Present Day: 1974, Garowe, Somalia

  Ahmed, 40, stood on the cracked shore of Garowe, a coastal village in northern Somalia, his notched machete dangling at his side. The sun dipped low, painting the sky a bruised purple, but his eyes were fixed on the sea—restless, retreating, a warning he couldn’t ignore. At 40, his body was a map of scars from Somaliland’s pre-independence war and the chaos that followed. His wife, Fatima, stepped from their shack, her medic’s hands steady as she held their son, Yusuf, a wiry 10-year-old with wide, curious eyes.

  “Something’s off,” Ahmed said, his voice rough as gravel. “The water’s pulling back too fast.”

  Fatima squinted at the horizon, her scarred face tightening. “A storm?”

  “No,” Ahmed replied, shaking his head. “Worse. My father told me about waves that swallow villages. We need to move.”

  Yusuf tugged at Fatima’s sleeve, his voice small but sharp. “Are we running, Aabo? What’s coming?”

  Ahmed knelt, meeting his son’s gaze. “A big wave, Yusuf. Bigger than anything you’ve seen. Stay close to your mother.”

  The village stirred—fishermen abandoned nets, women shouted for their children. Old man Jama, a toothless elder who’d outlived the British and Italians, hobbled over, clutching a walking stick. “Allah protect us,” he muttered. “I saw this once, in ’42—half my kin drowned.”

  “No time for prayers, Jama,” Ahmed snapped, hauling a sack of supplies over his shoulder. “Get to the hills.”

  Fatima grabbed Yusuf’s hand, her tone firm. “Stay with me, no wandering. You hear?”

  “Yes, Hooyo,” Yusuf nodded, his small frame trembling as the ground quivered beneath them.

  They raced for the scrub-covered hills, thorns clawing at their legs. Ahmed glanced back—the sea surged now, a monstrous wall of water roaring toward Garowe, dragging boats and debris in its maw. “Faster!” he shouted, shoving Fatima ahead as screams echoed below.

  They crested the hill just as the tsunami slammed the shore, a deafening roar that splintered huts and swallowed the stragglers. Ahmed pulled his family close, shielding Yusuf’s eyes. The air thickened with salt and rot, and as the water churned, a memory sliced through him—blood-soaked, brutal, from the war that forged him.

  Flashback: The Blood of Liberation

  Somaliland, 1955

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  Ahmed, 21, crouched in the thorny scrub near a British outpost outside Berbera, the night heavy with sweat and dread. The Somali Youth League rebels—twenty strong—surrounded him, their breaths ragged. Abdi, the one-eyed leader, whispered orders, his voice a growl. “They’re bleeding us dry—fish, land, all of it. We hit them tonight.”

  Leyla, a wiry scout with a spear, nodded beside him. “Bastards killed my brother last month. I want their throats.”

  Omar, a lanky skiff-hand, clutched a rusty rifle. “How many guards?”

  “Ten, maybe twelve,” Abdi said. “Plus askaris—traitors in British boots.”

  Hassan, a broad-shouldered rebel with a notched dagger, spat into the dirt. “I’ll gut the locals first. They’re worse than the whites.”

  The plan was simple: ambush the patrol, kill them all, vanish with their weapons. But a twig snapped under Omar’s boot, and a sentry’s shout shattered the silence. “Intruders!”

  Gunfire erupted, tracer rounds slicing the dark. Ahmed bolted forward, heart pounding, his AK-47 barking as he fired at shadows. A British soldier charged, bayonet glinting—Ahmed ducked, swinging his machete up in a vicious arc. The blade hacked through the man’s armpit, severing muscle and artery; blood sprayed like a fountain, splattering Ahmed’s face as the soldier crumpled, screaming until his lungs gave out.

  “Push in!” Abdi roared, blasting a shotgun into a sentry’s chest, ribs exploding outward in a red mist.

  Leyla darted past, her spear plunging into a fleeing askari’s back. The man stumbled, clawing at the shaft as she yanked it free, blood bubbling from his mouth. “For my brother,” she hissed, stomping his skull until it cracked like a melon.

  Ahmed kicked into a tent, finding a young British officer fumbling with a revolver. “Don’t shoot!” the officer pleaded, dropping the gun, hands raised. “I’m just a clerk—sent here, I swear!”

  “Shut it,” Leyla snapped, shoving Ahmed aside. “No mercy for their dogs.” She drove her spear through his throat, pinning him to the dirt. Blood gushed, his body jerking as he choked, eyes bulging in silent terror.

  Outside, Abdi dragged three askaris from the fray, their wrists bound. One, a boy of 16, sobbed, his oversized uniform soaked with piss. “They forced me!” he wailed. “My family—they’d die if I said no!”

  Hassan laughed, a low, ugly sound. “Crying won’t save you.” He grabbed the boy’s hair, forcing his head back, and slashed his dagger across his throat. The cut was deep, ragged—blood poured, the boy’s gargled pleas fading as Hassan sawed through sinew, nearly decapitating him.

  Abdi turned to Ahmed, thrusting the machete over. “The others are yours. Prove you’re with us.”

  Ahmed’s gut churned. “They’re beaten—why this?”

  “Because they’d sell us out tomorrow,” Abdi snarled. “Kill them, or I’ll cut you down myself.”

  The second askari, a gaunt man, begged, “Brother, I’ve got kids—” Ahmed swung, the machete biting into his neck. The blade stuck halfway; he yanked it free, swinging again, severing the head in a spray of gore that soaked his boots. The third, silent and resigned, didn’t flinch—Ahmed hacked twice, splitting his skull open, brains oozing onto the sand.

  Hassan clapped Ahmed’s shoulder, grinning. “Messy, but you’ll learn.”

  Leyla wiped her spear, her voice cold. “They’ll think twice before crossing us now.”

  Abdi surveyed the carnage—ten rebels dead, the outpost a slaughterhouse of torn flesh and smoldering tents. “We’re ghosts now,” he said. “Move out.”

  Ahmed staggered away, the weight of the kills sinking into his bones, the night alive with the stench of death and the rustle of unseen eyes in the bush.

  Back in 1974

  The tsunami’s roar faded, leaving Garowe a graveyard of mud and wreckage. Ahmed stood, releasing Fatima and Yusuf, who clung to her, wide-eyed. “It’s over,” Fatima said, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. “We survived.”

  “Did we?” Ahmed muttered, stepping toward the edge of the hill. Below, the receding water revealed more than ruin—hundreds of rusted barrels, cracked open, spilling black sludge and toxic waste across the shore. Fish floated belly-up, their scales peeling; a child’s body lay tangled in the filth, skin blistered from the poison.

  Yusuf whispered, “Aabo, what’s that?”

  Ahmed’s breath caught, his mind reeling. “Death,” he said, voice hollow. “The sea’s brought us death.”

  Fatima gripped his arm, fierce. “We can’t stay here. Not with that.”

  Jama hobbled up, coughing. “Foreign trash—been dumping it for years. Now it’s ours to choke on.”

  Ahmed stared, stunned, as the toxic tide stretched endless before him—tons of waste, a slow poison seeping into Somalia’s veins. The war he’d fought, the blood he’d spilled, paled against this silent killer. His fists clenched, the past and present colliding in a storm of rage and dread.