I’ve never been this scared in my life. I can hardly breathe, I’m so terrified. If I stop breathing, I’ll be dead. That might be better than whatever these men have planned for me.

How can this be happening to me? To me, Chansenga? To my sixteen-year-old self, with my whole life ahead of me, and Hakelo finally looking my way after all the work I’ve put into getting him to notice me?

Those first few minutes – maybe even less – keep running through my mind, on a loop. Walking out of the school gates with my new bestie, Xongisa, and then – suddenly – darkness, the stench of cigarettes and the rough sensation of sacking material, thick and heavy against my skin. Some sort of bag is being forced over my head and upper body.

Rough hands grab me, push me into a car. Xongisa screams somewhere. Then I am driven around for I don’t know how long.

What are they going to do to me? With me? Not one, but scores, of worst-case scenarios make me sick with fear. I think of those creepy news stories of murder, rape and human trafficking: people cut up for body parts or sold as slaves in a foreign country, forced into prostitution or drug trafficking or domestic work. I wish this could be a simple kidnapping: my safety in exchange for ransom money. But, no way; I don’t come from a rich family.

At first I imagine Xongisa has been abducted with me. But I quickly realise it’s just me.

I think there are only two men in the car. I can’t see a thing, but I can hear them – their different voices.

The one in the back seat with me, I’ve started to call Mucus in my mind. He talks in this thick, phlegmy way, like he needs to clear his throat. Only he never does. The other one, the one doing the driving, I think of as Squealer, because that’s how he sounds, his voice high and over-excited.

Besides the cigarette smell of the sack suffocating me, there’s also the reek of bad deodorant: one of those cheap, overly strong brands some guys spray all over their clothes. It doesn’t disguise the stink of stale sweat and unwashed clothes, but, now I’m sweating so much, I’ll probably smell bad myself before long.

“Where now?” Squealer wants to know. He’s so hyper, he has to be on something.

“Go round again,” Mucus orders through the disgusting wet stuff clogging his throat. “I need to talk to this bitch.”

Bitch? I want to hit out at him for calling me that, but he’s holding me too tightly: his arms are around the sack, binding me, so I can’t wriggle out of it.

There’s that saying about your life flashing before you when you’re about to die. I’m not sure about that. I’m seeing the immediate past, vividly, like a dream. It’s two years back and I’m in Bushbuckridge. Then Ma gets a transfer to Mbombela because of Papa’s new desk job and we move to the Nelsville part of Nelspruit. It’s all dope, living in the capital: my new school with its proper facilities, no need to go home to use the toilet, the great tuckshop, cool teachers, new friends, and Hakelo … Hakelo!

Except that now I’m thinking how life was safer in Bush. I can hear my heart pounding in my ears.

“Now you listen, ho’,” Mucus is saying, his head right beside mine. I can smell his breath. It makes me retch.

Ho’?

“Fuck off!” I’m yelling, struggling frantically, trying to kick out at him because my legs are the only part of me free to move.

The sack muffles my voice. I sound pathetic.

“A message for your mummy,” Mucus continues. “She must back off. Back off or be sorry. Tell her.”

My mummy? Does he mean Ma? This has something to do with Ma?

***

Tell us what you think: If something so terrifying happened to you, would you react with total fear, or would you also feel anger as Chansenga does?