Angel remembered the day it happened.
She didn't just remember—she felt it.
The memory lived like an echo carved into her bones, a quiet ache she never fully outgrew.
It was during those years when life felt like a fight the family couldn't win.
A season of hunger, silence, and sleepless nights.
The kind of season where the walls of a home seemed to sag under the weight of prayers left unanswered.
The family business had crumbled like old bread.
Her father's savings—years of sweat and sacrifices—had vanished overnight, stolen by someone he once trusted as a brother. Angel could never forget the way he stared into space then, his hands constantly trembling, as if he couldn't tell whether he was gripping the present or holding on to the last strands of his sanity.
And her mother—God, her mother.
She was heavily pregnant, exhausted beyond measure, and fighting a battle that looked impossible.
The pregnancy wasn't just difficult—it was dangerous. Doctors whispered about complications, about risks, about possible outcomes that made everyone around her speak in hushed tones. Every step she took was a gamble between breath and death. Every night was a question no one could answer.
When things became unbearable, when the air itself felt tight enough to strangle, the arguments began.
Not petty arguments—existential ones.
Her mother stood her ground with a stubbornness that could have moved mountains if it wanted to. She insisted she would keep the baby, even if it meant she was choosing death with open eyes.
Her father, on the other hand, paced the house like a storm trapped in human skin. His voice would rise, crack, and soften within minutes.
"One can make another baby," he would say, voice trembling, "but I cannot make another you. There is only one of you."
Sometimes they argued so fiercely that the air vibrated. Sometimes her mother's laughter broke unexpectedly through the tension—soft, almost childish—as if she wanted to pretend she wasn't terrified. Other times she burst into tears, and her father, who was trying desperately not to lose both wife and child, would crumble beside her.
Their love was beautiful, messy, fragile… and unbearably loud.
So the daughters were separated.
Not out of abandonment—but survival.
Emma, the eldest, was sent to their mother's oldest brother—someone strict, wealthy, and disciplined. The kind of man whose home smelled of polished furniture and old books, the kind of home where emotions were locked away like secrets. Emma adapted fast, pretending she wasn't afraid.
Sarah went to the younger uncle, whose house was smaller, noisier, but filled with fierce protective love. She flourished there, learning how to stand up for herself in ways she never could at home.
Peace was sent the farthest—up north—to their father's third brother, where the winds were colder and the nights longer. There, she learned resilience the hard way, carrying water in metal buckets and waking up before the sun.
And Angel, quiet Angel, remained closest.
Not because she was the easiest to keep.
Not because she was the weakest.
But because she was the calmest.
She had always been the one who smoothed chaos with silence, who carried peace like a second skin, who could walk into a storm and convince it to sit still. The adults believed she needed proximity—someone within reach if things spiraled too deep, too suddenly.
Her stay was closest to home—close enough that if her mother screamed in pain or her father broke down unexpectedly, she could be summoned within minutes.
The memory of those days was painted in colors she could never forget:
• the dusty red roads she walked daily,
• the distant calls of evening hawkers,
• the metallic smell of the hospital her father frequented,
• the thick humidity that clung to their skin like fear,
• and the soft, trembling prayers that followed her everywhere.
Angel remembered the night everything changed—the night that would later connect her past to the moment Elena showed up at her gate.
But that memory…
that memory she held close, like a wound still bleeding beneath well-stitched clothes.
---
Here is a richly expanded, atmospheric, novel-styled continuation — faithful to your text, but deeper, longer, and more vivid:
At first, everything looked harmless.
The compound Angel stayed in was lively in the way only extended families could be—voices everywhere, metal pots clanging in the background, children racing barefoot on dusty tiles, the smell of beans and palm oil drifting from the kitchen. A place where laughter echoed more than doors slammed.
Everyone treated her nicely enough. Or at least, they pretended to.
Everyone except Elena.
Elena, with her smug smile and silk-smooth voice, the kind that could melt into sweetness in front of adults and turn razor-sharp when no one was looking. Elena, who decided from day one that Angel's struggles were an open door for cruelty. She seemed almost offended that Angel came from a family fighting to survive. As if poverty was a stain that offended her eyes.
During school, Angel's parents always sent their small contribution for feeding and school supplies. They tried. God knows they tried. Even in the middle of chaos, even with a pregnancy threatening to swallow the household whole, they never forgot their daughters.
But teenage cruelty didn't care about effort.
Elena made Angel's life a daily examination of humiliation.
Whenever Angel opened her small plastic food container, Elena would be there, snatching it, laughing, feeding her friends with Angel's lunch as though conducting some twisted charity program.
"Watch how she stares," Elena mocked one day. "As if we owe her something. Isn't she from that — what, struggling household?"
She made it a hobby. A ritual.
Angel would retreat to the children's library during break time, squeezing herself into the corner behind the tall shelves where no one went. She hid among dusty picture books and encyclopedias, listening to her stomach cry louder than she ever could. She learned to chew her tears instead of her food.
And James—the youngest son—wasn't innocent either.
James was not as vicious as Elena, at least not naturally. But cruelty is contagious. He followed Elena like a shadow desperate for approval, echoing her insults, demanding Angel do ridiculous chores, and sometimes, at night, whispering apologies that sounded flimsy and frightened. As if he knew he was wrong but didn't know how to stop.
But Angel endured.
For her parents, she would endure anything.
Still, nothing prepared her for the day she finally reported what was happening.
She stood before the adults—thin, anxious, clutching her skirt in trembling fists—and explained everything. How Elena stole her food, pushed her around, sent her friends after her, made school feel like a battlefield.
She prayed for help.
Hoped for justice.
Instead, she received a slap of words she carried for years:
"Why not tell your father to provide more for you?" Elena's mother had said casually, peeling an orange like she wasn't crushing a child's spirit. "I told my sister that man isn't good. Well… Elena loves you, that's her way of showing it. Stop being dramatic."
Angel's jaw had trembled.
Her breath hitched.
Her heart cracked a little.
That was the moment she realized: she was alone here. Completely alone.
No one was going to stop Elena.
In fact, they seemed entertained by her cruelty.
So with the last bit of coins she managed to hide, she ran to a payphone at the end of the dusty street—the kind of phone booth that smelled of rust, sweat, and rotting wood. She dialed her eldest sister. Then her second sister. Her voice shook as she pleaded:
"I want to go home," she wept. "I don't want to stay here. Can you tell Mama… please… to come for me?"
Her sisters never forgot that call.
Not Angel's trembling voice.
Not the way she cried like someone drowning without water.
Not the way her words cracked, carrying desperation no child should know.
Her mother arrived the next morning.
And what she found nearly broke her.
Angel was thin—shockingly thin. Her eyes were sunken, her skin pale, and her uniform hung off her like it belonged to a stranger. Cane marks—dark, ugly welts—wrapped around her arms, back, and legs like tattoos of suffering.
And Elena's family…
They didn't hide anything.
In fact, they casually blamed a teacher.
"Oh, it was the teacher," they lied shamelessly. "We've already handled her. She was wicked. Children these days suffer from that woman's hand."
Angel's mother looked confused but didn't argue. She believed them—believed that adults wouldn't lie about such a serious thing.
She took her daughter home, thinking Angel had simply been caught in the crossfire of a tough teacher.
That night, over dinner, Angel's father couldn't hide his worry.
"Are you sure she is safe?" he asked, poking at his food absentmindedly.
"Of course," his wife said, sipping water with forced calm. "The teacher hurt her. My sister confronted her sharply. They say everything is settled."
But Angel…
Angel was not safe.
Angel was far from safe.
Because before her mother rescued her, before that payphone call, something unspeakable had happened.
Something that would never leave her mind.
—
In Nigeria, there is a leaf called Agbara—a wicked leaf with wicked intentions. Touching it causes unbearable itching, burning, clawing desperation beneath the skin. People scratch until their skin bleeds. No normal person would use it on another human being.
But Elena was not normal.
Elena was cruelty with a heartbeat.
She gathered the leaves with a plastic bag, careful not to let them touch her own skin. She wore gloves—thick ones. She prepared her weapon with calculated, gleeful malice.
James stood beside her holding a branch, not knowing whether to look excited or terrified.
Their mother stood by the door, arms folded, watching—watching—as if witnessing a theatre performance.
And then they flogged Angel with it.
The first strike made her scream.
The second made her choke.
The third made her knees buckle.
By the tenth, her vision blurred.
By the twentieth, she felt fire dancing beneath her flesh, like a thousand invisible ants slicing her skin open with microscopic knives.
She scratched.
She yelled.
She begged.
And they enjoyed it.
Their mother smiled.
"Good," she murmured. "Let her cry. Let her learn."
Angel fainted.
Collapsed on the dusty floor—a small, broken body surrounded by laughter.
No one informed her parents.
No one apologized.
No one saw her humanity.
Just another day in the house where suffering was entertainment.
___
Angel's father had been uneasy
Even though the family was slowly recovering from the financial disaster that nearly swallowed them whole — the stolen money, the betrayal, the humiliation of starting from nothing again — something in his spirit refused to rest.
Every night, after closing his small shop, he would sit outside on the balcony with a cup of lukewarm tea, staring into the night as if waiting for an answer to a question he could not name.
His heart was unsettled.
His instincts restless.
Emma was the first to return home among the sisters. She had come back early to help their mother with the business, especially now that the pregnancy was becoming heavier, more complicated, more dangerous. She was the one who saw everything that night — the panic, the fear, the unraveling.
It was a Thursday evening.
The day had been long.
The pregnant mother had just closed her small shop, moving slower than usual, one hand always pressed to her hip to support the weight of the unborn child. Emma had stayed behind to help tidy the shop, pack the leftover produce, and talk with her mother the way daughters do when they share burdens without words.
They were both sitting outside the shop waiting for Mr. Simon to pick them when his car pulled up, headlights cutting across the dusty street.
He barely stepped out when his phone rang.
"Hello?" he answered, wiping sweat from his brow.
A brief pause.
"Are you Mr. Simon?" the voice asked.
"Yes, that's he," he replied, already frowning. Something about the tone was wrong. Too official. Too cold.
"It's regarding your daughter — Miss Simon Angel. Can you please come to the General Hospital?"
The world stopped.
As if the air had been sucked out of the evening sky.
Before anyone could process anything, the father's phone slipped from his hand and hit the ground with a sharp, hollow clack.
"Daddy, what happened?" Emma asked, already standing.
"Honey?" his wife whispered, gripping the edge of the shop's counter for support.
He swallowed. Hard.
"Let's go," was all he managed to say, but the tremor in his voice was unmistakable.
If Mrs. Simon ever thought her husband was the most patient driver in the world, that night proved how wrong she was.
The man who never honked unnecessarily, who never oversped, who always drove like a gentle breeze… became someone else entirely.
He drove like a man being chased by death itself.
Emma had to hold her mother's hand as the car swerved through bends, overtook startled motorcycles, and flew past streetlights with desperate urgency. Even then, the journey felt painfully slow.
The moment they arrived at the hospital, he didn't even bother turning off the ignition properly — the keys were still hanging, the car door left wide open.
He ran.
His slippers nearly flew off as he sprinted into the reception area, chest heaving, breath broken.
The receptionist flinched at the sight of him — sweat-drenched, wild-eyed, frantic — but years of training forced her to maintain a professional smile.
"Good evening, sir. How may I help you?"
"I'm here for Simon Angel," he blurted, voice cracking.
"One moment, sir."
Her fingers moved across the keyboard with practiced calm.
The short seconds felt like hours.
Then she looked up.
"Upstairs. Ward Four. Second door to your right."
"Thank you," he muttered, already rushing. His wife and Emma followed as quickly as they could manage.
When they reached the corridor of Ward Four, the pungent smell of disinfectant hit them first — sharp, sterile, suffocating. Just then, the doctor stepped out of a room, flipping through a patient file.
"What happened to my daughter?!" Mr. Simon asked immediately, his tone shaking with contained terror.
The doctor paused.
Her eyes moved from the father… to the pregnant mother, pale and unsteady… to Emma, who looked like someone holding her breath underwater… and back to the father.
"You are her father?" the doctor asked.
"Yes, I'm the father. What happened to my daughter?" he repeated, voice hoarse from the pressure he had been swallowing since the call.
The doctor exhaled slowly.
"Can I speak to you in my office? Please."
He looked to his wife — her trembling hands, her swollen feet, the fear already dancing in her eyes — and then back to the doctor.
"Okay."
He turned to them.
"Go inside. I'll be back."
Then he followed the doctor down the hallway.
Her office was quiet. Too quiet.
"Please, tell me what happened," he said before she even shut the door behind them.
"Sir," she began, her voice calm but serious, "you need to stay composed. Your daughter is alive."
He sank into the chair, but his body was stiff. His fingers curled tightly around his knees.
"She wouldn't be in the hospital if she were fine," he whispered. "Tell me what happened."
The doctor studied him for a moment, as though weighing how much truth he could bear.
"From everything I've observed," she said slowly, "it seems you did not know what has been happening to her."
His heart hammered. His jaw clenched.
"Doctor," he said in a deep, dangerous voice, "go straight to the point. What happened to my daughter?"
The doctor folded her arms on her desk and leaned forward.
"Someone found your daughter inside a freezer."
The world spun.
"What—what?" His voice cracked as the words stabbed through him like shards of ice.
"She survived, but barely," the doctor continued. "From the scars all over her body, and the level of malnutrition, she was clearly being bullied. Severely."
He pressed a hand to his mouth, shaking violently.
"You're saying… my daughter suffered all this… and no one told me?"
The doctor nodded, her expression softening.
"Mr. Simon… these were not accident wounds. And no teacher did that. A freezer for storing meat and fish? That was intentional harm. Someone hurt that child, repeatedly."
His vision blurred.
His breath hitched.
It felt like someone had stabbed him in the heart, ripped it out, and stomped on it.
His daughter.
His calm, gentle Angel.
Frozen. Starved. Beaten. Abused.
While he believed she was safe.
He gripped the edge of the chair so tightly his knuckles turned white.
"My God… my little girl…"
And in that moment — that single, shattering moment — Mr. Simon understood something:
He had failed her.
Not intentionally, not knowingly…
But he had failed her.
And someone… someone… was going to pay for this.
___
The house felt heavier than usual that evening—thick with an unspoken sorrow that clung to the air like humidity before a storm. No one talked about anything. Not the freezer. Not the scars. Not the fact that Angel—their Angel—was lying in a hospital bed with tubes taped to her fragile skin.
The father blamed no one but himself.
He moved around the house like a ghost, each step burdened with guilt so raw it stung to breathe.
And because the family Angel stayed with was wealthy—wealthy enough to buy their way out of the sun itself—there was nothing the Simons could do. Not legally. Not socially. Not without risking more pain.
Sarah and Peace had rushed home the moment the news reached them. They didn't even pack a bag. The thought of Angel in a coma had ripped through their chests like a blade.
Now, the three sisters sat in the dim living room, shadows curling across their faces. The curtains fluttered with the evening breeze, but the air inside was suffocating. No TV. No background noise. Just the low hum of an old fan and the weight of everything they could never unhear.
Emma spoke first. Her voice wavered.
"…They threatened to sue us if we ever make things difficult for Elena." She rubbed her palms together anxiously. "That's what the father said. Like—like we were the criminals."
Peace sank deeper into the couch, exhaling sharply. Frustration trembled in her limbs.
"I can't believe this," she muttered. "Elena did something wrong—evil. She tortured Angel. And the parents allowed it. Enabled it. Protected it."
Her voice cracked.
"And while Angel is lying in that hospital bed stuffed with wires, fighting for her life, they're in their home, eating dinner and pretending to be saints."
Silence.
Then—unexpectedly—Sarah laughed.
A sharp, chilling laugh.
But tears streamed down her cheeks, glistening like tiny broken shards.
"No one messes with our sister," she whispered, voice trembling, "and gets away with it."
She stood abruptly.
"Where are you going?" Peace asked, sitting up.
Sarah turned slowly, her eyes an unsettling blend of fury and heartbreak. Those eyes could melt stone.
"Don't worry," she said, forcing a bitter smirk. "I'm not as heartless as that family. I won't kill anyone. Jail doesn't suit me, remember?"
She stepped out of the house, the door clicking shut behind her like the final note of a funeral hymn.
THE WALK TO THE DEVIL'S HOUSE.
Sarah's footsteps echoed down the quiet street. The sun had long dipped, leaving the sky bruised with purples and deep orange. Streetlights flickered on one by one, casting long shadows that stretched behind her like warnings.
But Sarah didn't stop.
Didn't think.
Didn't breathe.
She walked with the determination of an avenging spirit—one who had endured enough.
The moment she reached their gate, she didn't bother with manners. She banged—hard.
The sound rattled through the quiet neighborhood, violent and sharp, like something breaking.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
Anyone inside would think armed robbers had arrived.
Footsteps hurried behind the metal gate, then it swung open—
And there she stood.
Elena.
The devil in a child's skin.
Before the girl could even ask who was at the door, Sarah's hand shot out and wrapped around her throat.
Not gently.
Not hesitantly.
Like someone who had already imagined this moment a thousand times.
Elena gagged, eyes widening in shock and terror as Sarah shoved her backward into the compound. The girl clawed at Sarah's wrist, legs trembling.
Sarah dragged her inside with the strength of pure rage.
The household members rushed out, confusion melting into horror as they saw Sarah—breathing hard, eyes bloodshot, holding their precious daughter by the throat.
"Sarah! Let my daughter go!" Elena's mother screamed, voice cracking.
"Oh? It feels good, doesn't it?" Sarah hissed, tightening her grip, forcing Elena to her knees. "You're enjoying it the same way you enjoyed watching my sister suffer, right?"
"She's just a girl," the mother cried.
"Oh please," Sarah barked out a laugh—cold, venomous. "My sister is also a child. But that didn't stop your daughter from treating her like a toy. Like trash. Like a punching bag."
Sarah leaned down, her forehead nearly touching Elena's.
"I hope you love this," she whispered, voice dripping poison. "Because I do."
Elena's face was red, eyes flooding with tears, fingers shaking violently as she gasped for air.
The mother stepped forward again.
"Sarah didn't kill her! She's alive isn't she? Let my daughter go!"
Sarah laughed. The sound was the kind that shredded pride—raw, cruel, almost unhinged.
"No," she said softly. "She's barely alive. And it's all thanks to you. You taught your daughter this. You encouraged it."
She stared directly into Elena's terrified eyes.
"If she survives today, she won't survive me in the future."
Everyone froze.
Sarah straightened, still gripping Elena by the neck. She looked around the room slowly—taking in every terrified face like she was memorizing them.
"I came with a warning," she said coldly.
Every word landed like a knife.
"Never cross our family again. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not in ten years."
Her voice lowered to a dangerous whisper.
"We won't come to yours. Don't come to ours. Others may forgive, but I never forget."
She bent down, speaking directly against Elena's ear.
"If I ever see you—or any of you—cross our path, I swear on the head of this house, you will either be six feet under or one step from a coffin."
Then—without warning—Sarah shoved Elena violently to the floor.
The girl skidded across the tiles, coughing and gasping, unable to stand.
Sarah walked out without looking back.
But once she stepped outside the gate…
Once the darkness swallowed her…
Her shoulders began to shake.
She cried all the way home.
___
Three months passed like a slow-moving storm—heavy, unpredictable, and hurting everything in its path. The hospital visits had become routine, almost ritualistic. Every morning, the Simons woke with the same prayer on their lips; every night, they returned home with that same ache sitting in their chests like an immovable stone.
Angel still lay in her white hospital bed, tiny beneath the layers of blankets. The room always smelled faintly of disinfectant mixed with something floral—lavender, maybe—because her mother had insisted on placing a small sachet under her pillow. "So she won't smell sickness," she had said.
And then—
on a quiet weekday morning, while the sunlight spilled through the blinds in soft golden strips—
Angel's fingers twitched.
Nurse Amaka, who had stepped in to adjust the IV line, almost dropped the chart. Her breath caught.
"Angel?" she whispered, leaning closer.
The girl's eyelids fluttered—slowly, shakily—like someone waking from a deep ocean sleep. When her eyes finally opened, they were glazed and dazed, unfocused like she was seeing the world after years underwater. Safe's heart raced.
She pressed the call button.
A moment later, her parents burst into the room—disheveled, breathless.
Mrs. Simon nearly collapsed at the sight.
"Angel? Baby?" her mother cried, rushing to the bed.
Angel blinked at them, confused. She opened her mouth to speak, but only a dry, cracked sound escaped. Her father hurried to pour water into a cup, hands trembling so much the water splashed onto the floor. He steadied himself, lifted the straw to her lips.
Angel took one small sip.
Then another.
And then—
"Daddy?" she whispered, her voice barely more than air.
He dropped the cup. It shattered on the tiles.
Mrs. Simon sobbed loudly—the kind of cry that broke a person from the inside. She pulled Angel into a gentle embrace, her tears dampening the girl's hair. The father paced in circles, hands on his head, muttering prayers of gratitude beneath his breath. Emma stood at the doorway, crying silently, shoulders shaking.
It felt like a resurrection.
Dr. Adekunle entered minutes later, flipping through her file with careful hands. She examined Angel gently—reflexes, pupils, pulse, breathing. Then she stepped aside, folding her arms as she studied the girl.
"Angel, sweetheart," the doctor said softly, "do you know where you are?"
Angel looked around the room—the white walls, the beeping monitor, the vase of wilted flowers Peace had brought last week—but her expression remained lost.
"I… don't know," she whispered.
Her mother blinked, startled. "You don't?" she asked softly.
Angel shook her head.
The doctor took a seat, her face settling into a mix of professionalism and empathy.
"It's normal," she said to the parents, her tone calm and reassuring. "Trauma can force the brain to protect itself. Sometimes memories don't return. Sometimes they return slowly. Sometimes… not at all."
Mr. Simon nodded, holding Angel's hand tightly as if afraid she would disappear again.
"So she doesn't remember what happened?"
"No," the doctor replied. "And I advise you don't force it. Her mind will remember what it feels ready to remember. Let her heal at her own pace. Don't stress her."
She gave Angel one last warm look, then quietly stepped out of the room, leaving the family to their fragile miracle.
And just like that… life shifted.
Angel's memories of the nightmare had dissolved completely.
The screams.
The freezer.
The leaf.
The bullying.
The hunger.
The betrayal.
Gone—swept away by the mind's instinct to survive.
She remembered her family.
Her school lessons.
Her favorite cartoons.
But the months of torture lived only in the eyes of those who had witnessed her downfall.
The Simons chose not to remind her.
Not to burden her.
Not to anchor her to the cruelty of that chapter.
So Angel healed the way forgotten wounds often do—slowly, unknowingly, gently.
She became the pampered daughter they cherished, the one they protected fiercely, the one they whispered blessings over at night. She grew firmer in spirit, more independent, but still surrounded by a kind of love that hovered over her like a shield.
They watched her laugh again.
Eat again.
Sleep without trembling.
Live without fear.
Her parents learned to respect her independence.
Her sisters treated her like a treasure returned.
And Angel… Angel became the girl they loved and admired—strong, quiet, and resilient, even without remembering the storm she had survived.
Some memories destroy.
Others heal by vanishing.
Angel's had chosen the latter.