Saved By Grace- Ep 16

Episode 16- Signal X

Hi babiessss…. So we are getting this first because Favour Oluwabusayo Ige. requested I post Saved By Grace first 🤭🤭

Quiet Promise will come by evening to calm the storm that Saved By Grace brewed…..

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Ep 16- Signal X

“Effiom!” I shouted again, my voice bouncing off the high ceilings of the house my father had built with the precision of the soldier he was.

“Where is Mummy? Where is Daddy?”

Effiom appeared at the end of the hallway. My brother, usually so composed, looked like a ghost.

His eyes were bloodshot, and his shirt was torn at the collar. He moved toward me, his hands shaking.

“Sote... Unwana, listen to me,” he started, his voice cracking on my name.

“Daddy... he was in the study. He just... he fell. We tried, So. We tried to get the medics here fast enough...”

“Where is he?” I snapped, trying to push past him.

My heart was a drum in my ears.

“Effiom, let me go! I need to see him!”

I made a break for the stairs, my heels skidding on the marble, but a pair of strong arms wrapped around my waist, pinning me back.

It was one of the orderlies, a man who usually stood at attention when I walked by.

Now, he was holding me like I was a frantic animal.

“Let me go!” I screamed, the sound tearing from my throat.

“Where is my father? Someone tell me where he is!”

“Unwana, please!” my Auntie cried, rushing from the dining area.

She grabbed my face, her palms cold and damp with tears.

“Calm down, my child. Your mother is okay. She’s in her room, she’s well.”

“Okay!! That’s great! I want my father!” I thrashed against the arms holding me.

“Why is everyone crying? If Mummy is okay, then what about Daddy? Why won’t anyone say his name?”

The silence that followed was the loudest thing I had ever heard.

Auntie Alice looked away. The orderly loosened his grip, his head bowed.

The pity in the room was a suffocating shroud. They wouldn’t say it.

They wouldn’t say the word that would end my world.

I turned away from them, my chest heaving, and that’s when I saw him.

Standing by the fireplace, framed by the flickering shadows, was a man I hadn’t seen in nearly a year.

He looked older, his face etched with a weariness that went beyond physical exhaustion.

“Asuquo?” I whispered.

My eldest brother, the one named after our grandfather, the one who carried the weight of the family name on his shoulders, didn’t speak.

He just looked at me with a hollow, broken expression.

In his right hand, he was clutching something small and gold.

He walked toward me, his boots heavy on the floor, and as he got closer, the light hit the objects in his hand.

It was my father’s glasses.

The left lens was shattered, a spiderweb of cracks radiating from the center.

And tucked under his thumb was the tattered, leather-bound military cap.

The one Major General Idorenyin never went a day without.

The man who commanded thousands, the man who had been the sun in my mother’s sky for thirty-five years, the man who called me his “Little General” was gone.

Asuquo reached me and pulled me into a chest that felt like stone.

He didn’t have to say a word.

The shattered glass and the empty cap told the whole story.

My “Light” had gone out. The pillar had crumbled.

The room began to tilt.

The frantic cries of the house faded into a dull hum, and the last thing I felt was the rough texture of my father’s cap against my cheek before the world went completely black.

---

AkilaHyel

The notification came through the encrypted military channel first.

The vibration against my thigh felt like a low-voltage shock, a rhythmic drumming that usually signaled a change in deployment or a high-level briefing.

I pulled the phone out, expecting a routine sitrep, but the words on the screen turned my blood to slush.

[FLASH REPORT]: MG Idorenyin (NA/1024) — Signal: X. Blackout Protocol Engaged. Casualty Confirmed.

My breath hitched. In the Nigerian Army, a “Signal X” meant the end of an era. It meant a pillar, a mountain of a man had fallen.

Major General Idorenyin was not just an officer; he was a titan. He was the kind of commander who had earned every star on his shoulder with blood, sweat, and a level of integrity that made younger men like me stand a little straighter.

To think of him as a “casualty” felt like a grammatical error.

Mountains don’t just collapse.

I didn’t think. I didn’t process. I just dialed Effiom.

“Pick up, Effiom. Pick up,” I muttered, pacing the length of my room, my boots heavy on the floorboards.

On the fourth ring, he answered. “Old Man?”

His voice was thin, stripped of its usual bravado.

He was trying to use that “Officer’s Tone,” the one we are drilled to maintain under fire, but it was cracking.

It was the voice of a boy standing in the middle of a wreckage, watching his world burn.

“Effiom, I just saw the signal,” I said, my voice low and urgent.

“Tell me it’s a mistake. Tell me the General is in surgery.”

There was a ragged, wet sound on the other end.

“He’s gone, Akila. He just... he slumped. Right there in the study. He didn’t even say a word. He’s just gone.”

My chest tightened. I thought of the man I had seen just days ago at the barracks, and then I thought of Soteria.

“It’s bad, Akila. It’s really bad.”

“I’m coming. I’m on my way now. Don’t move. I’m coming.”

I hung up and sprinted to the kitchen. Naya was there, hum-singing a worship song as she stirred a pot.

The smell of frying onions filled the air. A normal, domestic Sunday scent that now felt like a violent insult to the tragedy unfolding across the city.

“Naya,” I said. My voice was too sharp, too military.

She turned, smiling, a wooden spoon mid-air. “You’re finally hungry? I’m almost….”

“General Idorenyin is dead.”

The spoon hit the tiled floor with a sickening clatter.

Her smile didn’t just fade; it vanished into a mask of pure horror.

“What? No. No, Akila, we just left Soteria na! We just saw his daughter! Stop it. That’s not a joke….”

“I’m not joking, Naya. The signal just went out.”

A piercing scream tore out of her throat, a sound of raw grief that seemed to vibrate the very walls.

She collapsed against the counter, her hands flying to her face.

“Oh my God, Soteria! Her father was her world, Akila! He was her whole world!”

She grabbed her phone, her fingers shaking so much she was stabbing at the screen blindly.

“I have to call her. Why isn’t she picking up? Soso, please pick up!”

“Naya! Look at me!” I grabbed her shoulders, my grip firm enough to anchor her.

“Pull yourself together. Look at me. Soteria doesn’t need your hysterics right now. She needs a sister. She needs someone who can stand when she can’t. We are going there now. Go and change. I’m giving you two minutes.”

The drive to the General’s residence was a blur of speed and silence.

Usually, I am the one who remains unmoved, but the weight of the man’s absence was already pressing down on the city.

As we turned into the estate, the flags were already halfway down the poles.

The sight made my throat ache. He was a man of the old guard, a man I respected with a depth I couldn’t put into words.

To see the military honors beginning for him was like watching a fortress be dismantled.

Beside me, Naya was trembling. The reality was starting to melt into her skin, and the grief was heavy in the car.

I reached over, my hand covering hers on the gear shift. I didn’t say a word, but I held on tight.

She was terrified for her friend, and I was terrified of what we were about to walk into.

As we stepped out of the car, the atmosphere hit me.

It was thin, as if the oxygen had been sucked out of the compound. People were moving like shadows.

I saw battle-hardened soldiers. Men I’d seen survive insurgencies, leaning against the walls of the house, weeping openly. The grief was so thick you could taste it in the dust.

I stopped at the threshold. I felt a surge of inadequacy.

What do you say when a titan falls? I began to murmur in the Spirit, my voice low, a rhythmic flow of tongues that was the only language that made sense.

I wasn’t just praying; I was interceding. I was asking the Father to hold the rafters of this house before they crashed down on the people inside.

We walked in, and the smell of sorrow met us.

Effiom was the first person I saw.

He looked like he had aged ten years since the morning.

He walked toward me, his steps heavy, and before I could even salute his grief, he crashed into me.

I caught him.

He hugged me with a desperate, bone-crushing strength, his face buried in my shoulder.

He didn’t sob, not out loud. But his entire frame was shuddering.

He wouldn’t let go, clutching my shirt like a life raft. I didn’t push him away.

I just stood there, patting his back, my eyes scanning the room, searching for the one person I had treated so coldly just hours before.

Where is she?

I kept praying under my breath, interceding for her.

Lord, mercy. Father, mercy.

When Effiom finally pulled back, his eyes were bloodshot.

I led him toward the balcony, away from the distant relatives who were already filling the parlor with their noise.

“Effiom,” I said softly. “Where is Soteria?”

Effiom’s eyes filled with fresh tears as he looked out over the garden.

“She fainted, Akila. Asuquo arrived... he had Daddy’s glasses. The lens was shattered. When she saw them, she just... she hit the floor. She’s upstairs now. The doctor checked her, but she’s not saying a word to anyone. She’s just staring at the ceiling.”

He let out a shaky breath that sounded like a groan.

“My mom had to be sedated. She wouldn’t stop screaming. She was calling for him to wake up, telling him it was time for dinner... they had to put her under.”

I looked toward the stairs, the guilt I had been suppressed all afternoon finally breaking through the surface.

I had been so tough with her.

“Can I see her?” I asked, the words feeling heavy in my mouth.

Effiom looked at me, a flicker of exhaustion-fueled hope crossing his face. “Go. Please. Maybe she’ll talk to you. She’s not talking to us.”

I turned and began to climb the stairs, each step feeling like an eternity.

I had no idea what I was going to say. I just knew I couldn’t leave her alone in that silence.

I would give anything to hear her voice again, even if she was saying “rubbish.”

SOTERIA’S POV

The ceiling was a blur of white and grey when I first opened my eyes, a stark and empty canvas that felt as hollow as my chest.

For a moment, a blissful, jagged second, I didn’t remember.

Then the image of the shattered gold frames in Asuquo’s hand flashed behind my eyelids like a lightning strike, and the weight of the entire world collapsed onto my ribcage.

I wanted to slip back into the darkness. I wanted the blackness that had claimed me in the foyer to swallow me whole and never spit me back out.

I felt the mattress dip beside me and heard the soft, ragged breathing of someone trying to hold back a sob.

Amara.

I could smell her perfume, mixed with the medicinal scent of the room.

I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to see the pity or the terror in her eyes because it would only confirm that the nightmare was real.

So I did the only thing I could. I closed my eyes and focused on the rhythm of my breathing, pretending that the girl lying on this bed was someone else entirely.

I waited for the tears.

I waited for the hot, stinging release that usually came when I was overwhelmed, but my eyes remained bone dry.

My heart didn’t feel like it was beating; it felt like it was being squeezed by a giant, invisible hand, tighter and tighter until I was suffocating in the middle of a room full of air.

I heard the door creak open.

The floorboards groaned under a familiar, light step.

“How is she?”

It was Naya. Her voice was thick, warped by weeping.

I heard my aunt whisper something in return, a hushed phrase that sounded like a lament.

They were talking about me as if I were a ghost, their voices low and reverent, punctuated by the occasional sniffle.

They were crying for me, crying for a man who had been a father to all of us in different ways, but I felt nothing but a cold, terrifying numbness.

I felt Naya’s hand slide into mine.

Her skin was warm, but I was ice.

She began to mumble, her voice a fragile thread of intercession.

“Father, please. Give her strength. Lord, have mercy. Cover her heart. Don’t let her break, Lord. Please, just give her peace.”

Every word she prayed felt like a pebble being dropped into a deep, dark well.

I heard the splash, but I couldn’t feel the water.

Naya was sobbing now, her grip on my hand tightening as she pleaded with a God I wasn’t sure was listening anymore.

Why was she praying for peace when the storm had already leveled the house?

Why was she asking for mercy when the most merciful man I knew was lying on a cold slab in a hospital morgue?

“How long has she been like this?” Naya whispered after a while, her voice trembling.

“Over two hours,” Amara replied, her voice breaking on the words.

“She woke up for a second, earlier. She looked right at me, but her eyes were... they were empty. She didn’t say a single word. She just closed her eyes and went back to sleep. I’m so scared for her. I’ve never seen her like this.”

They continued to talk, a chorus of grief that felt like it was coming from miles away.

I remained a statue, a prisoner in my own skin, watching the darkness behind my eyelids.

Then, the atmosphere in the room shifted. It wasn’t a sound, but a change in the very pressure of the air.

The hushed whispers of the women stopped abruptly.

The frantic, jagged energy of the room suddenly smoothed out, replaced by a heavy, commanding presence that could only belong to one person.

“Please,” a deep, resonant voice said. “Could you give me a minute with her?”

Akila.

I heard the soft rustle of clothes as they stood up.

I heard the door click shut, leaving the room in a silence so profound I could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall.

I expected him to stay by the door. I expected him to maintain the distance he had so carefully built between us.

But then I felt the air grow warm beside me.

He didn’t hesitate.

He reached out and took my hand, his palm broad and calloused, wrapping around my fingers with a steadiness that made my breath catch.

He didn’t squeeze too hard, but he held on as if he were anchoring me to the earth.

“Father,” he began, his voice a low, rhythmic vibration that seemed to bypass my ears and go straight to my soul.

“I thank You for the life of Your daughter. I thank You because You are the God who gives and the God who takes away, but You never leave us comfortless. I pray for the peace that passes all understanding to flood this room right now. I decree that life will swallow up this death. Nothing will take her life. No spirit of despair will claim her. Lord, hold her heart in Your hands.”

I felt a small, involuntary shriek of my muscles, a tiny shake that I couldn’t control. I wanted to see him.

I didn’t care about the pride or the shame or the way he had looked at me before the world ended.

I just needed to look at something that wasn’t the darkness.

I slowly pulled my eyelids open.

Akila was leaning over me, his eyes trained on mine with an intensity that was almost frightening.

He didn’t look away.

He didn’t look at me with the pity the others had.

He looked at me with a grim, unwavering recognition of my pain.

He saw the movement in my eyes and a small, sad smile touched his lips.

It wasn’t a smile of pity; it was a smile of understanding.

“I knew you were awake,” he said softly, his thumb tracing a slow circle over the back of my hand.

“That’s why I asked them to leave. You don’t have to pretend with me, Soteria.”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

I just stared at him blankly, my gaze fixed on the hard lines of his face.

I saw the fatigue in the corners of his eyes and the tension in his jaw.

He was holding my hand as if it were the most precious thing in the room, but my heart felt like a hollow shell.

“I am here,” he whispered, his voice steady and sure.

“I’m not going anywhere. Whatever you need, I am here for you.”

I looked at him, and for the first time since I walked into that house, I felt a flicker of something. It wasn’t comfort. It wasn’t love.

It was just a cold, sharp realization that while my world had stopped, the man in front of me was still standing, and for some reason, he had chosen to stand in the wreckage with me.

But even then, as I watched his lips move and felt the heat of his hand, the numbness remained.

I was the Little General without a commander, a light that had been snuffed out, and not even Akila’s strength could reach the place where I was hiding.

I just kept staring at him, silent and shattered, waiting for the feeling to return to a heart that felt like it had died along with my father.

---

The two weeks that followed the collapse of my world were a blur of shadows and the relentless ticking of a clock that seemed to mock the stillness of my heart.

The house was never empty now.

It was filled with the heavy scent of lilies and the low drone of voices that sounded like bees in a distant field.

I stayed in the small living area upstairs, a space that used to be filled with the sound of my father’s deep laughter as he watched the news.

Now, it was a tomb. My mother sat beside me on the velvet sofa, her back curved like a withered branch.

Her eyes were no longer the bright, sharp eyes of the woman who ran our home with a gentle iron fist; they were two hollow, bloodshot pits of despair.

Every few hours, someone would appear with a tray. The smell of the food made my stomach churn with a violence that left me lightheaded.

My brothers, Effiom and Ubong, and even Asuquo, who had barely slept, took turns kneeling at our feet. They begged.

They pleaded with us to take even a spoonful of pepper soup, but my throat felt like it had been sewn shut with rusted wire.

I watched everything through a pane of glass.

My aunties were wailing, their voices rising in high-pitched laments that filled the hallways, but I was quiet.

I was unnervingly still.

While everyone else was falling apart, I was the one moving through the house like a ghost, adjusting the cushions, ensuring the guests had water, and nodding politely when people offered their condolences.

I didn’t cry. I wanted to.

I reached deep inside myself, searching for the well of salt and water that usually flowed so easily, but I found only parched, cracked earth.

My eyes were clear, my face a mask of strange, distant calm that was starting to terrify my family.

“Please, Unwana. Just one bite,” My auntie said, her voice cracking as she held a bowl toward me.

She looked at me with eyes full of fear, her hand trembling.

“It’s been two weeks. You are acting so normal, but you are fading away before our eyes. Please, eat.”

I looked at her and offered a small, odd smile that didn’t reach my eyes.

“I’m fine, Auntie. I’m just making sure Mummy is okay. I’ll eat later.”

My mother looked at me then, a fresh wave of agony crossing her face.

She reached out with a thin, shaking hand and grabbed my forearm.

“Unwana, my light. Don’t do this. Don’t be strong for me. I need you to at least eat something.”

“I am fine, Mummy,” I said softly, my voice steady and dry.

My mother began to weep then, a jagged, primal sob ripping out of her chest.

She clung to me, her body shaking with a grief so profound it felt like her bones were snapping.

She cried for the man who was a General to the world but a soft, warm hearth to us.

She cried for the way he used to call her his queen and the way he looked at me with such fierce pride.

I held her.

I wrapped my arms around her and rocked her back and forth, my face buried in her neck, but my own eyes remained bone dry.

The pain in my heart was a physical thing, a blade that twisted every time I took a breath, yet no tears fell to soothe the burn.

---

Earlier in the week, Pastor Olive had come to see me.

She wasn’t alone; a few members from the church stood behind her, their faces etched with a quiet, holy solemnity.

I was shocked into a momentary silence. I had only just started going to that church.

I was a newcomer, yet here they were, standing in the middle of my wreckage.

Pastor Olive walked over and knelt on the floor in front of the sofa where I and mom were constant occupants.

She reached out and placed her hands on our knees.

“We love you, Soteria,” she said softly. “The whole church is lifting you up in prayers.”

I looked at her, and the questions I had been burying started to scream in my mind, even if my eyes wouldn’t leak.

“Why, Pastor?” I asked, my voice terrifyingly calm.

“Why now? I just found God. I just started becoming serious. I was finally trying to change my life, to be closer to God. Why did He take my light the moment I decided to come home? Why didn’t God tell me? Pastor said He reveals things before they happen! Why was I too blind to see it? If I had known, I would have prayed. I would have stayed home. I would have held him and never let him go!”

I wasn’t screaming, but the intensity in my voice made the room go cold.

I was hyperventilating, my chest heaving, but my face remained a mask of dry grief. Pastor Olive leaned forward and pulled me into a firm, motherly hug.

She let me lean into her, and she whispered directly into my ear, her voice a soothing balm.

“He loves you, Soteria. He loves you in the dark just as much as He loves you in the light. Sometimes, the Father calls His giants home because their work is done. You weren’t blind, my darling. You were being prepared. He didn’t warn you so you could stop it; He warned you so you would know He was already there waiting for you in the middle of it.”

She stayed for another hour, leading the group in a low, humming prayer.

When they finally rose to leave, Naya stood up to see them off, her face wet.

---

Back to the present, another of my aunties came to the house, her face set in a look of desperate determination.

“Unwana, listen to me. This house is too heavy. I want you to come to my house for a few days. You need to eat, and you won’t do it here where every corner looks like your father.”

I looked around the room. I saw his favorite footstool. I saw the portrait of him in his full dress uniform.

“No,” I said, my voice gaining a sudden, stubborn edge. “I’m not leaving her. I won’t leave my mother alone in this silence. And I won’t leave this house. This is the only place where I can still feel him. If I leave, I’m admitting he’s really gone. I’ll stay right here. This is his house. I’m staying with my General.”

I looked past my aunt and saw Akila standing in the shadows of the hallway.

I knew Akila had been coming around when he could.

Naya told me in whispers that he was covering Effiom’s shifts at the office, taking on the burden of the paperwork and the drills so my brother could stay home and mourn.

It was a silent, stoic kind of kindness that I didn’t have the energy to process.

When he arrived that afternoon, the air in the room seemed to tighten.

He stood by the door, his presence a dark, steady anchor in a room full of drifting ghosts.

He was watching me, his expression unreadable, his eyes fixed on my dry face. He knew.

He could see the wall I had built to keep from shattering, and for the first time, I saw a flicker of something like fear for me in his eyes.

I just turned back to my mother and held her hand, settling back into the quiet, starving numbness of our new reality.

AkilaHyel POV

The drive home from the General’s house was the quietest twenty minutes of my life. The engine hummed, but the silence inside the cabin was pressurized, heavy with the image of Soteria’s dry, vacant eyes.

It was a look I knew too well. It was the look of a person who had retreated so far into themselves that the world outside was just a muted film.

I pulled into my driveway and killed the lights, but I didn’t get out.

I sat there in the dark, my hands still gripping the steering wheel. I was terrified for her.

That fire she had. The one that had annoyed me, challenged me, and eventually intrigued me.

It had been snuffed out. She was moving like a programmed machine, smiling that hollow, terrifying smile while her soul was clearly screaming behind a wall of glass.

I could relate, and that was the part that made my chest ache.

I remembered the day my father was murdered. I remembered the heat of the sun, the smell of the dust, and the sight of him falling before my eyes.

I hadn’t cried then, either. I had turned into stone, a cold, unyielding monument of a boy who thought that if he didn’t leak, he wouldn’t break.

It took years for that ice to even crack, and I didn’t want her to stay frozen for that long.

I needed to help her, but I didn’t know how to reach a heart that had gone into lockdown.

I had spent the last two weeks filing reports, handling Effiom’s logistical nightmares at the base, and ensuring the funeral protocols were moving, but none of that reached the girl upstairs.

I walked into the house, the emptiness echoing without Naya there.

She was staying over with Soteria, trying to be the anchor I couldn’t be.

I went to my study, and after a long moment of hesitation, I dialed Almeera.

She picked up after a few rings, her face appearing on the screen.

She was in her home in the UK, the soft morning light behind her.

Almeera was my past. The woman who had seen me at my absolute worst and walked through the valley of my father’s death with me.

She was still the only person who truly understood my silence.

“Akila,” she said, her voice warm and surprised.

“It’s late there. Is everything okay?”

“General Idorenyin is dead, Meera,” I said, my voice sounding ragged even to my own ears.

Her hand went to her mouth. “Oh, Akila. I’m so sorry. I know how much you respected him. How is the family? How are they holding up? How is your friend Effiom?”

“Effiom is holding on, but it’s his sister. Soteria.” I leaned back, rubbing my eyes.

“She’s not crying. She hasn’t eaten well in two weeks. She’s acting... normal. She’s hosting people, she’s smiling, she’s holding her mother together, but she’s hollow. I look at her and I see a ghost.”

Almeera watched me closely through the screen, her expression softening into something perceptive.

“Why are you calling me about this, Akila? You usually handle these things with your ‘Captain’ mask on.”

“Because I don’t know what to do,” I admitted, the confession feeling like a defeat.

“I remember when I lost my dad. I remember how I was. How did you deal with me, Meera? How did you make me feel better without even trying? Because right now, I feel like every word I say is just more noise.”

Almeera smiled a sad, knowing smile.

“I didn’t make you feel better, Akila. Nobody can make that kind of pain ‘better.’ I just stayed. I didn’t ask you questions, I didn’t tell you to eat, and I didn’t tell you it was going to be okay, because we both knew it wasn’t. I just sat in the room while you stared at the wall. I let you be silent until the silence wasn’t scary anymore.”

She paused, tilting her head.

“You’re really worried about her. I can hear it in your voice. You sound...scared.”

“I just don’t want her to shatter,” I said quickly, ignoring the implication.

“She was just starting to find her feet in Christ. She was beginning to love God, Meera. And then this happened.”

“She needs a change of atmosphere,” Almeera advised.

“The grief in that house is a physical weight. If she stays there, she’ll keep playing the role of the ‘Strong Daughter’ until she collapses. She needs to be somewhere where she doesn’t have to be the General’s daughter. Somewhere she can just be a girl who lost her dad.”

I thought about my house. It was quiet. It was neutral.

“Naya and her friend are with her. I was thinking... Maybe I should suggest they all come here? Just for a night or two. Away from the mourners and the wailing aunties.”

Almeera nodded.

“That’s a good start. But Akila? When she comes, don’t try to fix it. Just be the wall she can lean on when she finally stops standing so straight.”

We talked for a few more minutes about her family and the funeral arrangements, but my mind was already upstairs in the General’s house.

After we hung up, I stood by the window, looking out at the dark.

I didn’t know I was falling.

I told myself it was professional courtesy. I told myself it was for Effiom.

But as I imagined her sitting in my living room, away from the pressure of her father’s legacy, I realized that the “Signal X” hadn’t just changed her life. It had shifted something in mine, too.

I picked up my phone and messaged Naya:

Tell Soteria’s aunt that I’m coming to get you all tomorrow morning. You guys staying at our place for a few days. Soteria needs the fresh air .

I didn’t know if she would come. I didn’t know if she would ever cry.

But as I looked at the moon, I realized I was willing to wait in the silence for as long as it took for her light to come back.

Because a world without Soteria’s fire was a world that felt far too cold to live in.

My heart goes out for Naya🥹🥹

It truly does🥹🥹

Do you think her father’s death was for a good course? Was it an attack? Was it a punishment?

Does God punish those he love?? Use biblical references.

Do you think this will push her farther from God?

Let’s do a bit of Bible study…

I’ll be waiting for your comments 💙

Also drop a word of encouragement for those like Soteria who have lost a loved one.

See y’all tomorrow for a fresh chapter.