BEHIND THE WALLS

Episode 6

Carlos looked at the girl shaking her head and didn't want to imagine what she meant by it.

"Annaya, talk to her. What does she mean?" Carlos asked

"Maria, what do you mean? Where is Maliya? Is she with you?" Asked Annaya who got close to Maria who kept twisting her head meaning no.

"Were you with her?" Annaya asked and Maria twisted her head again.

"Do you know where she is?" Annaya asked but Maria didn't show any sign of replying.

She just cried and it affected her.

The pain in her heart, brought pain into her head and the burning came back again.

It was too painful for her.

She wanted to say more to them but the pain was killing her.

She wanted to open her mouth but the bandages and the burns prevented her from doing so.

Just tears dropped from her eyes and she felt discomfort.

The nurse nearby rushed to them and pushed them away.

"What are you doing? I allowed you to see the girl but not to question her. You are giving her discomfort. Please leave now!" The nurse said angrily.

"She still hasn't told me about..." Carlos started but the nurse cut in.

"Miss please take her out. Stressing this girl like this might harm her. You don't want her dead do you?" The nurse asked

"Let's go Carlos. We can talk to her when she recovers. Since Maliya is not here, then let's look for her back at the school. There might be some news of her. If we don't find her there, then we'll have to come back to the hospital and look for her again. Everyone will have settled by then and it will be easy to find her" Annaya explained and Carlos just left without saying a word.

"Can I drive with you? My car is... Long story" she said as Carlos almost drove off without her.

"Get in" he said and she quickly got in.

Annaya looked at him as he drove back to the school.

He had never seen him that confused and desperate.

When they got back to the school, they found that everyone had evacuated the school building.

Everyone was outside at the tents preserved for the injured.

Students, parents and teachers were all over the place still looking tensed.

The incident was too huge to just get over in few hours.

It was already getting dark and the two of them just went around the place into different tents looking for Maliya.

Miss Annaya felt goosebumps all over her body as she moved around seeing almost all of her students in different conditions.

When she passed by the dead bodies being counted outside one of the tents, she lost balance and almost fell down.

"Are you okay? You can rest if you are tired" said Carlos who held her not to fall.

"I'm fine. It's just that..." She started but couldn't finish.

"You've never seen so many dead bodies before and mostly of people that you know. Am I right?" He asked and she couldn't hold up her tears.

She began crying and Carlos had to hug her.

She sobbed for a while before getting a grip of herself and wiped her tears.

"Are you okay?" He asked

"Yes I'm fine. Let's look for her over there" she pointed just wanting to brush the thought that she actually cried on his chest.

Annaya was neither short nor tall, but Carlos was tall and whenever she hugged him, she just landed on her chest.

"We've been searching for a while now. We haven't found her anywhere. Does that mean that she is..." Annaya said but Carlos cut in angrily.

"Don't even say it Annaya. Maliya would never die before me. She has no permission to die. I feel that she is alive. She better get burnt but not die. She is here somewhere" said Carlos and left Annaya to keep looking.

"I'm so tired. I can't move anymore. I'll just wait here" she said and sat down.

Carlos went looking until it was around 11pm in the night when there was a calling.

His phone was on silent mode and he couldn't hear when his mom called.

The principal and the commissioner wanted to make an announcement.

Everyone around there moved closer except for the doctors and nurses.

"Hello everyone, my name is James Masinde, I'm the commissioner. We are really sorry about what has happened. Most of our kids are injured, some have lost their lives. Sorry isn't enough to say but we are deeply sorry. The investigation team is still looking for the cause of fire, but they said that it seemed to be caused by electricity failures. We are still waiting for more feedback from them. We have also made calculations of the students. We have over 1000 students in the school. A total of 850 students had reported back to school. We are sorry to say that a total of 80 students have lost their lives as of now, we have over 100 severely burnt students, over 200 have minor injures and the rest are all fine, we believe so. In total, 800 students have been counted. I know you must be wondering about the other 50 students. We all know how extreme the fire was today. It took us so many hours to put out. It's possible that the students got stuck in the fire and... Well maybe they were burnt to ashes. If that's not the case, then some parents must have taken their kids home already. That's all for now, we'll give more feedback later from the investigation team" the Commissioner said and went away with the principal leaving commotion all round the place.

"How can 50 students go missing just like that? What is he even saying? Burnt to ashes?" The place was filled with noise and chaos.

Parents kept talking angrily, but Carlos walked away.

"Carlos!" Annaya called out immediately she saw him and rushed to him.

"How careless can they be Annaya? How can electricity failure, on such a big school... Annaya i'm not getting this" Carlos said

"It could be Carlos, but what I don't get is that, this school runs through solar energy. Where did electricity come from?" Annaya asked and Carlos was dazzled.

"They use solar energy?" Carlos asked