Chapter One – The Struggle
Zara woke up to the sound of her mother's voice calling her from the small kitchen. The smell of boiling maize porridge drifted through the thin curtains that separated her "room" from the rest of their cramped, two-room house. At nineteen, she was supposed to be living a life filled with promise, chasing her dreams, and preparing for adulthood. Instead, she was counting coins in her head before her feet even touched the floor.
Her school fees were overdue again. For the third time this term, her name had been called out in class and she was asked to leave. The humiliation burned more than the hunger she carried in her stomach most days. Everyone knew what it meant when a student walked out with a bowed head and a bag clutched to their chest. It meant poverty had won.
Zara's father had left years ago, and her mother survived by selling vegetables at the market, but most days the money barely covered food. Her younger brother, barely twelve, was always asking why she wasn't in school anymore, and Zara never had the strength to answer honestly. She wanted to say: Because we're poor. Because life is unfair. Because dreams cost money we don't have.
That morning, she sat on the edge of her thin mattress, scrolling through her phone. The cracked screen flickered, but it still worked well enough for her to escape her reality. Instagram was her guilty ritual—both a comfort and a curse.
There was Amira, her best friend since childhood, posting pictures at fancy restaurants with plates of food Zara couldn't even pronounce. Another girl from her class was showing off a new iPhone, while others flaunted wigs, designer shoes, or nights out under neon club lights.
Zara glanced down at her own worn slippers and the faded second-hand dress she wore too often. Shame tightened around her like a noose. She wanted to be happy for her peers, but each swipe across her phone only sharpened the knife of comparison.
"How do they afford all this?" she whispered to herself. None of them had jobs. Most of their parents weren't much richer than hers. Yet they lived like their pockets never ran dry. Zara tried to convince herself it was all filters and lies, but deep down she knew there was truth in those images.
Her stomach growled, interrupting her thoughts. She put the phone aside, but the images lingered in her mind—smiling faces, champagne glasses, foreign captions, hashtags about luxury and blessings. She hated that word sometimes—"blessed." It made her feel cursed.
Later that day, she walked to the market to help her mother. The sun burned her skin, and the dust clung to her sandals as she weaved through stalls. They sold tomatoes and onions, barely making enough to cover rent. She forced a smile for customers, but every coin dropped into her mother's metal tin felt like a reminder that her life was slipping further away from the one she dreamed of.
By the time they closed up, her back ached from standing, her hands smelled of produce, and her spirit felt heavy. Back home, she collapsed onto her mattress again, reaching for her phone like a reflex.
This time, the posts hit differently. She lingered longer on the stories, on the girls draped in glittering clothes, on the men with cars and chains who seemed to orbit her peers' lives like walking ATMs. A whisper curled in her chest: There must be a way. There must be something they're doing to escape this life.
The thought scared her as much as it tempted her. Zara had always believed in dignity, in education, in hard work. But what had all that given her? Hunger. Humiliation. Hopelessness.
She stared into the dim ceiling as night settled over their tiny home. Her younger brother's soft snores filled the silence, her mother coughed in her sleep, and Zara lay awake with her phone glowing in her hands.
She didn't know it yet, but the path she was about to step on would test her soul. For the first time, curiosity overpowered fear. She wanted to know. She needed to know.
How were they making fast money?
And could she?