The cold air in the yard had a bitterness to it that morning. Mark zipped his prison-issued jacket up to his neck as he walked into the line for headcount. His breath steamed in the air, and frost clung to the chain-link fences that boxed them in like animals. Around him, the same faces shuffled their feet and kept their eyes low. But Mark stood straighter now. Not with pride—not here—but with resolve.Two weeks had passed since Otis took him under his wing. In that short time, something inside Mark had shifted. He wasn’t just existing anymore. He was observing, listening, learning. And most importantly, he was adapting.“Blackwood!” a voice barked from the side. It was Officer Reynolds, the younger, cockier guard who always seemed to be itching for a reason to make someone bleed. Mark turned calmly, no aggression in his eyes.“Yes, sir?”Reynolds held up a half-smoked cigarette in a plastic bag. “Found this under your bunk during inspection. Contraband. Looks like someone’s been havi

The news came quietly, not with a loud announcement, not with a crowd or celebration—just a folded paper slipped under Mark's cell door, the kind that looked like it had been copied a dozen times over. It read simply: "Release Date Confirmed. Five Days."He stared at the words for a long time. They looked like a dream spelled out in ink. Five days. That was it. After everything—the beatings, the cold, the betrayals, the soul-searching, the relentless planning—he was five days from the outside. Freedom."You're not smiling," Cole said, sitting across from him with his back against the wall, flipping through one of their last books. "I thought you would be doing backflips.""You know better," Mark muttered. "The last five days are the most dangerous."Cole nodded. He knew. Everyone inside knew. Men who were on their way out were sometimes set up, provoked, or cornered. It was an unspoken truth in the prison: the closer you were to freedom, the tighter you had to hold onto your self-cont

The sun was setting behind the dusty hills when Mark stepped off the rusted bus. The driver barely waited for the dust to settle before he shifted the gear and drove off, leaving Mark alone at the edge of a village he had never seen before. The name was painted on a wooden sign at the entrance: Amachara. The letters had faded, just like everything else in the village.The air smelled different. No smoke. No noise. Just distant bleats of goats, chirping crickets, and the soft shuffle of bare feet on dry paths. Mark adjusted the small bag on his shoulder. It held everything he owned now — two shirts, a journal, a worn photograph of his late mother, and a new ID card that read Emeka James.The man on that ID wasn’t a prisoner. He wasn’t accused of fraud. He hadn’t been betrayed by the woman he loved. Emeka James was a quiet, hard-working man looking for peace. But Mark knew the truth. Beneath the clean-shaven face and dull clothing, he was still very much himself — just a little more dan

The rooster crowed long before the sky began to stretch open. Mark was already awake, sitting on the small wooden stool in his room, lacing up the same brown boots he had worn every day for weeks. They were cracked at the sides now, soles thinning, but they had carried him through mud, sun, and suspicion. He pulled on a faded t-shirt, grabbed his small bag of tools, and stepped out into the dim village morning.He didn’t have time to think about comfort. He worked mornings on the cassava farm just outside Amachara, digging, lifting, hauling under the unforgiving sun. In the afternoons, he traveled to the neighboring town, Owerri Junction, to help unload trucks at the market. By nightfall, he’d return to the village to help an old electrician named Baba Nwachukwu fix faulty pumps and weld broken doors.The more he worked, the less he remembered the sting in his chest. Or so he thought.That morning, while lifting a sack of cassava, the laughter of one of the other laborers froze him. I

The wind outside howled through the thin cracks in the window. It was one of those eerie nights in Amachara when the moon vanished behind thick clouds, and the crickets kept unusually silent. Mark had spent the day pushing a wheelbarrow full of cement under the blazing sun, his body aching from the work, his hands raw. When he finally lay on the thin mattress in his cramped room, exhaustion pulled him under like a tide.Sleep came swiftly. Too swiftly.In the dream, it began like any other morning. He stepped out of Mama Ogechi’s compound with the usual nod to the neighbor who sold akara by the roadside. The sun shone differently that morning—a reddish hue stretched across the sky like bruised skin.He was on his way to Ikenna's workshop when he heard a sharp whistle. Then another. Before he could turn, hands grabbed him. Firm, cold hands. The uniforms came into view—police."Mark Obi, you are under arrest."The voice was loud, amplified by a megaphone. People turned to stare. The aka