The Most terrifying day of My Life

I remember when I was a lot younger, probably about 7 or 8 years of age. I still happened to be in primary school as at then. It was one faithful evening. I and my siblings where in the living room while my parents were outside getting some fresh air because it was quite hot inside as we didn't have light that night.

Being unable to bear the heat, I decided to go join my parents outside as well to partake of the evening breeze they were enjoying. Just as I was stepping outside the front door, my dad I my mom ran towards me at a highspeed as my dad screamed at me, "Go inside, go inside!" Shocked at what was going on I quickly turned back towards the living room while they both entered inside and quickly bolted the door and locked it.

Just a few seconds later, we began to hear loud bang on the door, we were being attacked by armed robbers. The man who banged on the door asked us to open the it, claiming to be a police officer who came to conduct investigation. My dad was like, "Investigation? By 10pm in the night?" In my mind I was hoping that my dad would just open the door because the man who banged on the door threatened to go and call his boys and break it down if we refused to open it. But thank God for the door we had that time, it was almost indestructible.

While this was going on, we then realized that a cousin of ours was outside washing my father's car that night. We all became seriously worried. I couldn't help but wonder what they would have done to him. Honestly, I have never been more scared in my life like that night. I had never had any encounter with armed robbers before, all I heard were stories. That night made me know what the feeling was like to encounter armed robbers. Even though they were at the other side of our door, the terrifying voice of man which kept screaming, "Open the door now, or I'll break it down!" seriously frightened me.

My older brother wasn't even helping matters because he kept on lamenting "Oh God, is this how we are going to end?"–you and who is going to end? I stared at my father as he stood at the door, backing it, as if to surrender himself for his family for whatever was going to happen. Seeing him display this act of bravery made me realize how being a man can be quite a tough responsibility, especially as the man of the house. And to think that one day I was going to be in the same position as him. At some point, he even asked us to go into the inner room which we did, while he remained glued to the door.

After sometime, the knock on the door seized. One part of my mind was thinking maybe the had gone. The other part was thinking, what if they were somewhere around the corner, waiting for us to come out as they lay ambush on us? To be careful, we just remained indoors as we whispered to each other as we spoke. It was when we started hearing the doors of our neighbors opening and the low tone of their voices that we had the courage to open the door.

As we stepped out of the house, the first place we headed towards was where my cousin was washing the car. It was a great relief as we saw him walking out of the car. The guy was too smart that as he saw the robbers approaching he quickly entered into the car and locked the door as he lay down at the floor of the car. Thankfully, no house was robbed as they all locked their doors while the robbers made their way into our compound. Unfortunately, only one of our neighbors who was also washing his uncle's car received some beatings and lost his phone to them.

According to him, the robbers were scared because of how big the compound was and the cars that were littered in it. For some reason this terrified them. But they succeeded in robbing a compound close by. The compound didn't have any cars in it, so I guess this made it convenient for them and less frightened.

That night, I had a really difficult time falling asleep. I kept on thinking, what if they return again? At this point, I was doing more of sleeping with one eye open. But some how I still managed to fall asleep, which is still a mystery to me. After that day, it took us quite sometime before we felt comfortable staying outside after it was nightfall. We never made the mistake of forgetting to keep the doors locked whenever it got late.

This was the scariest experience I have ever had in my life.

This is my entry on the @hive-naija weekly prompt, edition 80. I decided to write on "fear" with regards to the first option. Feel free to participate, simply click here

All images are mine

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