The bullet did not know Ajifa.
It did not know her father's name was Okoliko, or that he smelled of engine oil and bitter kola, or that he always tapped twice on the door before entering the room so he wouldn't startle his children. It did not know that he had promised to buy Ajifa sandals the next market day, or that he carried Olanna on his shoulders even when his back hurt. The bullet only knew speed. It tore through the
night like it had somewhere important to be, slipping past shouting men and chaos and gun smoke, finding its destination in the center of Okoliko's chest.
Ajifa was seven years old when her world ended, though it took her many years to realize it. She was holding her father's hand
when it happened, One moment he was walking—complaining about the rising price of fuel, muttering something about cult boys and foolish bravado—and the next moment his fingers loosened around hers. His body jerked once, sharply, as if surprised. Ajifa looked up, ready to complain that he was squeezing too hard, instead, she saw red, not
a lot of it, just enough.
Okoliko fell forward without drama. No final words. No goodbye. His body hit the ground with a dull sound that Ajifa would later hear in her dreams, long after sleep stopped coming easily. People screamed, someone dragged
her away. Someone else shouted that it was a stray bullet, that it wasn't meant for him, that these things happen during clashes.
These things happen. Ajifa did not cry.
She stood frozen, her small fingers still curved as though her father's hand was still there, somewhere behind her, her mother Uki was wailing—not loudly, but deeply, like something had torn loose inside her chest and could not be put back.That night, Ajifa learned her first lesson: Death does not ask for permission.
Three years later, death returned—not with a bullet, but with silence. The doctors said brain tumor in the same way people said rainy season—as though it were inevitable, as though it had always been waiting. They said it could have been treated if they had come earlier. They did not ask where the money would have come from.
Ajifa was ten.
Ten-year-olds should not know how to negotiate prices with drug sellers, or how to hawk sachet water until their feet blister, or how to identify which men would look away when she slipped something small into her pocket. But Ajifa learned quickly, she learned because Uki was shrinking, her mother never complained, never cried, even when her hands shook, even when the headaches bent her spine, Uki would still sit up straight and remind Ajifa to help Olanna wash her hands before eating.
Olanna was five and far too observant. "We'll be fine," Olanna would say sometimes, her voice soft but certain, as though she were reassuring herself. "Big sister always fixes things." Ajifa never corrected her. Extended family came and went like bad weather—offering sympathy instead of help, prayers instead of money. Some brought small notes folded carefully, as though ashamed of how little they were giving,others came empty-handed but full of advice, "God will make a way." Ajifa stopped listening.
Days became weeks. Weeks stretched into months. Medications ran out faster than hope. Ajifa counted money obsessively, stacking naira notes like they might multiply if she stared hard enough. They never did.
At twelve, Ajifa made a decision that would carve her life in two, the man was someone her mother trusted. A family friend. Someone who had once asked for help from Uki and she came through for him, someone who now sat comfortably in his living room, speaking softly, eyes too attentive.
"I can help," he said. "But help is not free."
Ajifa understood immediately, she did not cry, didn't argue. She however stalled for a year, measuring time the way prisoners do—one day at a time—until her mother's condition worsened and the waiting became unbearable.
She never let her family in on what was going on, on the night it happened, Ajifa stared at the ceiling and thought of nothing at all.
December 24th. A day meant for celebration. For Ajifa, it was the day everything finished breaking, she left the man's house late, her body numb, her hands shaking around the money she had earned with something she could never get back. He had wanted more. She had said no.
He had laughed. When he tried to stop her, Ajifa reacted without thinking—her hand finding the fork on the small table beside the bed. The motion was instinctive. Survival stripped of morality, she did not stay to watch him bleed. She ran.
At the hospital, she was too late, her mother died minutes before Ajifa arrived, her kid sister Olanna who was just seven at the time on receiving the news of their mom's death, ran out of the hospital, barefoot, crying her sister's name into the dark, the sound was loud, the silence louder, the driver never stopped, Ajifa sat beside her mother's body, staring at the stillness, waiting for something—anything—to make it make sense, almost immediately she was informed of her sister's death, shattering her world, not long after the police arrived, charging her with murder, it turned out the man she stabbed in self defense died from his injury, by the time the police took her away, she had lost herself, that night, as handcuffs closed around her wrists, she felt something inside her go quiet.
Not anger. Not fear. Something colder. Permanent.
This was the beginning.