Kidnapers in the bush

There was a time when kidnapping was trending in our village back then. The talk was so intense to the extent that we (children) were instructed to come back from school in groups and we should never, by any chance, walk close to the bush side. Yes, I can remember that period clearly; I was in my first days in secondary school.

There was a family among our large extended family that we were close to, and that’s because they had children who were in the same age range as us, so we related together a lot. Their house was far off, in the developing areas that had bushes along the road. One of them came to my house, and from there, we went to theirs, and as we were coming back while walking on the lonely, bushy road, two guys—slim, tall, fair, and a bit looking like foreigners—walked out of the bush and started walking opposite us in a strange manner.

The distance between us was considerably far, so when we saw them walk out of the bush together, we thought they had gone there to defecate. But as we were getting closer, they decided to spread out and occupy the entire width of the road instead of walking on one side and allowing us to pass on the other.

Yeeeh! We just concluded that they were kidnappers, and you needed to see how we turned back and ran for our lives. To be truthful, maybe they were joking as well, but they pursued us terribly, and we ran even faster until we confused them. We didn’t have the courage to check back to see if they were still trying to trace us when we got to the house(the family house where we were coming from).

They were kidnappers—we believed it. When we told the father of the family I went to visit, he didn’t believe us. But even at that, we refused to walk through that road alone; we insisted that the dad must walk us through the path, and he agreed. He did that, and while passing, we didn’t see those people again.

The craziest thing:

Later on, we found out that the guys who pursued us were actually indigenes of the community. When we discovered that, we wanted to raise an alarm—at least to have them arrested—but we thought it might be a false alarm because they could claim they were only chasing us that day for fun.

Before I left the village, I never saw them as ordinary humans; they were kidnappers as far as I was concerned, and I distanced myself from any place I saw them.

Thanks for reading.

[Photo](https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/lovely-couple-love-stand-park_1120121.htm#fromView=search&page=5&position=45&uuid=ffb73e29-819c-4d9f-b5e8-01112c3f4557&query=Kidnappers+in+the+bush)

This is my entry to Hiveghana prompt — Unforgettable experience