章節 2: Failed In War
My name is Nafeesa Al-Amin, born in one of the small city in the country in middle east Asia.
My mother died after giving birth to me.
"Oh my precious jem, my Nafeesa, take good care of her Abdul" were the last words that my mother said to my father before taking her last breath, while holding the newborn me tightly in her arms.
I never got to know her personally but the stories that I heard about her from my father made me always want to meet her, it's not like my father wasn't there for me or didn't treated me nicely, he loved me very much and did his best to play his part as a father and also cover for the gap that my mother left.
All I had of her was my name which she imparted to me on her deathbed and her favorite hijab which was pink in color that I wore on my head for everyday since I was five years old.
My father told me that my grandmother sew the hijab herself for my mother when she was near my age.
He also told me that at first she didn't like to wear it and would often ask grandmother to buy the one from the shop just like how the other girls did, but after grandmother passed away when my mother was twelve, she started wearing it everyday till the very end of her life.
My mother wore it on the day of her nikah (marriage) as well, she bought her wedding dress so that it would match her hijab and not the other way around like other girls. When my father asked her the reason behind it she told him that whenever she wears it she feels like her mother is still with her caressing her head.
To be honest whenever I wore it I could feel her embracing me, just the way she did while naming me.
I had a normal and happy life, with a loving father who made sure that I got a good and fulfilling life but one day everything changed.
Rumors of a civil war starting was spreading like a wildfire in our small town.
Some people started hoarding food supplies and fortunately my father was one of them because later on the people of our town will come to know the true value of food.
It was the day of my tenth birthday when the war started, me and my father prepared a small feast and we enjoyed it very much unaware of the danger that we would have to face soon, that day got imprinted on my mind as it was one of the last good memory that I had with my father.
Due to the war, our town's food supply got reduced, because the government's main focus became the soldiers fighting off the rebellions and the terrorist groups that were increasing day by day.
We didn't had much problem as others at first because of my father's wise thinking on stocking up food supplies and other essentials but we still had them.
People were starving because of the shortage of the food and my father even tried to help them by sharing a bit of his own food, but it wasn't enough.
Our food stock slowly decreased and we knew that it couldn't last us forever, so we had to rationalize it and my father would often go to sleep with an unfilled stomach, but he made sure that I didn't had to suffer the same.
The food stocked ended and we also started starving. Most of the town including us suffered from malnourished and few of them had already died due to starvation.
I never complained or cried about how less food i got because I knew the sacrifices my father had to make to put them on our plate.
Years passed by and the war continued without any sign of stopping in the near future, due to this the conditions got even worse, nearly half of the town's population had already perished to starvation.
The terrorist groups across our country kept on rising and one such group decided to take our town as the base of their operation.
Those terrorists would often come come take away our little amount of food that we had and those who tried to defied them were shot at the spot with no mercy and they would also take away men to do menial labour and women for their pleasures. All those who were taken away were never seen again and all their family could do was cry and uselessly beg.
The town which once was filled with happiness and peace was now left desolate and was filled with sorrow and death.
My father was planning to escape from the town with me because my body was maturing and soon I might catch some terrorists eyes and I will have to share the same fate as those who were taken away and he didn't wanted that for me.
The terrorist patrolled the town to prevent anyone from escaping like us or to let anybody enter their territory and they also had guards set up a few miles away form the town's border.
My father had to plan this escape very carefully because he would get only one chance and there was no option of failure as failure means death for him and a future worse than death for his daughter, me.
We decided to run at night because it would be completely dark at night as there were no electricity for the street lights to work and no body in our town cared to lit a torch outside their houses and the terrorist didn't had any good equipments and only a few carried torches.
We were somehow able to exit the town and now the only obstacle between us and our freedom were the terrorist which were stationed a few miles away.
We traveled there fast but without attracting any attention and hid behind a large rock which was nearly forty feet away from the point where the terrorists were stationed.
My father was thinking of some way to distract them and all I could do at that point was hide and think about the freedom that lay before me after all this is over.
"Nafeesa, my dear daughter, listen to me carefully now, I will start running now to distract those terrorists, this will give you a chance to run away", my father said to me holding his tears back.
"But baba, please don't leave me, what will I do without you" I said knowing about the implications of what he was about to do, I couldn't control my tears like my father and started crying at the spot, thankfully we were at a safe distance so that we would not be heard.
"I promised your mother that I will take care of you and who is saying that I'm leaving you, I will always be in here" he said pointing his finger at my heart " and how will I answer to our God if I let my precious gem suffer because of my selfishness"
"I don't care i just want you to be with me" and I hugged him very tightly so that he would not leave.
He pushed me away with tears trickling down his cheeks, he couldn't control his tears anymore and told me to listen carefully for a signal and started running towards the terrorist group so that they would notice him and changed his direction away from my hiding position.
His plan worked and the terrorist started chasing him, they tried to shoot him, but missed because he was moving very fast and it was too dark to properly aim a gun in.
Then after a few minutes I heard my father shouting, I thought it was the signal and I started running, the way was clear no terrorist on sight and I kept on running while I was still crying about my father, I couldn't let his sacrifice go to waste.
There were some tents set up on the spot, but I didn't dared to waste any time and check inside for anything that might help me.
After running for a few meters away from the tent, I heard some loud bangs which were followed by a stabbing pain at my back, it seems like a few terrorist stayed behind and were inside the tents and when they saw my shadow from the tents, they came rushing out.
And then I felt another pain at my leg caused by another bullet, my body fell on the ground, no longer able to balance.
"She would have made a nice toy, if she hadn't tried to run" said one of the terrorist approaching my almost dead body and holding my face up by my hijab.
My body was filled with immense pain to even notice these things and the only think that my mind could think about was that I failed my father and he had to sacrifice himself.
And that's all I remember before waking up in the white room and that's how the story of Nafeesa Al-Amin, a failure of a person's life came to a bitter end.
每周推薦票狀態
-- 推薦票
榜單 
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