FAR FROM HOME

FAR FROM HOME By Mr Black PART I — THE GIRL WITHOUT A NAME CHAPTER ONE The Night I Became a Stranger The night I left home, my mother was asleep. My father was praying. And I was standing in front of a mirror, wearing a dress I had never wanted to own, with a bag packed beneath my bed and a secret that could destroy the only life I had ever known. I looked beautiful. That was the problem. For eighteen years, my family had treated my appearance like a problem that needed solving. My clothes were too masculine. My voice was too flat. My walk was too confident. I sat like a boy, fought like a boy, and refused to cry even when crying would have made everyone else's life easier. They had prayed over me. Scolded me. Compared me to other girls. My mother had once stood in front of my wardrobe and asked, with tears in her eyes, what kind of daughter she had raised. I hadn't answered. Not because I had nothing to say. Because I had learned that some answers only gave people more weapons. Now, standing in front of that mirror, I pulled the dress away from my body and studied my reflection. The girl staring back at me looked like somebody my mother might finally be proud of. Soft hair. Neat face. A feminine silhouette. No oversized shirt hiding my shape. No loose trousers. No familiar black hoodie. If my mother woke up and saw me, she might cry with happiness. She might thank God. She might tell the entire family that her daughter had finally changed. She would never know that I had dressed this way because I wanted to leave without attracting attention. Funny, isn't it? Sometimes, the easiest way to disappear is to become exactly what people want you to be. I turned away from the mirror. My phone vibrated on the bed. UNKNOWN NUMBER: Are you still leaving tonight? I stared at the message. Then I typed: Yes. The reply came almost immediately. You know there's no coming back from this. I looked towards my bedroom door. Beyond it lay a corridor, three other bedrooms, a living room with photographs of our family on the wall, and a kitchen where my mother would probably be making breakfast before sunrise. A whole life. A life people would tell me I was ungrateful to abandon. A life I had spent years trying to survive without looking like I was trying. I typed another message. I know. Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. Then the unknown number sent a final message. Then don't trust anyone who offers to help you. I read it twice. My fingers went cold. Before I could reply, another notification appeared. This one came from a number I knew. A number I had deleted months ago. A number I had promised myself I would never answer again. The message contained only six words. I KNOW WHAT YOU DID TO HER. For a moment, the room became strangely quiet. The refrigerator hummed somewhere downstairs. A vehicle passed outside. My father's voice drifted faintly through the wall as he continued his midnight prayers. Ordinary sounds. An ordinary night. And suddenly, I was eighteen again in a way that had nothing to do with my age. I sat on the edge of the bed. I read the message a third time. Then I opened the conversation. There were no other messages. No explanation. No name attached to the number. Just those six words. I KNOW WHAT YOU DID TO HER. I wanted to laugh. Not because anything was funny, but because laughter was easier than admitting that something had frightened me. I had spent years preparing for the worst. I expected people to leave. I expected promises to break. I expected affection to come with conditions and kindness to arrive carrying a hidden price. I had made a habit of imagining every possible disaster before it happened. But I had never prepared for the past to find me before I could escape it. I deleted the message. Then I deleted the conversation. Then I switched off my phone. My bag was waiting beneath the bed. Inside it were two shirts, three pairs of trousers, underwear, a notebook, a little cash, my school documents, and the only photograph I had kept from childhood. I had left out almost everything else. It was surprisingly easy to pack a life when you had never felt entirely at home in it. I lifted the bag onto my shoulder. At the door, I stopped. There was a photograph of my family on the small table beside my bed. My parents stood behind me, smiling. My siblings crowded around us. I was in the middle, wearing a dress and looking directly at the camera. Everyone else looked happy. I looked as if I had been told to stand still until the photographer finished. I picked up the photograph. For several seconds, I considered taking it with me. Then I placed it face down. I opened the door. The corridor was dark. I moved quietly past my parents' room. Through the partly open door, I could see my mother sleeping on her side, one hand beneath her cheek. My father lay beside her, his Bible resting on the bedside table. They looked peaceful. I wondered whether they would still look peaceful when they discovered I was gone. I wondered whether my mother would blame herself. I wondered whether my father would call every relative he knew. I wondered whether anyone would ask what had happened before I left. The questions came one after another. I let them pass. At the front door, I paused with my hand on the lock. For a brief, ridiculous second, I waited for something to happen. For my mother to wake up. For my father to call my name. For the universe to offer me a reason to stay. Nothing happened. So I opened the door. The night air touched my face. I stepped outside and closed it behind me. No dramatic music played. No tears fell. Nobody chased after me. The world did not notice that one more person had decided she could no longer live where she belonged. I walked towards the main road. My phone remained switched off. My bag grew heavier with every step. And somewhere inside the house behind me, my mother continued sleeping beneath the comforting belief that her daughter would be there in the morning. She was wrong. But that was not the worst part. The worst part was that, for the first time in my life, I had a destination. I knew where I was going. I knew what I needed to do. I knew what I was willing to lose. What I did not know was that somebody had already begun looking for me. And they had not come to bring me home. --- TO BE CONTINUED..........