The following day, Nothando went to school at around six in the morning because she needed to finish her homework before lessons started. She had spoken to Lulu on the phone earlier, and Lulu had insisted they meet by the abandoned Mhlongo bakery, opposite their school.

Back in the day, the bakery used to rock the community with its hot and fluffy Bhomane, but now, even the tsotsi’s had ran out of interest on re-vandalizing its infrastructure over and over again. Till that day, tall grass grew all around the bakery. Time became slow and silent around it, mourning the next unknown hours and hoping for them to unfold into seconds.

While was Nothando standing by the bakery, two boys came from behind. “Yes, yes, ntombazane!” the boys said.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there,” Nothando said in fear, then tried not to entertain them.

“Slow down, what’s your name?” One of the boys asked Nothando, and they all circled around her.

“Please don’t hurt me,” Nothando begged.

“I asked you a question,” the boy said.

“Nothando Sibiya,”Nothando said while crying.

“Hey wena!” the boy said. “Wipe your tears before you flood the whole of Durban like Eloise.”

“You think it’s her?” the other boy asked his friend.

“Well, that’s the name,” the other boy responded.

“You’re making a mistake,” Nothando said. “I’m not the person you’re looking for.”

One of the boys moved towards Nothando, and she threw a hard kick to his power house, leaving him crumbling on the ground and groaning in pain.

“Aah! damnit, get her!” the boy said.

Death approached Nothando as the other boy tripped her to the ground and kicked her on the stomach. “Help!” she screamed, “help, please!” she cried at the top of her voice while trying to fight him off with failure.

The other boy then joined in and they kicked her nonstop. They trash talked at her multiple times, accusing her of messing with the wrong person.

“I didn’t do anything wrong to anyone!” Nothando cried.

“Don’t you dare put your interest in people that don’t belong to you!” one of the boys said. “We’ll kill you the next time you do such rubbish!” he said, then crushed her mouth with a kick.

Samson heard the noise as he arrived at school, so he hurried up to see who was causing it. “Hey! What are you guys doing!?” He screamed.

On hearing Samson scream, the boys ran away and he ran towards where they were. His heart pounded even heavier when he realised it was Nothando they were beating up. “Nothando! are you alright!?” he said, feeling horrified. “Help! Somebody help!” he cried out in terror.

No matter how much Samson screamed, no one presented themselves. “Nothando hang on, I’m going to look for help,” he cried.

“Samson, please don’t leave me,” Nothando said, trying to speak with her spilt lower lip.

“I won’t leave you, somebody help!” Samson screamed again while holding Nothando in his hands.

“Don’t let me die, Samson. Please,” Nothando begged.

“You’re not going to die,” Samson said. “You’ll be okay.”

“Call my mom …” Nothando said, then passed out.

“Nothando wake up! Don’t die on me, please!” Samson begged.

Tell us: Do you think Lulu was responsible for Nothando being attacked, and if so, what do you think needs to happen to her?