SOLO ESCAPE

In her dream, she saw her mom. Her mom held her hands and walked with her through a forest, they got to a specific point where her mom just stopped suddenly.All these while, there had been no sort of conversation. Zeruta's mum turned and looked intently into the eyes of Zeruta, and then, she hugged her and started crying, both mother and daughter held each other in embrace, shedding tears for about fifteen minutes before separating from each other. Zeruta's mom later told her how much she loved her and how she had missed her."Zeruta", her mom called out to her, "mum", she replied, "I have something to tell you", her mom said. "What is it mom?", "There's a war brewing and the Zaandi Clan is in danger, I see darkness coming over the clan. I just hope it isn't as serious as I think it is, there's a secret I want to tell you, there's this ….", before her mum could finish speaking, her mum vanished and Zeruta was left in a dark fog. She couldn't hear or see anything, the next moment, she found herself in her room.She started reminiscing over all her mother told her, she couldn't really understand,she then thought about telling her father but later decided not to. She got up and decided she was going to protect the Zaandi Clan no matter what happened. Just as she was still meditating, she heard a loud shout outside; she immediately ran out of her room and discovered that the Zaandi Clan was under attack. There was smoke everywhere. The entire village had been set ablaze by the Zumba, Salmi and Mazil Clans. The Zaandi Clan could not defend themselves because they had no warrior; this was because their Chief kicked against anything that related to war.The children from the Zaandi clan were taken as captives; the men and the women were all killed. They captured the Chief and by instruction from their chiefs, they plucked out the eyes of the Chief and cut off his neck. All this was watched by the helpless Zeruta who couldn't do anything as she was already captured, alongside the other children. After the other clans burnt down the Zaandi Clan, they took the Children to the Mazil Clan and kept them there without food and water.The next week, the three clans (Mazil, Zumba and Salmi clans) decided to have a meeting on what to do with the Children of the Zaandi Clan, by then, most of the younger Children had already started dying due to fatigue and hunger. The Zaandi Clan had 73 Children before the war, but now, they had just 65 left. The Zumba clan proposed that they used all the Zaandi Clan's Children as slaves in their various clans but the Mazil clan objected, stating that when the Zaandi Clan's Children grew up, they could unite and take revenge on the three other clans so the Zumba's proposal was rejected. After much deliberation, the three clans decided to kill the children of the Zaandi clan so as to put an end to the Clan.

They planned to use the next day for the killing of the children. While this meeting was going on, Zeruta was busy working. She started thinking of a way to escape, she used a little piece of stone which she always kept with her to carve out wood from the prison ground, she then sharpened the wood top to form an arrow. She then got another piece of wood which was flexible and used a piece of rubber which she found on the shoes of one of the dead children. She tied it around the flexible wood and decided to use it as her bow. It wasn't as perfect as a normal bow, but it could cause some real damage. She hid the weapons beneath her dress and waited for the day the guards would come around. The following day, the guards started bringing out the children one by one, every one that came out of the prison never came back. Zeruta was picked last, the guards didn't really give attention to the kids since they thought they wouldn't put up any resistance, little did the guards know that Zeruta wasn't just any kid. When the guard lifted up the sword to cut off Zeruta's neck, the crowd noticed that the guard's hand was left hanging in the air. Suddenly, the guard fell down, he was dead. The entire crowd was shocked, guards gathered around and tried to discover what happened, it was at that moment that Zeruta began to run away, she ran into the forest. The guards started chasing her but they couldn't catch her. Within minutes, they had lost her. They ran back to where the clans gathered and reported the case. The three clans became afraid and started murmuring out of fear.Furiously, the Chief of the Mazil Clan stood up and shouted, "haaaaaaaaaah!!!","What is wrong with you all?, why do you fret for just one child?, Do you think she would be able to come and finish off 3 clans?, even if she was able to kill a guard, does that mean she can kill all of us? You all are a disappointment to the three clans because of this action of yours!!!After the brief talk given by the Chief of the Mazil Clan, the murmuring ceased and the people apologized for their behavior, they later shared the loot from the Zaandi clan between themselves.