School was supposed to be a place of safety.
That was what my mother used to tell me when she braided my hair neatly and adjusted my torn uniform.
"Education will save you, Chibuzo," she would say.
"No matter how hard life is, school will open doors."
But in Aunt Ezinne's house, even school became another weapon against me.
After the night she locked me outside in the rain, I fell sick. My body was hot, my head heavy, my joints aching like I was an old man trapped inside a child's body. I coughed until my chest hurt. Still, at dawn, she kicked my mat.
"Get up. Are you dead?"
I tried to stand. My legs shook, and I fell back down.
"Aunty… my body is hot," I whispered.
She touched my forehead briefly and hissed.
"You're pretending. If you can't die, stand up."
She sent me to school anyway.
My uniform was wet from the previous night's rain. It clung to my skin, cold and uncomfortable. I walked barefoot most of the way, my slippers long spoiled. Every step hurt.
In class, I couldn't concentrate. Words on the blackboard danced before my eyes. My stomach was empty, my body weak. When the teacher asked me a question, I stood up slowly, dizzy.
I didn't answer fast enough.
"Are you stupid?" the teacher shouted and flogged me in front of the class.
The class laughed.
I wanted the ground to open and swallow me, the same way it had swallowed my mother.
During break time, other children bought snacks. I sat under a tree, watching them chew bread and biscuits. Hunger tightened my throat. A boy noticed me staring and mocked me.
"Orphan, go and beg your aunt."
I looked away.
That afternoon, the teacher called me aside.
"Your school fees have not been paid again," he said sternly.
"If you come tomorrow without it, don't enter my class."
My heart sank.
At home, I told Aunt Ezinne quietly.
She dropped her spoon and stared at me.
"So now you are embarrassing me in school?"
She didn't ask how much. She didn't ask when it was due.
She beat me.
"You think money is picked from the ground?" she shouted.
"If they send you away, stay at home and work for me!"
The next day, I was sent out of class.
I sat on the dusty ground outside, listening to lessons I was no longer allowed to attend. Tears ran down my face, but I wiped them quickly. Crying had become useless.
From that day, school attendance became irregular. Some weeks I went. Some weeks I didn't. Whenever she needed someone to hawk, wash clothes, or run errands, school no longer mattered.
One day, while hawking under the hot sun, a car almost knocked me down. I fell, my tray scattering on the road. Sachet water burst everywhere.
When I returned home with nothing, she didn't ask what happened.
She flogged me.
Her children joined in again—pushing me, calling me names, mocking my tears.
"See how he's crying like a baby," Ifeanyi laughed.
"You deserve it."
That night, I lay on the floor, my body aching, my heart heavier than ever.
I realized something slowly, painfully:
They were not just hurting my body.
They were killing my future.
Each missed class.
Each unpaid fee.
Each beating that left me too weak to learn.
I was being pushed into darkness step by step.
And as I stared into the night, hunger clawing at my stomach, tears soaking my mat, I whispered words I barely understood myself:
If I don't escape one day, I will disappear completely.
This was Chapter Ten—
where even school, my last hope, was turned into another form of suffering. 😭