‘30 Days to Seventeen’ by Oni Oluwaseyi Faith makes the shortlist of 15 for this year’s #QuramoWritersPrize (QWP062)

For the five days we were stuck here, it hasn’t been easy. Five days of strange happenings. It’s been five days since I saw my sister and five days since I’d eaten anything good, like Mama’s party jollof, or even the cereal she forced us to take every morning, I’d kill to have it now. Three days ago, I was diagnosed with a certain thing called Tietze syndrome. Three days of pain and agony. The second day in this house, I woke up with a headache, my head was about to be sliced open.