hands above me with both of his, trying to use his lower body to keep me on the ground but I had the weight advantage because I'd been eating, unlike him.

I easily threw him back down and jump off, backing away from him cautiously. Everyone else was just still, unsure what to do next as I swayed there, hating the smell of the blood staining my face, arms and thighs.