Episode 1

She was only 12 years old when her childhood ended in blood and screams.

Her name was Mariam. An innocent girl with big eyes and dreams too simple for this cruel world. That year, her body was just beginning to change. She didn’t understand what was happening, she didn’t even know the name of what she was becoming. She still sat on the floor playing with her little brothers. She still clung to her mother’s handkerchief when it thundered. She still believed her father was the strongest man in the world.

But all that ended… one night.

It was Saturday. The rain was pouring down. Her mother was cooking in the kitchen. Her father was watching television with a cup of tea. Mariam was in the bedroom doing her homework when the door burst open with a bang.

Screams. Voices. Gunshots.

Armed robbers.

They entered the house like demons, their faces covered, rifles raised. Her father stood up, trembling. “Please… take everything…” he begged.

But they didn’t want any money.

They shot her. Right in front of her mother. Her body fell like a log. Blood soaked the floor. Her mother screamed. Mariam ran outsidebut one of them grabbed her arm and slammed her against the wall.

“Please don’t hurt her,” her mother cried. “She’s just a child!”

But they didn’t care.

They held her mother down and forced her to look. Mariam’s scream pierced the sky as they dragged her into the room. The pain was unbearable. Her voice grew hoarse. Her body bled. Her soul broke.

And thensilence.

When they were done, they laughed and left as if nothing had happened.

By the time she was able to crawl out, her mother was no longer breathing. Her eyes were open, staring into space. The pain was too much. The house was still. Empty. Cold. Broken.

Mariam stayed there all night, covered in bloodher father’s, her mother’s, and her own.

Days passed. No one came. No one asked. A neighbor who found her unconscious took her to a shelter.

Three months later, her belly began to grow.

The nurse looked at her and whispered, “She’s expecting twins…”

And that’s when the shame began.

“She’s so young,” some said.

“She must have been careless,” others murmured.

No one knew. No one cared. No one asked her what had happened.

She gave birth herself, in a dirty clinic with no electricity. No mother. No father. No love.

Just Mariam. Twelve years old.

Now a mother of two.

Alone.

And broken.

Episode 2

Mariam stopped talking. Since that night, since the screams, the gunshots, the blood on the wallssince her mother’s lifeless eyes stared into hers and her father’s hand stopped reachingshe hadn’t spoken a word.

They said they just wanted to rob the house. That’s what they said. But when they saw Mariam, standing there with her mother’s scarf, terrified and paralyzed, everything changed. Her parents begged. Her father knelt. Her mother cried. But the thieves laughed.

Then came the shots. One. Two.

Mariam saw her mother fall first. Then her father. Both of them lying in the red pool that spread across the ground.

And then… they turned to her.

She was only twelve years old. She had started her first period just three weeks earlier. Her mother had told her it was a sign that she was now a “young woman.” But she was still a child. Still clinging to bedtime stories and hiding behind the curtains during thunderstorms.

They dragged her by the hair. She screamed until her voice broke. They tore her clothes off. They took turns. As if she were nothing. As if she weren’t human.

When they were done, they spit on her, laughed, and left, leaving her bloodied, trembling, staring at the bodies of the only two people who had ever loved her.

That was the last time Mariam saw her childhood.

The neighbors arrived the next morning. So did the police. Her aunt, Mama Nkechi, came from the village to look after her. But Mariam never told anyone what really happened. She just stopped talking.

“He’s in shock,” they said. “He needs time.”

But time didn’t stop the nausea.

It didn’t stop the nightmares. Or the morning sickness. Or the growing shame between her legs.

When her belly began to grow, Mama Nkechi demanded answers.

“Who did this to you, huh? Speak up, you damn girl!”

But Mariam just looked at her.

Then they beat her.

They accused her of secretly hanging around with boys. Of bringing shame on the family. They called her a witch. A demon. A disgrace. And when they called the village pastor to “free” her, he slapped her for not confessing.

Seven months pregnant, Mariam ran away.

She had nowhere else to go. But even hell was better than the house where she was treated like garbage. She slept in the bushes for two nights, then arrived in the city barefoot, with nothing but a nylon bag and a belly that kept growing.

No one asked her name. No one saw her pain.

Until he collapsed in front of a small shop. A woman came out, shocked. “Jesus! This girl is pregnant! Someone help me!”

That woman was Mama Esther.

And from that day on, Mariam had a roof over her head again.

But the certainty didn’t erase her sadness. It didn’t undo the past. It didn’t answer the question that tormented her every day: How do you raise children born of evil?

I didn’t want them.

I didn’t hate them.

I just didn’t know how to be a motherespecially when I was still bleeding inside.

But time was running out. His body was tired.

And the day of delivery was fast approaching.

EPISODE 3

It was midnight when Mariam screamed.

Mama Esther ran into the small room, the flashlight shaking in her hand. “What’s wrong? Mariam! Oh God, the babies”

Mariam was drenched in sweat, her small body trembling, her eyes wide with panic. “It hurts!” she cried, her voice breaking after months of silence. “Mama, I’m dying!”

“No, you’re not going to die! You’re going to live, and those babies will live too!” Mama Esther shouted as she grabbed her keys. She didn’t wait for a taxi. She dragged Mariam to her old Peugeot and sped off through the dark streets.

The hospital was quiet, but not calm. The front-desk nurse saw Mariam and shouted, “Emergency! She’s fully dilated!” They rushed her inside. There was no time for questions. No time to ask why such a young girl was screaming in labor.

The pain was beyond words. It felt like his bones were breaking. As if his body were splitting in two.

But she pushed.

He pushed with the memory of his mother’s soft voice.

He pushed with the image of his father’s last breath.

She pushed with the fire of a broken girl who had survived what should have killed her.

And then-

A cry.

Followed by another.

Two cries.

Twins.

The room fell silent as the nurses cleaned the babies and wrapped them in soft pink blankets. One of them opened her tiny eyes and looked at Mariam, blinking as if she already knew the sadness of the world she had just entered.

“They’re yours,” the nurse whispered.

Mariam looked at the two girls in disbelief. She was only 12 years old… and now she was a mother of two.

Tears streamed down her face. Not from pain. Not even from shame. But because, for the first time since that horrible night, she felt something she hadn’t felt in months: love.

A fierce, terrifying and painful love.

I didn’t know how to raise them.

I didn’t know how to protect them.

I didn’t even know if I could face tomorrow.

But as she held them close, feeling their tiny hearts beat against hers, Mariam whispered, “I won’t let the world break them… like it broke me.”

Mama Esther stood in a corner, crying silently. She had seen many children born in pain, but never a story so cruel, so raw. She knew Mariam would need help. Therapy. Healing. Support.

But one thing was clear.

Mariam was no longer a victim.

She was a survivor.

And their daughters would grow up knowing that strength comes from the deepest kind of pain.

END