"I Thought I Was on Mute."

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"Hush now, my sweet little princess. Close your eyes and go to sleep. Even when you are quiet, Mummy knows you're still listening. Mummy is here to protect you. Mummy is always here. I'll be right here when you wake up; you won't be alone anymore. No one can find us now. I pinky promise, my darling."

The words didn't belong in a trauma support group meeting.

Not during a Zoom call where survivors of violence and grief came to pour out what was left of themselves. Yet those whispered sentences crackled through a half-muted microphone one rainy Wednesday night.

Every Wednesday, a small group of people gathered on Zoom—Fifteen black boxes, fifteen usernames, and fifteen pasts too heavy for the daylight's own troubles.

Among them was Lena87. She claimed her daughter, Florence, had been abducted during a robbery in Calabar seven years ago. She always typed her grief—paragraph of it—about a child snatched from her arms. The group had mourn with her, and held space for her grief. She claimed she had not recovered from her grief and was not sure if she would ever heal from her loss. So, whenever she joined the group meeting, her mic was always off. and her camera was always off. However, her typed messages were warm, measured, intentional, and really comforting. Infact, other members gravitated to her.

On this particular rainy Wednesday night, Tomi had set up her laptop and come online, ready and waiting for other members to join the support forum. She adjusted her laptop again and sipped from a hot cup of coffee.

"Let's begin with our safe space check-in," said Tomi, the group therapist and moderator; her voice was crisp and reassuring.

A few voices joined. Some mumbled, while others typed. Of course, Lena87 was among those who typed. Tomi just listened and offered needed encouragement where necessary.

It was during Tomi's closing words that it happened.

A soft crackle.
Then a whisper.

The voice was low and soothing. Feminine. And familiar to the group: it belonged to Lena87's mic, the reclusive woman who always kept her camera off. Her mic was supposed to be muted too. But now it was somehow on. And what it revealed...

was shocking.

Immediately, the audio ended abruptly.

Suddenly, Lena's mic icon blinked red. It muted again.

Tomi frozed while staring at her laptop. The trauma support group was supposed to be muted. Safe. Anonymous. So she taught.

Everyone frozed.

No one spoke. Not even Tomi. Nobody addressed what they had just heard.

A few minutes later, Tomi recovered. "Okay... Thank you, everyone, for showing up tonight, for all your encouragements, positivity, and love. So, we will be rapping it up tonight. Be safe. And remember to at least make a person smile each day." She encouraged, chuckling.

Immediately, everyone logged out one after the other.

But Tomi didn't log off. She just sat there, staring at the black box labelled Lena87. A few minutes later, she finally logged out. However, she could not sleep that night. She just couldn't possibly unhear it. Those words:

"...No one can find us now... "

Kept lingering in her mind.

"But that whisper? That wasn't mourning, or was it part of any memory?" She thought out loud.

That was presence.

It was live.

Spoken to someone.

A child.

Tomi was no stranger to darkness. Her mother had hidden bruises behind huge gele and heavy foundation until she eventually stopped breathing. The system had failed her. Neighbors had failed her. Relatives had failed her. Even her so-called friends had abandoned her. Therefore, Tomi had promised herself that she would never look away again.

And she didn't.

Tomi became obsessed.

She immediately downloaded the session recording, enhanced the audio, and carefully isolated the whispered moment. Her body trembled as she played and listened with keen attention to the recordings repeatedly for emphasis.

By morning, those words had nested in her mind like a parasite.

"... go to sleep. Even when you are quiet, Mummy knows you're still listening. Mummy is here to protect you. Mummy is always here. I'll be right here when you wake up; you won't be alone anymore. No one can find us now. I pinky promise, my darling."

"Those where not the words of a bereaved woman. The voice had not sounded distressed. It sounded... satisfied. They were the words of someone hiding, someone who had run far and deep—and was proud of?" she reasoned again to herself.

She opened her very old laptop—the one she had not touched since her university hacking days—and started digging.

She traced Lena87's email back to a real identity: Helena Ekanem, once a social worker in Calabar state. She quit her job in 2018 after her husband died in a domestic fire accident. The police had linked the fire to possible abuse. Rumors swirled, but nothing stuck.

Then, two weeks later, Helena reported to the police that her daughter, Florence, was missing.

There were no witnesses.

Subsequently, the case was dropped. Suddenly, Helena relocated. Or so it seemed.

But Tomi found something else: a food delivery app account, active last week, linked to that same email. The drop-off location? A gate mini-flat on the outskirts of Abuja.

"Something is definitely not adding up." She soliloquized.

Tomi decided to travel in silence.

She actually found the compound: White paint beginning to peel. Curtains drawn, and the gate padlocked from inside.

She waited patiently.

At exactly 8:00 p.m, the light in one window flickered on.

Then followed the sound.

A lullaby.

Low. Soft. Murmured.

Tomi quietly crept closer. pulled out her phone, and immediately started recording.

"... Mummy is here to protect you, mummy is always here...no one can find us now... " Helena's voice again.

However, this time, another tiny voice answered—a child's voice. Young. Real. Fragile.

"You would always be here, mummy." Florence asked as she lay in her mother's arms.

"Yes, my darling, always!" Helena reassured her, still wrapping her arms around her.

Tomi's heart slammed against her ribs. "Florence was not actually missing. She was deliberately hidden?!" She exclaimed silently.

The next day, Tomi posed as a neighbor to speak to the compound's gateman to further add proof to the recent information she has gathered to confirm Helena's identity. Still, there was no sign of the child—but Tomi knew better than to alert anyone yet because if Helena suspected any kind of danger, she might vanish again.

Instead, Tomi reached out online.

"Lena87. The story you told... that line—'No one can find us now'— it was not grief. It was actually a relief. You ran away, didn't you? From him, right? But why take her into the dark with you?" Tomi asked, feeling concerned with calmness and politeness.

Days passed. No reply.

Until a voice note arrived.

It was Helena's voice— cold and broken.

"They were going to take her from me. Forever. After what her father did. They said she'd go to the state. But I could not let that happen. I could not just bear to have them take my precious little baby from me. I would die if I lost her. So I fled with her. We disappeared from Calabar, and I became a ghost." She explained, shaking in tears.

Tomi trembled as she listened with keen attention.

"I thought I was on mute. However, maybe... just maybe I wanted someone to know. Someone who would understand and reconcile with me," Helena continued in tears, her lips trembling with every word.

"Let me help you... both of you," Tomi offered gently as she pick up to interrupt her call.

"Okay," she simply answered.

Helena later agreed to work with a therapist, under the condition that Florence stayed with her in a supervised shelter. The authorities—after reviewing the full story —chose compassion over prosecution.

Helena stared at the child she once hid from the world, folding a blanket over her and murmured, "I actually thought I was on mute."

Tomi replied, "But even silence tells a story— and yours just found its ending."

THANKS A LOT FOR READING ME.