THE MASKED GIRL

3

There will be four phases for the training. The yellow phase is the first which takes place in the first and second months and is about the introduction to the army and focuses on developing character, enhancing performance, and adapting to life in the army.

The Red phase takes place after the yellow phase which is in the third to fourth months and is about discipline, values, teamwork, and improving one overall fitness.

Then the White phase which happens in the fifth to seventh months is about learning the combat skills of a soldier that is learning to use a weapon where they will earn the soldier qualification badge afterward.

And lastly, the Blue phase which takes place in the eighth to ninth months is the final phase of the training where one builds on everything learned and will serve as the last rite of being a soldier.

Everyone is expected to be out by five thirty in the morning every day and is only allowed back in the barrack after four hours for thirty minutes breakfast break, training will continue after for three hours then thirty minutes lunch break and prayer, and another five and half hours training before the day ends. Dinner is taken after another hour and another three hours for night practice after the first three months and lights out at midnight, anyone seen after then will be severely punished.

The masked girl made her personal timetable to go with the timeline. She will be up by five every morning, pray and shower in thirty minutes and go for the four hours morning training. And sneak into her room for the thirty minutes breakfast break at nine-thirty in the morning since she can't eat with everyone for her mask, eat and maybe nap for some minutes, she is the type of person that can sleep through anything and anytime. Then training will continue from ten to one in the afternoon and then thirty minutes for a lunch break and she will sneak back in for food, shower again, and pray. And resume back to training from thirty minutes past one to seven.

She stopped there wondering when they are expecting them to say the asr prayer, she got up and decided to check out the barrack.

She later remembered she has to collect something from one of the guards that was paid with a large amount of money to get her whatever she might need during her stay. She met him and collected the bag she couldn't bring with her cause what it contains is not allowed in the barrack. The bag contains different kinds of junk food that she will be surviving on since she can't eat with everyone at the cafeteria cause of her mask and food cannot be taken out of the cafeteria which she doesn't mind since cooked food doesn't matter much to her. She preferred junk food, after all, pringles being her number one.

The next day they all moved out of the barrack at five-thirty in the morning just like they were told and the day went exactly as planned.

The masked girl stayed to herself the entire day and make those whose attention she got more curious about her. She expected that from them afterward she is the only Hausa Muslim girl in the barrack and her being masked added to it, so her not speaking to anyone for the whole day and skipping food didn't go unnoticed by a lot of them.

That is how the first month passed repeating the same schedule every day.

Aliyu changed just like he promised to Yusuf and stopped missing the training but couldn't be there on time every day. Just like Yusuf told him, the masked girl is different from the girls they have there. She is a Muslim, Hausa, and masked. She has never spoken to anyone in almost two months except the officers in charge and that is only when she doesn't get something. He is curious about her just like almost everyone there, he is not always at the cafeteria for food but she is always not there.