Crimson Dawn: Nigeria 2048

Eruwa Village – 2033 The loud megaphones were roaring deep into the village when the soldiers came. Aisha remembered that much, the deep, throaty rhythm of the mosque megaphone, the swirl of her colorful hijab, the way her father’s voice rose in prayer to Allah, his face wrapped in a huge turban. It’s the season of Ramadan, the festival of the praying and fasting amongst Islams was the one night their God would come for all their needs if they promised to live a righteous life, her mother had told her. The one night no evil could touch them. They were wrong. The first explosion tore through the mosque. Screams. Smoke. The acrid stench of burning flesh. Aisha, barefoot and trembling, clutched her baby brother’s hand as her father, the Imam of their central mosque, shoved them toward the hidden chamber behind the mosque. "Hide, omo mi. Don’t come out." She didn’t. Everyone were busy running for their lives, with screams of fright here and there. Not until the gunshots. Not until the hand, her mother’s hand went limp in hers. Present Day-2037 Aisha woke gasping, her sheets drenched in sweat. The dream again. Fragments. Flashes. A village in flames. A familiar name, Lawal, that held onto her mind like a fishhook. She clenched her fists, waiting for the familiar fog to settle over her mind, the one that always came when the memories threatened to surface. "The rebels burned your past," the Council’s instructors had drilled into them. "We gave you a future." She exhaled. The tightness in her chest eased. By fifteen, Aisha was the best in her unit. She could field-strip a plasma rifle in twelve seconds flat. She could snap a man’s neck with her thighs. She never missed a shot, never hesitated, never questioned. The Council loved her for it. "Maverick-037," Commander Idowu would call, his voice slick with pride as he watched her spar. "My little leopard," he said as he stroke her hair gently. She fought harder when he said that. The other child soldiers were all she had. They were not children, they were assets. 975 of them all housed in the steel belly of the Council’s northern fortress in an undisclosed location. No windows. No real names. Just codenames and kill counts. There was Dike, Maverick-209, the quiet boy with the scarred lips who could hack any lock. Zainab, Maverick-556, the sniper who hummed old songs between kills. Emeka, Maverick-071, the giant with the soft voice who always saved his rations for the younger ones. And then, there was Bayo, Maverick-003, one of the most intelligent amongst them and a computer genius. He could hack into any computer or website in the world within a maximum of ten minutes. Before nightfall, he had already erased the Council's decade-long crimes right before prosecutors could have pursued them the next day. Each of them had a codename, the Council used these instead of real names to avoid triggering past memories. Since renaming their assets entirely wasn’t practical, codenames became the solution. Though they never spoke of their past, most sensed something was amiss. But whenever they tried to uncover the truth, a voice would slither into their mind, twisting their thoughts, feeding them lies, tormenting them with false histories But sometimes, when the barracks fell silent, Zainab would trace invisible patterns on the floor, her eyes far away. "I think… I had a sister," she’d murmur. Aisha would say nothing. But she’d dream of a little boy’s laughter that night and an elderly woman with a cane in her hand chasing them in the garden. The first flicker came during a raid in the Delta slums. Aisha’s squad was clearing a rebel hideout when she saw it, a tattered doll, half-buried in the rubble. The sight sent a jolt through her. Her father’s hands, strong and steady, adjusting his thick turban as the wind tugged at his flowing jalamia. The scent of laali dye lingered in the air, rich and familiar. His voice, heavy with the weight of tradition, echoed in her mind: "We are the keepers of the stories, Aisha. Never forget.” Yet whenever the past clawed its way back whenever a voice called her Aisha, she dismissed it as another hallucination. The name felt foreign, wrong. She had only ever been Maverick-037. Her finger froze on the trigger. "Move!" Dike shoved her aside as gunfire erupted. Later, in the debriefing, Commander Idowu studied her. "Distraction is death, Maverick-037." She nodded. But that night, she vomited in the showers. Then came the headaches. A sharp, stabbing pain behind her left ear, always worse after a mission. She’d press her fingers there, feeling the raised scar tissue no one had ever explained. "You were injured in the rebel attack," the voice in her head said. But Emeka had the same scar. So did Zainab. So did Dike. Aisha stared at her reflection in the barracks’ grimy mirror, tracing the mark. “What kind of scar is this?,” she wondered.