Prologue
I had once seen my name as a blessing, fond memories of my father and elder sister playing with me out in the rain and letting me know that my name, bringing rain, helped the world go round but all that changed on that fateful night 9 years ago.
My father had gone out earlier to get groceries, usually my elder sister, Ayira , and I go with him using the opportunity to put in all our favourite snacks into the shopping basket but that day he told us to stay put and had put ten year old Ayira in charge, something that didn't happen very often given her age and something that pleased her very much, as I was only seven years old anything that made her happy made me happy so I was content with eating cookies and watching TV cuddled up in my security blanket while Ayira did whatever it is that 10 year olds did in their free time, it was only when Ayira came down to make us toast for dinner that I realized that there was something wrong as our dad never spent more than a couple hours at the grocery store not to mention the whole day but my sister did her best to calm us both down and prepared burnt toast, the best she could manage at the time before sending me off to bed and staying up for my father, I had been asleep for what felt like five minutes but couldn't be less than three hours when my sensitive nose caught a whiff of smoke but before I could fully awaken to find the source of the smell my sister burst into my room with two damp towels one over her nose and one in her hand that she forced unto my nose and told me to hold over my nose, though her words were mumbled due to the towel over her nose and mouth I got the memo and replaced her hand with mine holding the towel firmly over my mouth and I joined her as we both ran out of the room holding on tightly to my security blanket and trying to find the safest way out with no phone around for us to call both our father and emergency services, as all of the doors in the house were made of wood they were already engulfed in flames and as we were both about to resign to our fates I noticed the window at the other side of the room, that window used to be our form of escape when we wanted to stargaze in the night and we knew our father won't approve, I wasn't tall enough to reach yet but Ariya always goes over then carries me a cross and with my security blanket if we pass fast enough we would be able to escape unscathed so we rushed over there. I handed over my security blanket to her as she climbed with it over her shoulder and I climbed after her, once she got to the window she draped the security blanket over it and held me in her arms as she climbed quickly out the window and down the side of our burning house getting blisters on her hands while I held the damp towels to both our faces as well as holding on tightly with my legs, once we landed safely we were suddenly separated again when two men in all black came to drag us apart which was when I noticed the audience we had gathered. There were about 20 men dressed in all black and armed to the teeth two of them holding guns to my father's head as he was gagged and bound, tears streaming down his cheeks as we were dragged into separate vehicles my sister screaming my name while I was being dragged away in silent shock, when we were almost out of hearing distance we heard two gun shots and I let the tears fall.
