It was exactly 3am in the morning when we heard a loud bang on our door. This startled everyone as sleep disappeared from our eyes. We were just three living in a room and parlour self-contain around Alagbado area in Lagos. On hearing the loud bang, my mum, my dad and I woke up suddenly from our sleep. At first, we all kept quiet as we suspiciously began to stare at one another. The loud bang came a second time and louder than the first. This time around we all jumped to our feet as fear flooded our minds.
"Turn off the lights!", my dad said to my mum and she hurriedly obeyed the instruction. Where I stood, I was lost to the world as my body began to vibrate all of a sudden. My hands and feet began to sweat and I felt cold and hot at the same time in my body. On the other hand, my mom knelt down and began to pray. "Oluwa joor (God please). Jesu sanu fun wa oo (Jesus have mercy on us). Ma je ka rogun ajalu oo (Don't let us experience evil oo)", she prayed in a fearful manner.
The third bang on the door came as a consistent one. "Gbam! Gbam! Gbam! Gbam!", it sounded. On hearing this, I trembled. I began to cry as I reminisced on the story which my friend, Kelechi, narrated to me on our way back from school. "Timi, they came oo", she said. "Who?", I asked. "The one million boys of course.", she answered. "Ah! To your house?", I exclaimed. "God forbid.", she said as she looked at me with a bad eye. "To our neighbor's house ooo.", she continued.
"It was a terrible experience according to what I was told ooo. Just three robbers with mask on their faces burgled their house. They were armed with guns and knives. But I thank God they didn't shoot anyone ooo". I listened attentively as cold shivers ran through my body when she mentioned guns and knives. "Infact, they came at exactly 3am in the morning. After several bangs on their door with no response, they broke the door and entered the house." "What!", I exclaimed. "They took a lot of things from the house including the money which the market women contributed and kept in the hands of our neighbor's wife." "Gbese! (Debt!)" I shouted.
The fourth bang on our door woke me up from my reverie. My mom began to pace all around the house with her two hands on her head. "Honey, what are we going to do?", she said to my dad who rushed to get the mopping stick at the back of our toilet door and ready to attack whosoever and whatsoever. "One million boys ooo, I think they're the one. Jesus, please help us oo", she cried in fear.
"Who is it?", my dad shouted with all the courage left in him but there was no response. He moved a little closer to the door and shouted a second time, "I said who is it?". "Na me ooo (It is l oo)", a voice said from outside. "Baba Timi, sorry ooo, abeg na your car battery I wan borrow mek I tek boost my car. I need to commot from this house before 5am mek I no jam the hold-up wey go hold me before I reach Eko market (Baba Timi , I'm sorry. Please I want to borrow your car battery to boost my car. I have to leave this house before 5am in order to avoid the traffic jam on my way to Eko market.)".
We recognised the voice almost immediately. It's Baba Chukwudi's voice. A neighbour who lives in the next flat. "Ah!", I exclaimed as a strong wave of relief rushed through me.
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The story told you by your friend about armed robbers who burgled a house was enough spice to fuel the fear that crippled the family but then, the neighbor didn't mean to cause such scene as he had a fairly genuine reason because of the discomforting Lagos traffic.
Nicely told
Yes oo. 😁 Thank you.
You're welcome
A nicely delivered story. What a scary experience. Thank goodness it didn't turn out to be anything sinister! Thank you for taking our guidance on board regarding your choice of images and thank you for supporting other writers in the community :-) Two points to note for future reference: (1) Commas do not always follow dialogue. They do though if not other punctuation has been used to end the dialogue. In your story you have added commas immediately after exclamation marks and periods. This should not happen. Have you tried using Grammarly or writing in Google Docs to identify these issues? I would recommend it to elavate your writing BUT don't be tempted to use any functionality that suggests rephrasing, improving, fluency, or restructuring sentences and these will flag as AI in our detection software. (2) We recommend that writers stick to a minimum word count of 750 words to avoid the risk of their pieces falling short in one or more elements of good fiction writing.
Thank you for writing in The Ink Well. We look forward to your next piece 🙂
Thank you Inkwell. Thank you for your corrections. I'll definitely see to my use of punctuations and also download Grammarly app. I really appreciate this.
:-)
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STOPOkay, hivebuzz. Thank you.
There are moments of tension and fear that we have all experienced at some point in our lives. The feeling of vulnerability when the unknown lurks at night is a theme I have written about many times, perhaps fueled by my fears and paranoias. The familiar and known voice can bring comfort and relief in times of uncertainty. Congratulations on conveying those very human and real emotions in your story. My greetings and blessings to you for sharing this poignant experience.
Thank you so much.😊