Due For Inheritance (D. U. I)

Chapter 6

Aisha was busy settling yet another fight between her step children, Aaidah and Aabid. Try as she might, they never see eye to eye. Truth be told, Aaidah is the troubled child.

While she has a crude and insensitive personality, she also vies for attention and this, she get by turning the whole house in turmoil. Aabid is usually level headed but he’s also obsessed with the idea of making everything perfect. Aisha suspected that he think it’s now his responsibility to act as the head of the house being the current eldest son, since Aaqib, the real eldest son and his father, Abdulahad were late.

Aisha tried to get them to reign in their anger, then sat them down for some word of advice like she always did whenever scene like this occurs. “I hope you both know that the most hated gathering by Allah is one in which there's a fight,” Aisha began.

“Whenever two people engage in a fight, shaytan (the devil) becomes their third and would egg them on to make the fight last for as long as possible till either or both of them end up sustaining injury and I’ll also remind you that Allah does not accept the Salat of those people who keeps malice”.

Both of them listened to her, even the hot-headed Aaidah didn’t speak till her step mum finished with her advice before she tried to defend herself by explaining what transpired between them and Aisha do not have a choice than to listen because she knew well that only when she give her a listening ear will there be peace in the house. It was during this process that she heard a blood curling scream. Others heard too because Aaidah stopped mid-sentence and after they exchanged a look, they all rushed towards the source of the noise.

When they got there, they met, Husna, Haleemah’s first and eldest daughter of about thirteen years of age lounging across the sofa, looking calm. Aisha was sure that the scream came from the living and soon, other members of the family had rushed towards the living room to show that they’ve also heard the same noise. She was about to ask Husna who made such noise when she suddenly sat up and gave another scream like the one they heard the other time but this time around, she didn’t go silent again. She kept giving one scream after the other and instinctively, everyone shifted backwards. No one was willing to go near the psychotic child.

After sometime, she would go quiet and look calm as though she hadn’t screamed her lungs out, only for her to resume back afterwards.

It was during this process that Haleemah entered, Husna had gone back to screaming out of her lungs. So, when Haleemah saw this, she was just as surprised as the rest of the family. She didn't know what to do. Although the girl didn’t make a move to charge towards anyone but still, no one was willing to ask her what was wrong since her reaction seemed absolutely abnormal.

While Haleemah was still in shock, she tried to build some courage to move towards her child since others were unconsciously stepping back whenever she had an episode. She took her first step towards her but Aabid moved towards Husna before she could gte there since her movement was taking forever and sat cautiously at the edge of the sofa.

“What’s wrong Husna?” He asked cautiously, trying not to upset the girl and also not making a move to go closer.

Husna stared at him for a long time without dignifying him with a reply but was quiet. Although she stared directly at him but it didn’t look like she saw him or anyone for that matter, rather, it was as if she was looking through them. Aabid was uncertain about the next step to take so he began to recite Aayatul qursiyy and just like that she began to read along with him.

After some minutes of recitations, others began to move closer to them. Aisha suggested that they take her to the hospital and they did. She was treated and placed on medication, then discharged. She however hoped that such would never occur again.

She couldn’t help but think that her problem stemmed from the fact that she chose to neglect Islam and Allah neglected her too. Although Husna had always been reserved from childhood and less lively than her other children her age, she had never done anything to make her worry and she had attributed her character to being introverted.