Chapter 2: August 12th, 2003

Two days ago before Thomas’s arrival, somewhere near the town of Yekepa, somewhere near the mountain range of Nimba by the Nimba Nature Reserve, a woman was running for her life. In the hot sun of mid-day, Zoe Aalieyah, a young adult born in Nimba County, was running to the town of Yekepa from the village of Kahnla. She was running down the road as fast as her feet and sandals could take her. She was approaching the village of New Bapa adjacent to Yekepa.

She was running at a hurried pace. Her goal was to make it to the nearby village to hide or seek shelter. Like most Liberians, she had a fairly dark complexion of the skin. She had short hair, wore a light green shirt, light blue shorts, and wore a set of rubber sandals. She was not tall, being at about five feet four inches. She ran with an antique snub revolver given to her by the warlord for her service in the warring faction. She used it to end a man’s life that brought harm to her for a second time.

“I must make it ... I must make it,” she said to herself in a thick West African accent as she ran. To her left was the forest but the dirt road was the quickest way through. She would occasionally look back and see that she was not being followed.

Amazingly, the place was quiet. There was not much activity on the road except an old man walking with two sets of cattle. He could do nothing as the woman ran past him. She knew the man was no threat to her.

“Two shots ... two shots left,” she said to herself. “I will not stay in Kahnla anymore. I can’t go back. I won’t go back. My home is lost. My dear brother ... I am so sorry. I won’t let them turn me into this ... I won’t be one of them.”

Her foot folly traversed the roads with ease. Her feet hurt and buckled as it slammed hard into the rock and dirt. She was making a run that would challenge some military recruits when it came to running. When your life is pressed, you can do anything, and she wasn’t stopping.

“Not going back ... not going back to them ... I will use the bullet on myself if need be.”

Her heart was giving her a hard time. She was in a wilderness road that led straight forward or back. She was breathing hard, she had to stop, or she was going to collapse. She could see the village of New Baba not far from her. She was nearing her goal. She could see the outskirts that lined the dirt, huts, and homes adjacent to the village. It was not a big place, but hopefully, somebody could help her instead of turning her back into the Warlord to face her crimes.

She looked back and could see a truck in the distance. She had no choice; it was still far enough that they might not have spotted her yet. She turned to the trees off the road and ran to it. She hurried off the dirt road and got behind a ceiba tree. It was large enough for the trunk to cover her silhouette while the rest of the foliage could provide cover.

She put her back to the tree as she stopped to catch her breath. She was never more exhausted in her life. Running on pure adrenaline, she managed to escape her captors but for how long?

“They couldn’t ... couldn’t have seen me ... God help me,” she said quietly to herself. She could only hear the wilderness ahead of her. Birds were chirping, singing, and the rustle of animal life in the far, far distance of the forest.

Her breathing was slowing down, her feet were bruised, her legs were screaming her to stop. She ran for a good two miles to the best of her abilities.

“I won’t let ... them capture me,” she said to herself. “I would rather die than go back. I will do it if I can.”

She wrapped herself into a ball and pressed herself to the back of the tree with her butt resting peacefully on the ground floor.

Suddenly she heard the truck as it got closer and closer. She dared not look as she could listen to it get loud enough that it continued to drive forward. Then she heard it slowed down as the brakes squeaked and grown as the truck was slowing to a stop.

“This is it,” she quietly said to herself. “They either saw me, or they didn’t. Two rounds left. One bullet for one of them and if need be one for me.”

The truck was about fifty feet away from her. It was a makeshift pickup truck with a machine gun mounted on the back of the bed. They were a common form of armed vehicle during the war when armored cars were not present. Easy to use and ferry into battle even if they lacked armor. There was a man on the machine gun as he looked around. The passenger of the truck got out as he held an AK-47 in his hands. He looked around in the road and forest. Zoe could barely hear the men as they spoke to one another.

“I think your imagination is getting ahead of you,” said the passenger to the driver.

“Keep looking around a little bit more. There is no way she could have made it this far,” said the driver.

“I didn’t see anything behind the truck,” the machine gunner said with a shrug. If she is hiding in the forest, it will take forever to find her.”

“We better find her ... General Thunder Dirt will have our heads if we don’t find her or at least kill her,” the passenger responded.

“What do you want us to do? Search the entire forest?” The driver asked.

“I am not in the mood to go checking behind every tree. Let nature take her. Fuck her,” the machine gunner replied.

Zoe stayed absolutely quiet as she knew she was not far from them. All she had to do to survive now was wait for them to leave.

“Fine, I have an idea, though,” the passenger said as he lifted his gun and aimed it straight up. He pulled the trigger of AK-47 twice as two rifle gunshots echoed through the forest. It scared Zoe as she remained still.

“I figure, if the General is ever listening, he might have heard those two shots. We will just tell her we shot her dead. You will just have to back me up on this.”

The driver shrugged. “Sounds good to me. What about you back there?”

The machine gunner nodded as he let go of the tripod mount. “Yeah, ok, we got her.”

The truck revved up as it began to move again. It began to make a U-turn on the dirt. Before she knew it, the vehicle started to drive away again.

The forest was quiet once again. Zoe cried as she felt relieved. She lost her pursuers, and for everyone that wanted to pursue her, they assumed she was dead.

“I will stay here for ten minutes and wait for any more signs of searching in case they ever return,” she said to herself. “I need to catch my breath so bad. They truly thought I couldn’t make that run, ha.”

She sighed to herself as she looked at the revolver and dropped it to the ground. She took a look at her arm and could see the bruises from the man that assaulted and forced her down. She felt pain in her lower extremities as her adrenaline began to wear off.

“I am thankful that the man that raped me did it a day after my period. Otherwise, I might be having his child right now. At least ... I hope. God forgive me for killing him. I had to.”

With a system in anarchy, Liberia was a typical haven for rape and pillaging. Women in Liberia were often used as secondary soldiers and forced prostitutes to the soldiers around them. Zoe was just another case of this scenario. However, her training in shooting and firing a gun would save her life and livelihood. She was considered one of the better female soldiers in her group, or in this case, was.

She closed her eyes as she fell asleep, hearing only the sounds of nature around her.

She awoke as her eyes revealed a darker landscape around her. It was sometime around seven o clock in the afternoon. The sky was getting darker as the sun was setting. It would be a good time for her to move soon. She hadn’t considered the idea of waiting to run at night, but she didn’t know she was that exhausted.

Without hesitation, she stood up, wiping the dirt from her butt as she picked up her revolver and stuffed it into her pocket. She looked back at the road. It seemed all quiet just before she fell asleep.

“Time for me to move again,” she said to herself.

She began to walk to the road as she took a good look at her surroundings again. There weren’t many signs of human life around her.

“I was so close to making it to New Bapa. I must get there before it’s fully dark. Ugh ... I wish I had a machete or something.”

Her feet hit the foliage as it eventually gave way to the opening of the road again. Before she knew it, she walked to the village ahead of her. She could see some lights from a distance. She looked behind her and saw no signs of traveling or movement. She was in the clear to head to the village.

“I shouldn’t run to the village with the coming darkness. If I run in and they have a sentry watching the road, then I will only spook them and risk getting shot or killed. Best to walk up at a normal pace, see if anybody is watching, and just let them know who I am. Is that the best idea, though?” She continued her walk down the road. “Just as well possible that New Bapa is controlled by General Thunder Dirt as well or at least have sympathizers. I don’t know what to do. I have no choice but to just press forward.”

Time started to pass slowly for her. It was a ten-minute walk in what would have taken a couple of minutes to reach by running. She was tired of running, though. She put her hand to her stomach as she felt her hunger pains. If she kept going at this rate, she would start to get weaker and weaker till she collapsed or got caught. Eventually, her foot sandals finally stepped at the outside of the village as the dirt road tilted into the village. She could see a series of primitive thatched houses and stone/clay-made buildings similar to her home in Kahnla. Both villages were never big to start off with. They could hold up to fifty to a hundred people at the max.