Reflection of the shadows

--- *Chapter 1: The Day the Roof Fell* ⚰️🏚️ “Mama! Mama!” “Emily! Emily, please come! Please come!” “Emily, where are you? Mama… Mama, stay with me!” Emily rushed into the parlour. 😨 She found her brother kneeling close to their grandma on the couch. Grandma looked lifeless. Her eyes were dim. Her eyes were red. She couldn’t move. She was somehow stiff. 💔 Her brother was just shaking. “Emily,” he started, his voice breaking. “I don’t know what’s going on with Mama. She is not moving well… she is not moving well at all. Mama say I should call you. Mama say… I don’t know what’s going on. Emily, what’s going on?” 😢 Emily knelt down, the shock still in her eyes from seeing her grandma that way. She sat close to her grandma. “Grandma, what is it? What’s wrong? Are you fine? Let’s go to the hospital—” She stopped. “We don’t even have money for hospital. Who can carry—” She was shouting now. “Help! Oh, help!” Then her grandma touched her hand… and everywhere went silent. 🤍 Her grandma whispered, “Take care of your brother. I love you both.” And that was the end. She closed her eyes. Everything went blank. It felt like the whole world had closed against Emily. 🌒 Her brother’s eyes were gushing up with tears. He was crying. He was just pushing his grandma, hoping she would wake up. “Grandma? Grandma, wake up na.” 😭 Emily was just in shock. Hot, hot tears streamed down her eyes. 🔥💧 Memories began to flicker. _What kind of bitterness is this? What have I done wrong to deserve this? After all… after all we’ve been through… after all Grandma has helped us with… is this how it ends for her?_ She just kept on crying. She didn’t know what to do. Then, just then, she remembered. ****[Flashback] Life was never like this for her. She and her brother used to live fine. Everything was fine. She was with her parents, in their house. 🏡 Her mom told her, “Go get your brother from the backyard. He’s playing football.” He was a little boy back then. Immediately she went outside… five minutes later… the house started burning. 🔥 She didn’t know what to do. She rushed. Her brother called her to the neighbors, and they tried to put out the fire. But before they could… her parents were already dead. ⚰️ That was when her grandma took her in. No uncle. No aunty. Nobody wanted them. Grandma took them in. 👵🏾 And now this tragedy has happened to them. Their breadwinner has fallen. The only woman who looked at them like her own children. Who tried her best to put them through school. Who did her best to provide for them, even at her old age. 💔 ---*I got you 💚 I’ll copy it out clean. No stress. Your words, just with correct spelling + grammar + light emojis.* --- After all the flashbacks, Emily took her brother out. The neighbors were persuading them to leave inside the house so they could take care of their deceased grandma. They came out, and the neighbor offered to accommodate them for the night. 🌙 They went in to stay in the neighbor’s house. That’s when Emily brought up a plan. She told her brother, “Since you already have a scholarship to go to that boarding school, I will take the remaining of Grandma’s savings.” Her voice was low but steady. “I know where it is. I will add mine to it and help you… sponsor you to that boarding school.” 🙏🏾📚 Her brother looked at her, his eyes still red. “What about you?” Emily swallowed. “I’m going to stay in Lagos with my cousin sisters.” They weren’t really her cousins — not by blood. But they were like sisters to her. Distant relatives, but they had always treated her like family. 💚 “I’ll be staying with them. So I can put you in your own school.” But the truth was, they were about to move from their comfort zone. Her brother’s school was in Abuja. She was going to Lagos to stay with the two sisters. And right now… they were basically in Port Harcourt. 🌵 The roof had fallen. Now its time for them to fend for their self. --- After making their plans, they went to their neighbor and asked if they could stay for a week so they could plan and know what to do next. Because of what they had been through, the neighbor agreed. 🙏🏾 After a week passed, Emily took her brother and headed straight to Abuja. 🚌 When they got there, the school officials were surprised to see a seventeen-year-old escorting a fourteen-year-old for admission. They asked her, “Where is your guardian? Who is handling all the admission process?” She explained to them the tragedy that had occurred. 😔 The administrative officials had pity on her. They did her brother’s paperwork, and one even volunteered to give her updates and information concerning her brother in case anything happened. She was grateful. She told them thank you. She told her brother to take care of himself and promised him she’d get him a phone once she had some money. 📱 Her brother hugged her tightly. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I will make you proud.” She smiled, and then she left for her own journey. She got into the bus headed to Lagos — the big city everyone had been talking about. 🌆 She could have been staying in Lagos a long time ago. Her sisters had invited her to come ever since. But because her grandma was alive, she didn’t want to leave her grandma or her brother to go stay with her sisters. So she told them she couldn’t come. Their address was still in her hands. The point is, she didn’t even inform them she was coming. Though she had her grandma’s phone in her hand, she didn’t call. 🤳🏾 She sat in the bus, thinking about her life. _How do I plan? What’s next?_ 💭 The bus drove and finally came to the bus stop. From there, she took another ride to the street written on the sheet of paper her sisters had given her when they were inviting her to come. When she got there, she started asking around for _Oma Vele House_ — that was their lodge. 🏠 You know how in student areas, compounds have names? Like a full lodge where different students stay? Their own was Oma Vele Lodge. She kept asking around. Some people pointed her in the right direction. Then she met someone who lived in the compound. The woman said, “Ah, I’m staying there oh! Let me just buy this thing, I’m already going home. I’ll take you there.” On the way, the woman asked, “Where are you coming from?” Emily said, “Ah, I’m coming from Port Harcourt.” The woman replied, “Okay, no problem.” They finally arrived at the compound. Emily told the woman she was looking for Grace and Rejoice. That made the woman pause. “Oh… _those girls_.” 😒 The way the woman said “those girls” — she sounded irritated. She didn’t show it much, but Emily noticed. She didn’t want to take it serious. The woman pointed to a door. Emily walked there. When she got there, she knocked. It took a few seconds, then the door swung open. 🚪 Grace met her eyeball to eyeball and shouted, “Ah! Emily, you are here! Oh my God! Rejoice, come and see oh! Come and see who we have here! Our visitor that we have been inviting for God-knows-when that has not been coming!” 😲 --- *I hear you loud and clear 💚 Thank you for typing it out.* *Let’s restart this scene clean. No voice note wahala again. I’ve got you.* --- When Grace saw her, all excitement, Rejoice walked in. She was thinking Grace was actually lying. But when she saw Emily, she shouted, “Ah! Emily! We have been inviting you and you have not been coming! This girl don finally come oh!” 😭 She hugged her tightly. But in that hug, she felt something strange. This was not the always bubbly, exciting, and vibrant Emily she knew. She closed the door and gestured for Emily to sit down. “Emily, what’s the problem?” Emily, with a fixed smile on her face, shook her head. “No, nothing is wrong.” But she couldn’t hold it in anymore. Tears started streaming down her eyes. 💧🔥 Grace and Rejoice looked at each other, then walked up to her. They sat down closer. “What’s the problem?” When she finally spoke, it was just three words: “Grandma is dead.” ⚰️ With just that word, Rejoice started crying. She didn’t know where the tears came from, but she knew she was just crying. Her tears were just rushing down her eyes, gushing down. She didn’t make a noise. She was just stiff. 😢 Grace looked at them both helplessly. _Why now?_ *_*_[Flashback] Rejoice used to stay with Emily, her brother, and Grandma. Her parents were dead, and she was staying with her uncle who was sexually abusing her. 😞 So Grandma took her in. When she turned seventeen, she told Grandma that she wanted to go to Lagos to make money for herself. Grandma told her she was too young. “Besides, I’m still earning money already. I’m taking care of you already. Just wait till you’re up to twenty before you make that kind of decision.” But Rejoice refused. “I want to make money. I want to make it enough so I can also help support Grandma, and Emily, and her brother.” So Grandma said okay. She gave her her blessings, and she went to Lagos. That’s how she began to stay in Lagos. 🏙️ Then Grace — the reason why Grace is also in Lagos: Grace was staying with her parents, but they hated her. There was a contract that would have allowed her father to go to the UK for business, and carry her mother — his wife — along. But it was tarnished because his wife got pregnant with Grace. 🤰🏾 After Grace was born, they thought they could still go for it, but it was already ruined. Ever since then, they put the blame on Grace. _“She is our bad luck,”_ and all that. 💔 So she went to stay with Rejoice in Lagos. That’s how they all stayed together in that house. And Grace knew about Emily. Grace knew about her brother. She used to visit. She used to go with Rejoice to visit their grandma and Emily once in a while, whenever they had a chance to drop foodstuff, give Grandma money. She was like family already. Even though she was not related by blood, she was family to them already. 👭🏾 --- When Grace saw how Rejoice and Emily were crying, she hugged them both. “Ah, is enough! Is enough oya oya oya!” she said, wiping their faces. “We need stew rice. This kind of crying now need stew rice.” 😂🍲 She started joking. “Make I go serve the stew rice come. Make we see how our chef… chef Rejoice cook.” That brought a shocked laugh out of Emily. Rejoice cleaned her tears. “Yes, yes. Is not time to cry. Is not time to cry. We need rice. We need _hot_ rice now for this kind of vibe, you understand?” They all burst out laughing. Even Emily could not hold her laugh anymore. 😭➡️😂 They went and brought the stew rice. And Rejoice was just boasting. “See, I’m a very good chef oh! The kind of man I will marry — correct man. Because eh, he need to taste my food. Cheap man will not taste my food oh. All these cheap cheap men, they no go taste my food.” 👩🏾‍🍳💅🏾 She said it, and they were all laughing. They all ate. And night fell. 🌙 Before Emily could sleep, a call came in. She picked up the call, and it was her brother’s school teacher — the one who had volunteered to keep in touch with her. She told her that her brother had settled in and everything was fine now. She wished her good luck in her own journey. 🍀 Emily was happy that at least somebody could pass information about her brother. She told the woman, “Thank you. I’m very grateful for what you’re doing.” She ended the call. Her sisters — Grace and Rejoice — looked at her. “So you didn’t even tell us what happened to your brother, eh?” Emily had to explain. “Oh, he is now in boarding school. I took him there because he had scholarship. Grandma didn’t have the money to sponsor him — to take him there and also sponsor his feeding. They only paid for his fees, just like that.” She told them, “Grandma didn’t have money to pay for his fees, so I told him to wait. But now that she’s… gone, I had to find the savings and add my own money so her brother could start staying there. Since it’s already a boarding school and fees have already been paid.” And when she told them, they were like, “Oh, we will just pray we have enough money so that we can be sending to him.” 🙏🏾 They all agreed. And that’s when they slept off. 😴