The Forest of God's Protection! Late afternoon, when the sunlight begins to fade, heading west to set, the darkness of dusk trying to replace the remaining light left by the sun before it completely sets. A mix of tall and short trees, along with various grasses from different roots, come together to form a dense forest. It might be fascinating for someone who comes for sightseeing, if they don't know what the forest contains. For someone who knows what it contains, it would be the most terrifying, frightening, and distressing place. She was running between life and death, clutching a cloth to her chest, and from a distance, it was impossible to tell what she was holding while running so desperately. Her feet were bare, her body without a veil, despite the cool weather, her skin was dry like a rock that hasn't seen rain for years, with no sign of awareness of where she was stepping. Despite her dire situation, she gave utmost importance to what she was holding. Unknowingly, she collided with something she couldn't identify, but the force and weight of it made her fall to the ground, immediately letting out a wailing cry as blood started to flow from her leg. At that moment, what she was holding also started crying out of fear. It was a newborn baby, with its umbilical cord still intact, its body covered in the dryness of birth, indicating the baby was a few days old but hadn't even seen water to wash off the birth dirt.

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In the city of Kano, in the Korayi Tinga neighborhood, around four o'clock on a Thursday afternoon, there was a modest house among a cluster of houses in a small alley. One look at the houses and you could tell they belonged to people of modest means, considering the state of the surroundings and the fact that the houses were built with ropes, no drainage systems, no proper streets, everyone facing their house in whichever direction they pleased, some with repairs, some without, and the houses were so close together it seemed like one could climb onto another.

"Won't you come out and run an errand for me until the charcoal is finished?" said a middle-aged woman sitting in front of a small stove, holding a fan and fanning it, with a silver plate containing corn flour beside her.

A young girl came out from a room behind the woman, holding her hijab in one hand and wiping tears with the other.

The woman looked at her and said, "Why are you crying?"

As if waiting for the opportunity, the girl said, "Isn't it Huzaifa who..."

"Just be quiet, you always fight as if you can see each other's insides. If I stop you from going where he is, you won't listen. Take this money and go to Laure's house, get sixty naira worth of kuka, forty naira worth of dawadawa, and a hundred naira worth of palm oil, and bring me the change quickly so I can prepare the soup before dusk."

The girl pouted and said, "So today again it's kuka soup, Innalillahi wa innalillahi raji'un."

The woman stared at the girl in anger and said, "If I prepare the kuka soup, don't drink it. Will you take the money and go or should I throw you out?"

The girl knelt down, took the money, put on her hijab, and headed out, thinking it would be better if they had nothing to eat today than this ritual-like cornmeal.

With a warning, the woman said, "If you feel like it, go and sit down, don't hurry and see what I'll do to you, or follow the children and waste time on the way."

Without looking back, the girl went on her way, looking around.

She first stopped by her friend Habiba's house, found Habiba's mother in the courtyard getting her hair braided, knelt down to greet her, and said she came to see Habiba. Habiba came out of their room smiling, approached her and said, "Ruma, where are you going?"

In a pleading voice, Ruma said, "Please Habiba, can you lend me Sani's tire? My mom sent me on an errand and I want to hurry and come back."

Habiba said, "Oh, Ruma, you know Sani values his tire, I don't want to lend it to you and then lose it, both of us will be in trouble."

Ruma, with confidence, said, "I swear it won't get lost, just lend it to me, I want to hurry and come back."

Habiba took Ruma to their courtyard, checked the top of the chicken coop in their small entrance, took Sani's tire and gave it to Ruma, saying, "Please Ruma, be careful, don't let anything happen to this tire, hurry and come back."

Ruma smiled and said, "Don't worry, I'll be back soon, I love this tire, Sani should have left it for me, it's just a little smaller than it. You'll see, I'll be back soon."

Habiba smiled and said, "Alright, hurry before he comes back."

Ruma held the tire, ran through the alleys like a boy, not stopping until she reached Laure's house. She did her shopping, came out, and was about to head home when she saw some children with their slates in front of Hanne's grinding house playing. Forgetting her mother's warning, she put down the shopping items, the change, and the borrowed tire, and joined the play.

Being an expert in play and skilled in rinto, the game quickly became intense, seeing she was winning in rinto, the game turned into a fight, and then into wrestling. Ruma wrestled with a strong girl like a horse. A man separated the fight, Ruma had beaten the children, and the man threatened to tell her brothers, so she stopped fighting.

The girl she fought with, seeing the damage to their grinding house, the beating, she and her siblings broke Ruma's palm oil, took the change, tore the shopping bag and ran away, even the dawadawa, she had to pick some pieces, the kuka was scattered.

She gathered the remaining items and headed home, thinking of what lie to tell her mother to avoid her wrath, as she hated her mother's scolding, and also thinking of the beating she would give Safiya when they met at the Quranic school for what they did to her. When Ruma reached home, the call to Maghrib prayer had already started, some mosques had even started the prayer, and she felt a chill of fear.

She crouched in the hallway, peeking into the house, saw her mother at the well performing ablution, her mother glanced at her once, then continued her ablution.

Quietly, Ruma entered, stealing glances at her mother, wondering what her mother would say, but her mother said nothing. She quietly put down the remaining shopping items, went to the bathroom to perform ablution.

She came to the living room, stood behind her mother and joined the prayer. Her mother finished, got up, went to the courtyard, checked the shopping items Ruma brought, saw the mess Ruma made. She returned to the living room waiting for Ruma to finish praying to scold her, but Ruma refused to finish, started praying extra prayers without reason, a girl who sometimes had to be beaten to pray, but today even with extra prayers.

When her mother saw it wasn't ending, she grabbed her neck from behind, sat her down, looked at her angrily and said, "Where did you go when I sent you?"

Fearfully, Ruma shook her head and said, "Nowhere, Mama."

"You're lying, will you tell me or should I twist your neck, since I sent you in the afternoon and you came back at dusk, where did you go?"

With wide eyes, Ruma kept shaking her head, swearing falsely, "I swear, Mama, I didn't go anywhere."

In extreme anger, her mother said, "You won't tell me!"

"Mama, I swear I'm telling the truth."

"Assalamu alaikum," someone greeted in the courtyard.

Her mother answered the greeting angrily, a young man entered the room, saying, "Mama, I'm back."

Her mother said, "Welcome back."

He responded, "Thank you," looked at his mother standing over Ruma, Ruma was blinking her eyes as if she had insulted a king.

"Mama, what happened?" he asked, wanting to know the story.

In anger, her mother said, "Because of this girl's mischief, I sent her to Laure's house to buy soup ingredients, since afternoon she just came back, no shopping, no change, I asked her where she stopped but she refused to say, just swearing falsely."

He looked at Ruma and said, "Won't you say where you stopped, and where's the change? Or did you go and spend the money as usual?"

In defiance and rudeness, Ruma said, "I don't know, and who asked you to interfere, thinking you can deceive the head of the house, it's not with you..." Before she finished, her mother shut her mouth with a slap, making her think her mouth was bleeding.

She quickly stepped back, holding her mouth, waving her hands because the slap hurt a lot.

He shook his head and said, "Mama, leave her, she has no manners, don't stress yourself, wait for the head of the house or Haidar to come, they will question her for you."

Hearing what he said made Ruma jump, she said, "I swear, Mama, I'm telling the truth, for God's sake don't tell them, the change fell on the way, I fell and the palm oil broke, please don't tell them."

"I swear, Mama, she's lying, you know her lies, wait for the head of the house to come