Ebun saw the hospital surrounding her once she woke up five days after the incident that destroyed her life had happened. Immediately the masked guy got off her body after he climaxed or rather, got tired of thrusting into her, her vision faded out completely and the last thing she had heard from her gruesome reality was the bastard daring her to catch him if she could.

She had lost a lot of blood to the extent where her consciousness which hung on a thin thread at that moment was snapped into half, welcoming the darkness that haled her in.

Minutes after she passed out and the rapists were completely out of sight, her parents and Cassandra came back home from the hospital they visited due to Cassie's breathing problems. For some unknown reason or rather instinctive preference, they walked into the house through the back door and saw the display of knives and several kitchen utensils scattered on the floor with the container upside down.

Ebun's mother gasped first. Cassandra was next. Their dad's eyes were glaring, wondering what the hell had happened. The mother knew immediately that something bad had happened to their daughter since Ebun was the only person who could be at home on that day and since she was the one who was the most susceptible to it at that period.

Quickly, she and Cassandra rushed to Ebun's room with their father leaping closely behind with the aid of his walking stick. The door to her room was already wide open. They didn't need to look around before they saw Ebun naked and immobile as a heavy object in a puddle of her blood.

Her brown-colored bedsheet had been out colored by the red fluid. Just by the tip of the bed, precisely the plank of wood that guarded it dripped the droplets of her blood to the ground like a leaking liquid.

Cassie fell on her knees and crawled her way to Ebun's bedside, taking a full view of the gruesome sight before her. It was too heavy for her brain to interpret because it was a piece of information that made no sense. Why would it be that someone would dare to rape her sister to the point of unconsciousness?

How could it possibly be?

Ebun's parents had done all they could to protect their daughter from dangers they thought they could predict. They had expected that the guy she fought with at school would try to hit her back and attack her on a day she was utterly defenseless but this wasn't the attack they foresaw.

It was a vengeance that rendered them in utter shock.

Someone might tag them as naive and undiscerning to be unaware of the evil that the male gender was capable of committing but the fight between Ebun and that guy could have been any other thing that wouldn't warrant rape as a vengeful comeback.

In addition to that, it didn't seem like it was just one guy that had raped her. Telling from how heavily soaked her thighs were, clotted with coagulation of blood and so much semen, and how heavily battered her face and the rest of her body was, it just didn't look like a violent action that just one person was capable of inflicting.

Their guesses were confirmed when the doctor examined her body and extracted all the samples that could confirm that she was sexually harmed and raped. It was a gang-rape and the doctor could ascertain that.

Cassandra wouldn't stop crying even after they rushed Ebunoluwa to that hospital and it was confirmed that she wasn't dead yet. She only calmed down a little after seventeen hours of the surgical procedure and when she could no longer see any blood when several plasters and bandages were tied to all the injured parts of her body.

Cassie felt so terrible for her sister. She wished there was something she could have done to change the situation especially for the fact that they had a conversation a few days before the incident. If Cassandra had been logical enough to understand that the possibility of Ebun being in a danger greater than school suspension, she would not have dared to fall sick to the point where her sister would have had to be the only one at home. Heck, she wished she could have taught those bastards a lesson even.

When Ebun opened her eyes for the first time in five days, she was met with the forlorn, hopeless expression on the face of her siblings and her parents.

Sympathy and pity she had come to realize at that moment were such distasteful emotions.
The incident was not a memory she was trying to forget anytime soon but the looks on their faces brought it back to the walls of her mind and reminded her of the fact that she had lost. She was defeated like some pathetic, dumbhead loser.

Those forlorn sympathetic looks had even gone as far as to point out her flaws, her mistakes. What she could have done to liberate herself from a humiliating disaster but couldn't realize it on time. Her obnoxiousness had blinded her because it was the reason why she had depended solely on her fists to save her from any danger that life had in store for her.

Every damn choice that she made and the ones she didn't even make led her to this state – an object of sympathy. Should she have acted like she was going to let those rapists have their way with her? Should she not have fought? What if she hadn't and she had found a better way to liberate herself from the danger?

But what if she had let them have their way and they had their way with her for real, she would have regretted not fighting at all. Why was she in this position when she did everything she could not to be in it?

She wanted to do anything to stop her family from looking at her like that. Cassandra's bloodshot eyes? She wanted to pull it out with a hot knife. The distraught look on her father and brother's faces? She wanted to wipe it away with all coercion. She wished she could.

Even that calculating look on Yemisi's face. It was obvious that the lawyer in her was in action and soon she would be in that position to fight for her. To ensure that justice is served. It infuriated Ebun so much.

It felt like everything played out to make a mockery of the principles that she has lived by since she was eight years old. It just showed that she was only a little girl after all and would at so many points in her life as the last born of the family, be protected by her elder siblings and people older than her.

She was on her hospital bed now. Traumatized, broken and worse of all, helpless like the five of her siblings had been at several points in their lives. Which made her not any different from them. This was what she fought her hardest to avoid.

She was so angry.

She wanted to open her mouth to beg them to stop looking at her like that but it didn't seem like they had noticed she was awake. Even when she thought she could open her mouth, it was incredibly stiff. Her jawline, chin, tooth, and tongue ached all together. It was harder than any pain affiliated to her buccal cavity that she had ever felt.

Subconsciously, she felt the need to move her body to see if it ached as her mouth did. But her sides hurt like several double-edged swords had been hinged to her ribs and driven deep into her flesh.

She wanted to know what her body looked like, to see why it felt so heavy and in so much pain so she moved her eye which she regretted but she was able to see that she was halfway into being a complete mummy.

Alexander was the first to stand up on noticing her slight movements but it was hard to tell if he was the first person to notice that she was awake because everyone looked expectant and the features on their faces were that of surprise, gratitude, and relief.

Alex tried to help Ebun sit up on the sick bed so he moved closer to her. Just as he wanted to put his arm behind her head and the other on her waist, Ebun jerked his hand off with her plastered hand but she did it lightly. Nevertheless, he got the message and let her be.

He always so hyperactive in her opinion and it irked her. Ebun tried her hardest to help herself sit on the hospital bed and her family had to watch her whimper in pain with moving an inch or making a move to help her. It looked like they feared or better still, they pitied her too much.

It was obvious that everyone wanted to make a move to support her, to say a piece of their mind. Anything they could to a rape victim like her but they were afraid that she might burst into tears and they might not be able to handle it. Ebun could see all of that in their eyes and it was honestly the most suffocating thing. Pity seeped from their bones in an overflow.

Ebun's mum wanted to faint right at that moment from utter relief that her daughter was not dead at least. "You are awake, " her mother said, wiping the tears away from her eyes. Ebun was grateful for that. If one more tear had dropped, her heart might have exploded.

"and obstinate, " Demi added. "I love that."

Everyone glared at Demi. The sadness in the air escalated into anger immediately and David was the first person to choke from the toxic mixture. He walked up to her and grabbed the collar of her shirt. "What is your problem? Can't you see that the last thing she needs is your insensitive, daft words?"

But Ebun was thrilled by that statement and it was then she noticed that Demi was the only sibling who didn't look sad, distraught, or calculating. She was more anticipating and curious for what was going to happen once she woke up and Ebun couldn't help but obsess with that reaction.

Narcissistic and stubborn Demi was. A little inconsiderate, even. That was what everyone in the family thought of her and sometimes, Ebun couldn't help but see that side of her but at that moment, she couldn't be more thankful that Demi was the only one who managed to have an inkling of what was on her mind.

"Have you forgotten who Ebun is? She's stronger than you think--"

"Cut the crap. You don't say such to a victim. You should be concerned and share the sentiments that she feels. You should be--"

But she shares my sentiments more than anyone in this room.

"Enough with this nonsense!" their father interrupted. "Are the two of you insane? You should be concerned about your sister's wellbeing more than anything else right now. She could have died. You should be thankful she's awake! She should wake up to an atmosphere filled with love that you two have not been able to provide!"

Love? Ebun scoffed internally since her fractured facial muscles wouldn't grant her permission to exercise it in any way. Demi might have worded her thoughts a bit wrongly because Ebun was not strong at that moment.

She hated that she had lost and if anything, she felt the weakest at that moment. She had a feeling that she was going to remain in that phase for a long time. She had no idea who the leader of the rapists was since he'd worn a mask. So she wouldn't even know if she would be able to ever find him. However, one thing Demi understood from the way she expressed herself was the fact that Ebun was weighed down. She was distraught by the fact that she had been defeated. She needed something convincing enough for her to know that she had a chance to fight back and get up strong.

Demi knew that Ebun wanted revenge. Everyone else simply thought she'd learned her lesson and would probably never throw fists again. Ebun however, needed more than throwing fists. Tantrums couldn't even qualify for what the rage in her wished to express.

She needed reinforcement. A revival. Not a cause to stay helpless and at the mercy of everyone but at that very moment, she was just destroyed by the fact that she had been defeated and she had no alternative schemed up to ensure that she wouldn't falter.

"How are you feeling? How does your body feel?" her dad asked her after he was able to put an end to the nonsense between Demi and David. "We are so sorry this happened to you. It breaks my heart to see you in this state..."

Eventually, Ebun zoned out mentally when suffocation from sympathy had won over every other thing she had tried to hold on to. She got interested when any one of them made mention of dealing with the rapists but lost interest when she knew she wouldn't be able to do anything vengeful whilst she lived beneath her parent's good. They wanted to know how she was feeling but she could not dare to express it. There was no means of an escape hence, she zoned out.

But the day Ebun had been waiting for came. It was just her two sisters, Yemisi and Demi that were present in the hospital room with her. She was able to utter few words now. She could even chew and she didn't have to bear the biggest headache of the year anymore.

All of yemisi's calculations, scheming, and thinking could be put to practice now and Ebun guessed Demi was there to partake in that action process. Ebun was somewhat eager to answer all of their questions because she felt Demi had understood her true sentiments to an extent.

But when Demi asked her what she wanted, she couldn't answer. She opened her lips and closed them shut. The process repeated itself until tears fell and fell down her eyes. The tears from every single thing that had happened. Tears that she would have shed when she woke up to the forlorn expression on the faces of her family. The tears she couldn't shed for many days came down mercilessly.

And it was only necessary they did. Just like the essence of rain on dry land, it washed away every uncertainty she had about herself and the life ahead of her and it gave her a clear cut vision of who she was and the series of thoughts that made her decide on who she wanted to be dating back to four years ago.

She could get back on her feet again. It suddenly didn't matter that she had lost anymore. Those tears wiped away the distasteful sentiments harbored within the walls of her soul.