Noorur-rahman

Shadows Of The Past

Warning: this may content triggers!!!

Noor doesn't know exactly where it hurts. It's just same old dull dry ache of the soul. Nevertheless, it aches more now, being old and dry did not made it any less painful. It still crush her soul even more now,  more because her perfect secret have another bearer. Mubin knows, and she knew just how much he can judge blindly. He have questioned her character from the moment they knew each other.

Perhaps, it's karma! Karma because she have always been blunt and says whatever. But how could she have said that? She exposed herself to Mubin disdain. She have try to control her tears and focus on the road but nothing about that was easy. She thought it's over! But it's renewed now, she didn't know that the wound are still fresh even after all these years of being okay.

Though, she's never okay with. Because she did not allow herself to move on from her trauma, Noor had let it blossom in her system and they grown altogether. It's like she's nurture that pain and never let it subdue, linked any bad thing that happened to her to that misfortune. Her birth mother has gotten her own fair share of the blame. Noor blamed her, for she believed if her birth mother had ever care about her, then she would have taken care of her when her father was away.

When Noor reached home twenty minutes later, she stopped at nowhere but her room, her mind was so absent that she didn't noticed her abbah and his wife in the living room, when abbah called her so lovingly, her mind was so far away to hear him.  The second she's in her room she fell flat on her stomach, even with how hard she had tried, the very second she closed her eyes, her mind and soul went back to that fateful night.

It's three days after abbah had left for hajj that year. And exactly five months prior to that, abbah's second marriage to Hadiza ended, it ended when abbah had to carry her lifeless body to the hospital. She had been subjected to too much torture for a child her age. And soon after she's diagnosed with chronic asthma, cold became her friend when Hadiza became her guardian. The woman throws her bucket of cold water any chance she got,  for every little mistake, it's pure torture. The trauma Hadiza had inflicted in her was still fresh, after all it's a whole year of being tortured. Noor had just regained her freedom only to be thrown to a point of no return.

"What abbah didn't know will never hurt abbah, so you better keep your mouth shut. And that way you will continue being your abbah's little girl, if not just like everyone of us here and out there. Your dearest abbah will hate you so much that he will not want to see you again, so you better keep this big mouth of yours shut." That's frightening,  Hajiya Atika's venomously voice had warned after the damage was done, if only Noor knew that the old woman was only saving herself and son at that moment.

If only! That's her biggest regret, she learned too late that Hajiya Atika tricked her. And she finally learning that truth, it crushed her, because she could not talk to anyone about it. And that's why it pierces her heart that when she finally said it openly for the first time, it's to Mubin.  Same Mubin that believes her ways are wrong, and everything is her fault.

However, it wasn't her fault when Salisu had lured her to his room that night. She could never have guessed, she wouldn't have  known he was up to no good. He's her uncle, her abbah's younger brother.

Salisu is the youngest child in the family.  He's always been bad, and joining the army hadn't add any sense of discipline to his already rotten behavior. Having his room at the inner part of the house, had caused Noor more than her smile. As fate had it that night, she's the only child around. There's a wedding happening at one of her aunt's place and almost no one was home. Hajiya Atika said it's cold outside, so she stayed at home with her. That were abbah's orders before he left. 

When Salisu held from behind and shove her on his bed, It’s unfathomable. It didn't took long before Noorur-rahman thought she was being stabbed with knife.  No other experience can compare to the ripping and bleeding of flesh, the dread that courses through one's heart, the hopelessness that sinks into the pit of one's stomach as they're forced to endure the torture.