Chapter One: The Day Before the Fire
Part I – Morning in Chibok
The sun rose slowly over Chibok, as if it, too, were reluctant to begin the day. Its light slid across the dry fields, catching on the roofs of red clay houses and the thin dust that hung in the air after the night's wind. Somewhere beyond the baobab trees, a cock crowed twice, and the sound wandered lazily across the town. It was an ordinary morning—the kind that promised heat before noon and laughter in the schoolyard before dusk.
Amina woke before her sister. She always did. Habit had trained her body to rise with the first sound of dawn prayers drifting from the mosque at the edge of town. She lay still for a moment, watching the thin sunlight creep across the mud wall, its color soft and golden like millet flour. Beside her, Hauwa, barely fourteen, murmured in her sleep and clutched a corner of the raffia mat as if afraid someone might take it.
Amina smiled. She brushed a small fly from her sister's cheek and whispered, "Wake, lazy one. You'll be late for school."
Hauwa groaned. "It's still early," she mumbled, her voice thick with dreams.
"It's never early," Amina said, sitting up. "Final exams are near."
Outside, their mother's pestle struck the mortar rhythmically, crushing the morning meal. The sound had filled their childhood like a heartbeat—the music of ordinary days. Their father's radio crackled from the courtyard, coughing out the BBC Hausa news in a tired voice. Every morning it told stories of bombings, soldiers, and warnings, but the words had become part of the air, the way thunder was part of the rainy season: distant, frightening, yet somehow expected.
When Amina stepped into the yard, the earth was cool under her bare feet. She bent to wash her face in the basin and caught her reflection: skin the color of wet earth, eyes dark and bright, a narrow scar near her brow where she once fell chasing goats as a child. Her mother, Mama Falmata, watched her with that quiet, measuring gaze mothers reserve for daughters who are almost women.
"You've been reading late again," Mama said. "Your eyes are red."
"I want to finish before the exams," Amina replied, wiping her face.
"You'll pass. But rest is part of wisdom." Mama smiled faintly and went back to stirring the pot.
From the path beyond their fence came the shouts of other girls in uniform, calling to one another, laughter carried on the dry harmattan air. Schoolbooks thumped against backs, slippers slapped on dusty ground. Life in Chibok, for all its struggles, still moved in rhythm—study, chores, prayers, dreams.
Amina and Hauwa joined them after breakfast, their satchels light but full of hope. As they walked, the sisters talked about silly things—who braided her hair too tight, whose handwriting the teacher praised. Yet beneath the chatter lay a quiet awareness that the world beyond their village had grown restless.
Near the school gate, Amina paused. A truck passed slowly on the far road, raising a cloud of dust that glowed in the sunlight. Two men sat in the front, faces hidden behind dark glasses. They didn't wave or slow down. The sight lingered in her mind even after the noise faded. Something about it felt… off. But then Hauwa tugged her hand.
"Come on, Amina. You'll make us late."
She pushed the thought aside and followed. The Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, stood like a promise on the edge of the town—a cluster of classrooms with peeling paint and broken windows, yet alive with ambition. It was here that dreams were shaped into plans, that daughters of farmers imagined becoming teachers, doctors, or something greater than what the world expected.
That morning, the air inside the classroom smelled of chalk and warm dust. The girls recited lessons with the sing-song rhythm of memory. "The mitochondria," one voice said, "is the powerhouse of the cell." Their teacher, Mrs. Grace, a woman with eyes sharp as a hawk's, moved among them correcting notes, offering a mix of discipline and warmth.
When she reached Amina's desk, she smiled. "Still top of the class?"
"I try," Amina said, lowering her eyes.
"You more than try. Keep that fire."
Her words stayed with Amina through the morning. She didn't know that by the next night, that same fire would become the only light she'd have to cling to.
---
The bell for break rang, and laughter burst out like birds freed from a cage. The girls crowded around the shade of a neem tree, sharing groundnuts and gossip. Hauwa joined a group at the far end, leaving Amina alone for a moment. She liked it that way—silence allowed her thoughts to breathe. She looked up at the sky, wide and mercilessly blue.
Across the compound, the headmaster stood speaking with a man in uniform. Amina couldn't hear their words, but the man's posture was stiff, his eyes scanning the horizon as if searching for something. Amina thought of the truck again. Dust, dark glasses, no greeting. She tried to dismiss it, but unease crept back in, quiet and stubborn.
When Hauwa returned, she flopped beside her, laughing. "Amina, Fatima says her uncle will take her to Maiduguri after exams. She'll study nursing. Maybe she'll treat you someday!"
Amina smiled faintly. "Maybe I'll treat her. I'll be a doctor."
"You always want the hardest things," Hauwa teased.
"Someone must."
The bell rang again, and the girls filed back to class. The rest of the day unrolled gently—lessons, recitations, the occasional scolding. No one noticed the faint hum of tension that had begun to coil in the air, invisible but real.
As the afternoon sun pressed hard against the tin roofs, Amina glanced toward the window. Beyond the school fence, she saw a line of vultures circling lazily over the far forest. The air shimmered with heat.
She would later remember that sight clearly—the indifferent flight of birds on a too-bright afternoon—because it was the last image of peace she carried from that day.
Part II — The Slow Weight of Afternoon
The sun climbed higher, turning the school compound into a shimmer of light and noise. The air smelled of heat and chalk. Somewhere behind the classrooms, the generator coughed and stuttered before going silent, leaving only the buzzing of flies and the restless murmur of girls fighting sleep.
Amina sat by the open window, a bead of sweat tracing the line of her neck. Beyond the school fence, the thorn bushes trembled faintly in the wind. The world, to her, always looked too still in moments like that—like it was waiting for something she couldn't name.
Mrs. Grace's voice carried across the room.
> "Girls, write this down. The causes of the Niger Delta crisis are…?"
Amina's pen moved automatically. The teacher's words came and went, but her mind drifted to the letter she had written to her cousin in Maiduguri last week. She had written of exams, of Hauwa's teasing, of her dream to study medicine. But she hadn't written of the rumors—of how some villages northward had emptied overnight, of whispers that roads once safe were now haunted by men with guns. She hadn't wanted to worry him. She hadn't wanted to believe it herself.
A low murmur of conversation reached her ear—two girls behind her whispering.
"They said Boko Haram came near Damboa last week," one said.
"My uncle told me it was soldiers," the other replied quickly, a hint of fear under her voice.
Mrs. Grace turned sharply. "If you have something more important than your notes, please share it with the class."
The girls froze. "No, ma," they chorused, faces down.
Mrs. Grace sighed. "Rumors are like dry grass. They catch fire too easily. Focus on your books."
The class obeyed, but silence fell too thick, too sudden. Even the pages turning sounded cautious.
---
At noon, they were dismissed for lunch. The air outside was blinding; the ground burned through thin sandals. The girls scattered beneath the shade of the mango trees, unwrapping boiled yams and sharing stories that pushed away fear. Hauwa found Amina again, her eyes bright.
"Guess what?" she said. "Zainab says her father will buy her a phone when she passes the exam."
"You want one too," Amina teased.
"Of course! Then I can call you when you leave for university."
Amina smiled and shook her head. "You'll come with me."
Hauwa snorted. "You think Mama will let both of us go? She still worries when you go to the market alone."
"She'll learn to trust."
Their laughter was soft but genuine, the kind that belongs to girls who have not yet seen the edge of the world.
Nearby, the cook from the kitchen passed carrying a bowl of beans, waving her spoon like a wand. "Eat well, my daughters. You will need strength for those exams!"
They laughed again, and for a moment the fear of unseen things retreated.
---
By early afternoon, clouds began to gather in slow heaps above the horizon. The wind grew heavy with dust and scent of coming rain. Amina watched the sky darken from the window of the library, where she and three others studied geography. She loved the quiet there—the smell of old paper, the faint hum of ceiling fans that barely worked.
Hauwa burst in after a while, her face flushed. "Amina! Come see—there are soldiers at the main road!"
"What are they doing?"
"I don't know. Everyone's saying they're warning people about something."
Amina hesitated. Her heart quickened, but curiosity pushed her to follow.
They walked to the gate where a small crowd of students and teachers had gathered. Two soldiers stood beside a jeep, speaking to the headmaster. The older one had a narrow face and a voice that carried.
"There is unrest in the north," he was saying. "We are advising all schools to be alert. Especially boarding schools."
The headmaster frowned. "Should we close the dormitories?"
"Not yet. Just stay cautious. If you see anything strange, report it immediately."
The soldiers looked weary, their uniforms streaked with dust. When they left, they didn't drive fast, as if they, too, were measuring the silence of the land.
Amina turned to Hauwa. "Did you hear that?"
"I heard, but what can we do? We're safe here."
Amina nodded, though something inside her twisted. The words We're safe here echoed like a fragile spell.
---
Classes resumed, but the mood had shifted. Even Mrs. Grace seemed distracted, glancing at the window between lessons. By four o'clock, thunder rolled faintly across the sky. The girls whispered that the storm might come early this year, that maybe it would break the heat before exams.
Amina stayed behind after the bell, erasing the board as she often did. It gave her a sense of calm—the slow circular motion of cloth over chalk. Mrs. Grace gathered her books. "You should go home before the rain," she said.
"Yes, ma."
"Tell your mother to keep the girls inside tonight. Things are uneasy."
Amina nodded. "Is it true… about the men in Damboa?"
Mrs. Grace hesitated. "Some say yes. Some say no. But whatever the truth, fear itself can cause harm. Stay close to home."
She left the classroom with a sigh heavy as the clouds above.
Amina stood for a while longer, looking out at the empty compound. The neem leaves trembled. A gust lifted dust into the air, turning the light brown and strange. It felt like the world holding its breath.
---
By the time the sisters reached home, the sky had turned copper. Mama Falmata was outside taking down the clothes from the line. "Quickly," she said, "before the rain catches them."
They helped her gather the garments, laughing as the wind snatched one of Hauwa's wrappers into the air. When it was finally rescued, the first drops began to fall—large, heavy, warm against their skin.
Inside, the house smelled of groundnut stew. The family ate together while thunder muttered in the distance. Their father spoke little; he had spent the day in the fields and looked tired. When the radio came on again, it spoke of another attack in a distant village, of people fleeing, of government promises. The words floated like smoke.
Hauwa asked, "Baba, will the fighting come here?"
He shook his head slowly. "God forbid. We are too small a place. Trouble passes us by."
Amina wanted to believe him. The rain grew louder on the roof, drumming like a hundred small hands. Outside, the power lines flickered and went dark.
---
When the storm passed, the air felt clean. Amina stepped outside with Hauwa and looked at the stars beginning to appear, one by one, in the wet black sky. The earth smelled alive again.
"Tomorrow will be a good day," Hauwa said.
Amina smiled faintly. "Yes," she replied, though something in her chest ached with a strange unease she couldn't name.
She didn't know that the world had already begun to shift, quietly, invisibly—that somewhere beyond the forest, engines were being fueled, paths marked, and eyes turned toward Chibok.
But that night, the stars shone as if in prayer, and the sisters went to sleep believing in morning.
Part III – Nightfall and Shadows
The night in Chibok lay heavy and still, the kind of silence that made every whisper sound louder than it should. The rain had passed, leaving behind a faint coolness that clung to the air. Crickets sang in the grass, frogs called from puddles left by the storm, and from far away came the thin hum of a generator sputtering into life.
Inside the small house, Amina turned on her side, unable to sleep. The world outside her window glistened faintly in the moonlight. Hauwa slept soundly beside her, her breathing slow, her arm resting across the mat as if she were reaching for her sister even in her dreams.
Amina envied that peace. Her mind, restless and full of questions, replayed every sound of the day — the soldiers at the school gate, the strange truck that passed in the morning, the look in Mrs. Grace's eyes when she said, "Things are uneasy."
The air smelled faintly of wet earth and ash. Somewhere, a dog barked once, then stopped. Amina sat up and listened. Nothing — only the sound of her heartbeat, quick and uncertain.
She lay back down and whispered into the dark, "Tomorrow will be better."
It was a promise, though no one heard it.
---
In the next room, Mama Falmata whispered prayers before sleep, her voice soft and rhythmic. She prayed for her husband's harvest, for her daughters' success in their exams, and for peace — the kind of peace that had become as fragile as clay in their hands.
Her husband, Musa, listened in silence. He had not told her what the men at the market had said earlier — that travelers from Borno had spoken of villages gone quiet, of roads deserted, of gunfire at night. He didn't want fear in the house. Not tonight. Not when the girls were still laughing in their sleep.
He turned and faced the wall, muttering, "God watches over us." But his voice lacked conviction.
---
By midnight, the sky cleared completely. The moon hung like a pale coin over the dark fields. The wet earth steamed faintly, releasing the scent of life and decay.
Along the far road beyond the baobab trees, a convoy of vehicles moved slowly — black shapes merging with the shadows. Their engines were low, their lights off. Only the metallic clatter of weapons and the occasional cough of an exhaust broke the stillness.
A boy who guarded the cattle near the outskirts saw them first. He squinted, thinking it might be traders returning late from Damboa. But as the trucks drew nearer, he noticed something strange: the men wore no uniforms, only mismatched clothes and turbans that hid their faces. One of them raised a rifle, gesturing sharply for silence.
Fear surged through the boy. He dropped his stick and ran, bare feet slapping the wet soil, heart pounding like a drum. Behind him, the sound of engines thickened — more trucks, more voices, low and urgent. The night had changed.
---
In the school compound, the girls in the dormitory slept through it all. The rain had cooled the air, and dreams came easily after long days of study. Amina's satchel lay by the window, her notebook open on the last page she'd written: "The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell." Her handwriting was neat, careful, hopeful.
Outside, the generator sputtered, coughed, and went quiet — its fuel exhausted. Darkness claimed the compound again, soft but total.
A shadow passed near the gate. Then another. The padlock gleamed briefly in the moonlight before a hand reached out and broke it open. The sound was small, almost tender.
Then came voices — low, harsh, whispering orders.
Inside, a girl stirred, frowning in her sleep.
---
Miles away, in the town center, the muezzin's early call for prayer began to rise, thin and melodic, cutting through the night like a blade.
But in the distance, almost at the same moment, came another sound — the growl of engines moving toward the school, tires crunching softly on wet earth.
The boy who had run from the fields stumbled into a soldier's post at the edge of the market. "They're coming!" he gasped. "Men with guns — too many!"
The soldier looked at him, confused. "Where?"
The boy pointed, his voice trembling. "The school!"
---
Back in the dormitory, Hauwa stirred. She blinked in the dark and turned toward Amina.
"Did you hear that?" she whispered.
Amina was already awake. Her eyes met her sister's, wide and alert. "Yes," she breathed.
The sound came again — distant but unmistakable: engines, doors slamming, the muffled rhythm of boots.
Amina's pulse raced. She reached for Hauwa's hand. "Don't move," she whispered.
Outside, the first scream split the air.
Part III – Nightfall and Shadows (continued)
The scream was brief but sharp, slicing through the stillness like the crack of breaking glass. Then came another, and another, until the dormitory was alive with confusion — bodies stirring, whispers turning to cries.
Amina sat up fully now, heart hammering. The door rattled once, twice, then burst open. Light from a torch beam swept across the room, blinding in its suddenness.
"Out! Everybody out!" a voice barked — rough, unfamiliar, commanding.
For a heartbeat, no one moved. Then the world dissolved into motion. Girls stumbled from their mats, colliding in panic, clutching books, wrappers, slippers — anything they could grab in the darkness. The beam of the flashlight swung wildly, catching fragments of faces frozen in terror.
Amina held Hauwa's hand so tightly their fingers ached. "Don't let go," she whispered.
Men flooded in — some in tattered uniforms, others in plain clothes, turbans masking their faces. Their eyes glinted beneath the torchlight. One kicked over a desk; another fired into the ceiling, the crack of the gunshot deafening inside the narrow room.
Screams rose higher.
"Outside!" the leader shouted again. "Move! Move!"
The girls obeyed, fear pushing them faster than thought. Bare feet slapped the wet earth as they poured out into the courtyard, trembling and confused. Smoke hung faintly in the air; someone must have lit a tire near the gate.
Amina's mind raced — this couldn't be real. The world she knew, the classroom, the morning songs, the laughter beneath the neem tree — all seemed to vanish into the dark, replaced by chaos and the reek of diesel.
She clutched Hauwa's hand tighter.
---
Under the moon, the compound was a scene from another world. Trucks waited near the fence, engines running low, headlights dimmed. Men shouted orders, their voices blending with the whimpering of the girls.
Amina's eyes darted around, searching for escape. The gate — broken. The teachers' quarters — dark. No soldiers, no one coming.
Mrs. Grace appeared suddenly from the shadows, her wrapper half-tied, hair loose, eyes wild. "Stop!" she cried, running toward the men. "These are children! Please!"
A man swung his rifle toward her. "Go inside, woman!"
But she didn't stop. "Please—"
The shot that followed was small and flat, swallowed by the engines. Mrs. Grace fell, her body folding soundlessly to the ground.
Hauwa gasped. Amina turned her sister's face away. "Don't look," she whispered, her throat burning.
---
They were herded toward the trucks, pushed and shoved like cattle. Amina counted the faces she knew — Zainab, crying; Bintu, barefoot and shaking; Hauwa, pale with fear. Each one looked younger than she remembered.
"Climb in!" the men ordered.
Amina hesitated. "Please—my sister—"
"Both of you! Move!"
They climbed into the back of a truck, the metal cold beneath their feet. Around them, the girls pressed close together, sobbing quietly. Someone prayed under her breath; another whispered the names of her parents like a charm.
Amina's eyes found the gate. Beyond it, the dark road stretched into the forest — familiar, yet strange. She could almost see her home through the trees, her mother's light still burning, her father's voice reading from the radio.
She thought of running, of slipping away into the bush. But Hauwa's hand in hers trembled violently. "Don't leave me," her sister whispered.
"I won't."
The truck jolted forward, and the world lurched with it.
---
From the edge of the compound, smoke began to rise — the dormitory catching fire from the lanterns knocked over in the struggle. Flames climbed the walls, turning the sky a deep, angry orange.
Amina looked back. Through the heat haze, she saw the school — their school — burning.
For a moment, she thought she heard voices still calling from within, the echo of lessons, laughter, promises. Then the wind shifted, and it was gone.
The trucks sped into the darkness, bouncing over the rutted path toward the forest. The town behind them was already beginning to wake — doors opening, dogs barking, mothers stepping out with lanterns raised. But by the time anyone reached the school, the fire was all that remained.
---
Inside the truck, the smell of diesel filled the air. The girls huddled together, their faces streaked with tears and dust. The road ahead was endless.
Amina held Hauwa close. Her mind was a storm — questions, prayers, fear. But through it all, one thought burned clear and sharp:
Someone must survive to tell what happened here.
She looked out into the night, the forest closing around them like a mouth. The wind whipped her hair, carrying the scent of smoke and rain.
Behind them, Chibok disappeared.
Before them, only the dark waited.
End of Chapter One — The Day Before the Fire