Sarah... 
August 1995.... Ogunu town, Warri

I was 7 years old when I had my first scar. We were a family of three. My dad, mum and I. My dad was a mechanical engineer and he had just gotten a contract in a refinery in Nigeria. We had to move all the way from Alaska.... Warri to be exact. 
It was a cool evening and I was playing with my dolls outside our apartment when I saw one of my dad's coworkers (whom I called Uncle Ben) rush in looking worried. He went to my dad and told him some things I couldn't quite understand at the time (still don't) and my dad called to me to get inside quickly. All I saw when I went inside was a lot of commotion and packing bags. Then my mum came to me to tell me that we had to leave for a while. I asked why but all she told me was that we had to go. I was about to make a fuss and throw a tantrum when she grabbed me and hauled me towards the car.
As we rushed to the car, I remember looking down the street and noticing that the people down the road were still gathered and having fun. Out of what seemed like jealousy, I asked my mum why they were not leaving and she said they didn't know about it. I asked why and I wasn't given a response and that's when we heard it. A loud gunshot that made my mum scream, it was then and there that the fear in me sprung out. I started crying, but my parents hardly paid any attention to me, they just hurried into the car. I looked out the window to where I saw the kids playing. And in the far distance, I saw fire, fighting, people dying, and what really caught my eye was a little boy who appeared unharmed but went next to a woman lying on the floor with blood all around her and the little boy just laid down next to her. I saw a man being cut many times by some boys holding machetes. I saw a man shot while he was trying to run with his wife. The fear in me went to an all-high level and I didn't know how to feel. All I could feel was the tears running down my cheeks and the sound of gunshots piercing through my ears. I felt like I would go deaf. The gunshots were so loud and rapid, a part of me remembered back home when we used to have fireworks. But those sounds were too loud to be fireworks. Also, fireworks didn't come with this much screaming and crying. Because even from a distance, I could hear the screams of women and children, the laughter from some of the shooters. (I wondered why causing so much pain and death felt funny to them). I can still remember the look of fear on my dad's face as uncle Ben drove furiously and I can remember panicking over the way he was driving. There were sharp turns and it seemed like the car was galloping because of the bumps on the road. He used to be a lot more careful when he drove. We had barely gotten a few blocks when we heard more gunshots and I felt my mum squeeze me tight and the car started slowing down... I heard my mum scream, then I looked up to see uncle Ben leaning on the steering wheel, not moving, with blood coming out the back of his head. My dad called him a few times but he didn't respond. I was drawn back to what was close to me when some scary looking men surrounded our car and started hitting it screaming for us to come out.... It was right then I continued crying; I saw them hitting my dad. I tried to tell them to stop. I screamed but no one answered; they didn't seem to care about little me.... 
Then I was pulled away from my mum and I watched as some of those men dragged her away and took me back into the car and locked me in. From there, I watched as my dad tried to fight back to protect my mum, but he was hit on the head with a club and he fell down, with blood dripping from the side of his face. One of them took a machete and cut off one of my dad's hand for trying to fight back.... Then he was put in the back of a truck and my mum was put in the same car as me. I remember feeling relieved because she was there with me. But I still couldn't stop crying. I kept asking her why those men were doing bad things to us, why they were hurting my father, but she just held me tighter crying. And they drove us away to an unknown destination.
As we rode in the car, a scary man sat next to my mum and he threatened to kill us both if she didn't do as he asked. I listened as he asked my mum to clean up her face and pretend to be his wife if we ran into anyone. (Like he could ever compare to my dad). The man in the driver's seat kept referring to the man next to my mum as 01(oh one). I remember thinking how funny his name was. We drove for days, mostly through bushes and trees. It was strange that on the days we drove, we didn't pass any town or see anyone on the roads besides the couple of soldiers we passed by. There were two groups. The first didn't even seem bothered, as they were paid by the man sitting next to my mum and they let us pass even without looking at us to see if we were fine. The second group were a little more observant. Because after they were paid, one of them insisted on talking to my mum. He asked who we were and where we were headed, to which she gave answers. Then he looked at me and asked me the same question. I was about to answer when the look on his face changed, blood gushed out of his mouth and, almost instantly, we started hearing gunshots and before long, all the soldiers were dead. 01 came to me and said: "That was a mistake little girl, now your daddy is going to die for that". My mother's response to that was crying and pleading, but I was too tired to even cry, so I just held on to my mum. 
After days of traveling, we finally got to our destination.... A dark forest with nothing but trees and bushes all around us. And just as we came out, I heard my mum cry out. I turned to see the head of my dad being saved on a stick like a flag. I immediately joined her in crying...
... The beginning of a new hell...