ADEBIMPE (Episode 1)

My name is Adebimpe.

At least… that was the name my mother whispered into my ear the night before they took me away.

I remember her hands shaking as she braided my hair, tight and neat, the way she always did when she was afraid but didn’t want me to know. The moonlight slipped through the cracks in our mud wall, resting on her face like it wanted to memorize her too.

“Whatever happens,” she said softly, “don’t forget who you are.”

I didn’t know then that forgetting would soon be demanded of me.

The palace gates were taller than any tree I had ever seen. Iron teeth lined the top, sharp and unforgiving, as if the building itself was warning us: enter, and you will not leave the same.

We were seven girls brought in that morning. Seven lives folded into silence. Some cried openly. Some stared ahead like statues. Me? I counted my steps, because if I stopped counting, my heart would run away without me.

A man with a deep scar across his cheek read our names from a wooden slate.

When he called Adebimpe, his voice bent the name, twisted it, like it didn’t belong in his mouth.

“From today,” he said, “you answer only when spoken to. You speak only when permitted. You belong to the palace now.”

Belong.

The word hit harder than the chain they locked around my ankle.

Inside, the palace smelled of incense, sweat, and secrets that had lived longer than anyone alive. Servants moved like shadows quiet, trained, empty-eyed. I watched them carefully. I knew I was looking at my future.

An older woman named Iya Morounkeji was assigned to watch over me. Her back was bent, her voice rough, but her eyes… her eyes still remembered kindness.

“You are new,” she said without looking at me. “So you will suffer more. That is the palace way.”

She paused, then added quietly, “But if you learn fast, you may survive.”

Survive.

Not live. Not dream. Just survive.

That night, alone on a thin mat in the servants’ quarters, I pressed my face into the floor and cried without sound. I cried for my mother’s voice. I cried for my name. I cried because I understood something terrible and final:

I was no longer a daughter.

I was no longer free.

I was now a story being written by other people.

But as my tears soaked the cold earth, I made myself a promise one I did not speak aloud, because promises are fragile things in a place like that.

If they are going to write my story,

then I will remember every word.

Because one day…

I will tell it myself.

Continue reading Episode 2