Episode 6: What the Forest Left Behind
It’s been three months.
But there’s one thing I’ve not been able to change—my dreams.
Every night, I return to that bus. That suffocating air. That terrifying silence. That loud bang that started it all.
I see the girl I couldn’t save. The old man begging for mercy. The boy crying for his mother in the bush.
They visit me.
Sometimes when I sleep.
Sometimes when I’m wide awake.
I tried therapy. The counselor kept saying, “You have survivor’s guilt. You need to let go.” But how do you let go of people whose faces you remember more than your own?
The trauma isn’t just emotional. It’s physical too.
I can’t sit in a bus anymore—not even an Uber. Every time I see a highway sign or hear the word “Kogi,” my hands start shaking. I sweat even in air-conditioned rooms. My back still carries scars from thorns and beatings. But the real scars? They’re internal. Invisible. And they bleed in silence.
People think survival is the end. But for some of us, it’s just the beginning of another kind of torture.
The government? They moved on.
The news cycle rotated. Another headline took over. The officials gave their usual “We’ll do better” speeches and returned to their air-conditioned offices.
The transport company? Still operating.
They quietly rebranded, and began marketing “improved security” without ever acknowledging what happened on that night bus from Abuja.
And the victims?
Some were buried without names.
Others were never found.
Some families still don’t know the truth.
Some suspect… but silence protects profit.
As for me?
I wrote my story. This story.
I posted every episode on social media, in interviews. I risked being sued. Risked being followed again. But I kept writing. Because if I don’t, who will?
I became the face of that tragedy. Not because I wanted to, but because I had no choice. Silence would’ve been safer, yes—but it would’ve been a betrayal.
To the girl.
To the passengers.
To myself.
Most nights I still find myself by the log in the bush, the one I hid under while they searched for me with flashlights and machetes.
in some twisted way, a part of me never left that bush.
This is the end of the journey.
But the memory?
That road?
That nightmare?
It lives on.
And I pray… you never have to walk it.
THE END
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