INTRODUCTION Though a writer’s imagination may at times take flight and roam untamed, it must be said in no uncertain terms that this book is not a work of fiction, but a real life account of a small boy's journey through life. After nearly three years of brutal conflict, marked by significant loss of life, suffering, and starvation, the announcement of the war's conclusion was met with overwhelming joy by the survivors all over Biafra. With joy and gratitude to God, my family members and I embarked on a seven day journey - trekking from Ekugba, Ohaji-Egbema in present day Imo State to our home country, Amawbia in Awka South Local Government Area of Anambra State. Our joyful celebrations that the war was over were, however, short-lived as we arrived at Amawbia on the seventh day to discover that the ravages of war had reduced the entire area to rubbles - a desolate wilderness. The war had negatively transformed the town into a desolate wasteland, its beauty scarred by the ravages of conflict. The once verdant landscapes were now barren and desolate, their beauty replaced by the haunting silence of a shattered world. The air, once filled with the sounds of life, was now thick with the stench of decay. One day, when I was about eight years old, I came home from school and saw a tall, slim figure sitting in our parlor. This incident happened at Amawbia not too long before the outbreak of the Nigeria Biafran war. The man was dressed in black that covered him from head to toe. A black turban was wound around his head and face leaving only his eyes and the tip of his nose exposed. His mouth, ears and every other part of his body was enveloped in that dreadful, black garb. In fact he looked like a black masquerade who just emerged from the black ant hole from where evil masquerades appear to terrorise disobedient children. I shrieked in terror and ran out of the parlor, colliding with my father who was just coming in and the two of us sprawled out on the floor in a tangled heap. I quickly extricated myself and was about to dash off again when my father held me and calmed me down. After assuring me that I had not seen an apparition, he explained that the figure in black was my uncle - the son of his cousin. Orji, as the black apparition turned out to be called, pacified me and gave me a pack of biscuits and we became friends soon afterwards. Many decades ago, before I was born, my father had taken Orji - then a teenager - to live with him in Lafia. Orji did not want to go to school and ran away from home when my father insisted that he did so. Thereafter, he was neither seen nor heard of until he turned up that day - in flowing black. He had become a moslem, a herbalist, a magician and an Immam all rolled into one. He disappeared again after one month only to reappear again four years later in the thick of the war. This time around he did not appear in black. He appeared in the full uniform of a Biafran Army Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM). Although he claimed that he did, it is doubtful that he actually fired a shot at the enemy before going on AWOL. He deserted the army and relocated to Isuofia in the then Aguata County Council where he set up a native doctor's shrine in a thick forest. He practiced his Islamic magical arts there until the war ended. He came home to Amawbia after the war in 1970 and set up a similar shrine in the Ofia Udo forest in Adabebe village. In addition to being a magician and witchdoctor, he also doubled as the Imam of the moslem community at the Awka central mosque.. I, Michael Ikechukwu Obierika, a devout Christian of the Anglican denomination was one of such survivors. As a young boy I lived through and survived the horrors of the war. https://tebebabooks.com/store/details/413/