I laid still in my bed, frozen in horror after another chilling episode of my nightmares. I was still half asleep with the covers pulled well over my head and panting like I had been running for hours. My heart was still racing and my breathing was so loud it muffled every other sound around me.

At first I thought the voice I often had arguments with in my head had finally found a life of its own. But then I nearly jumped out of my dark skin when I realised it was two voices outside in the wee hours of morning. I pulled down the covers to reveal pitch black darkness, the cold air was setting the perfect ambiance in our windowless shack and I guessed the lamp was out of paraffin.

My focus quickly shifted to the voices outside.

“You little bitch, you think you can hit my windscreen and I’ll let you go?” one of the voices said.

It was a male, he sounded drunk and enraged, so furious. I could not help but imagine a fire-breathing dragon. He was yelling so loudly that the second voice was slightly faint. Then there was a loud thud, like somebody hitting the ground. Then a slap followed, then I heard uncontrollable sobs.

“Stop, please stop, baby please.” It was a female, and she sounded young. If you could make out somebody’s age by listening to their voice, she sounded like a female in her mid-20s.

I heard a car door open and close, that’s when she started screaming in horror. The panic inside me started to set in.

“Oh my God, no! Help! Somebody, anybody help!” She screamed.

I froze in my bed like a rotten log being fed on by termites. The little hairs on my arms rose to attention and goose bumps covered my body. She was screaming so loudly I wondered how my parents were still dead asleep. She was being beaten up so badly I felt her pain and could hear my heart break into a million and one pieces.

I couldn’t help her. My battery was flat and there was no way my dad would go out there and help. What if this man has a gun? That was the first thought that jumped into my head. She was still screaming and crying.

“Today I will teach you a lesson,” the male said.

It sounded like he was kicking the life out of her. Her screams sounded like someone in aggravating pain. She pleaded and begged countless times, but he never stopped.

I had never felt so useless and pathetic in my whole entire life. My fellow sister was being beaten up to a pulp and I couldn’t help her. I was an embarrassment to the female species. And what puts the icing on the cake was the fact that it had been Woman’s Day two days ago.

I heard the car door opening and closing again. The car started and drove a few houses down. I know this because I could hear a heavy metal gate open and the male was still yelling at the top of his voice. I swear he was no longer talking to her he was talking at her. He was swearing and cursing. Then it all came to a standstill.

Frozen with fear, I thought of her bruised body beaten black and blue. The image of her helpless body, with a masculine man standing over her, gave me shivers. It made me wonder how it would be being in her shoes. Falling in love with the devil and having him bash my skull in and violating my beautiful body. It was upsetting. I was now angry at the night for letting him silently get away with his crime. I said a prayer for her. I prayed that God saves her and keeps us safe because love was now failing to save a woman from the raging anger of a dangerous man.

How precious must have been that windscreen that it was worth an innocent life, I wondered. I couldn’t help but ask myself if she would forgive him in the name of “LOVE”. I could already picture him apologizing and giving her a hundred and one excuses for defending his “helpless windscreen”.

I didn’t know where she ended up, but all I knew was that there is a stalking predator a few yards away from me and that hell will freeze over before violence against woman comes to an ends.

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