Life's Journey

The Orphanage

While Julia was sleeping a man entered her room, he woke her up telling her to take off her clothes. She was so surprised and asked him what he wanted and he said "I paid Mrs Kotu in order to copulate with you". Julia quickly got up and went to the girl whom was already being copulated with. The man called Mrs Kotu who scolded her saying "don't you know what was done in my establishment; this is a brothel. You better go in with him or you can pay for all the conveniences you've enjoyed". Having no money and no other option, she just went in with him. After everything was over, she just couldn't stop crying about losing her virginity. She decided to stay there and continue being a p********e since it was better than living under a bridge plus she had nothing else to lose. Unknowingly, her first night as a p********e led to something. Julia noticed that she missed her period, had nausea and started vomiting, she also had to go to the restroom frequently. She was really afraid and went to tell Mrs Kotu. She was taken to the hospital where they ran a test on her confirming that she was three weeks pregnant. Immediately the news was confirmed, Mrs Kotu asked them to abort the pregnancy. Julia refused as she was afraid of abortion and said that she was going to be having the baby. The pregnancy didn't prevent Julia from copulating with men as Mrs Kotu forced her in order to still make money.

Nine months later, Julia gave birth to two beautiful little girls, one was fair with red hair while the other was dark with brown hair. She named the fair one Saheel and the dark one Barka. She fed them and dozed off while Mrs Kotu carried them and dropped them off at an orphanage. Few hours later Julia woke up looking for her babies but Mrs Kotu told her "don't worry my dear, I have taken them to a place they could have a better life" and Julia relaxed. Few days later, she went back to her p**********n abandoning Saheel and Barka at the orphanage.

Saheel and Barka grew up at the orphanage facing a tough life. They were at the orphanage for thirteen years with Ellen, the one in charge. Ellen was a young woman who got divorced due to her habits of cheating on her husband and sleeping around with men. Ellen was a thirty three years old woman and had about seven boyfriends who use her for money. She was the only one in charge of the kids at the orphanage. There were about one hundred and fifty two kids at orphanage and Ellen was the only one to take care of them. The orphanage was sponsored by their local government who paid a sum of one hundred thousand naira a month to Ellen to take care of the kids but Ellen keeps about eighty dollars for herself and uses the rest to take care of them. In the orphanage, it was always like they were in prison, about forty orphans sleep in a room with no windows, which means no ventilation, they even call it the no ventilation room. She would always lock them up in a dark room or leave them out in the scorching sun if they do as much as complain about their condition. Many orphans suffer from malnutrition because she hoards their food money. Six orphans died in the orphanage due to inadequate healthcare. Many got skin disease while staying under the hot sun while others suffer from depression, anxiety and PTSD. She would give them spoilt food and water in order to save money to give to her boyfriends. Some orphans even tried to escape from the orphanage but were caught by Ellen who severely punished them and installed gates so it won't ever happen again. She always has it out for Saheel and Barka as they were the most stubborn ones of the orphans, like on a faithful day they were very famished and hadn't eaten all day, they asked Ellen for food but she said "get lost, you nimrods!!!". Then Saheel decided to go get some food from Ellen's room while Barka hid in a corner and waited for her. Saheel walked up to her door as she hesitated to open it "I have to do this for my sister", she said to herself as she gently pushed the door open.

As soon as she took a step into the room a girl yelled "I caught you" Saheel became frightened, quickly, she went to the girl and begged her not to talk and surprisingly the girl said to her "I want in". Saheel was surprised and together they went to get some food. They took what they could as they were able to take three chicken legs and two plates of rice. They took it to the corner where Barka hid and there, they ate it together. Using that opportunity, Saheel and Barka introduced themselves and the girl did so to. "My name is Asa; my dad passed away just when my mom was pregnant with me. We had no friends nor relatives and lived in our church where we had a lot of enemies who would call us gold diggers for being so poor and had always wanted to kick us out of the church. In order to take care of me, my mom would go doing different jobs. She would go from carrying blocks for bricklayers to selling drinks in traffic, cleaning people's houses and doing their laundry. She was always overwhelmed by the stress and a day came when she was carrying blocks to a bricklayer, suddenly, she collapsed hitting her head on a pavement. The bricklayer didn't even bother to help her as he just kept complaining about her which was how she died" she said in tears as some of the other orphans caught them eating and decided to join them. "When my mom passed away, I was all alone" she continued. "My enemies finally caught up to me and they kicked me out of the church. I had no home and just roamed around on the streets and begged for food then one afternoon as I was passing by, I saw this orphanage and begged Ellen for me to stay here and she agreed. I thought this was the best thing that ever happened to me but instead it was the worst" she said as they suddenly heard Ellen scream saying "which one of you rats stole my food!!!". All the orphans quickly disappeared leaving the three girls to face their punishment.

As punishment, Ellen tied them up under the scorching sun all day and at night she locked them up in the no ventilation room. The next morning, she brought them out calling out all the orphans and told them to kneel down beating them mercilessly and didn't stop until she was satisfied. They had so many bruises and promised to never in their lives steal again. Ellen continued to maltreat the orphans and neglected her duties as their guardian until Asa finally got sick of it and had an idea to escape. She told Saheel and Barka who quickly agreed to it without thinking twice which was how they hatched a plan.