Then we woke. Everyone saw the vision. Some remembered one part, some another, but it was the same dream. Had it come to tease our wounded consciousness? Or had it come to affirm our decision to live? Either way, it left us confident that this was not the end. There would be a day after today, and in it, we would be multiplied. Yet for now, we had to survive.

When pale men came for us, they were alarmed. We were already standing, lined in a row. Usually they jerked and grabbed us until we were upright and ordered for movement, but not today. When they unlocked and opened the door, we stared straight forward and walked with confidence. Pale men scowled. They did not understand. At the block, we did not shiver. We did not search faces to see if they wanted us. We did not gather into a tremulous, human cluster as we had done days before. We stood, shoulder to shoulder, wrist to chained wrist, and waited. Voices grumbled about the strange, peculiar nature of our posture, but we didn’t care. We didn’t even look at them. A few approached and studied our eyes, but they did not gain our attention. They were startled and disturbed. Yet that was irrelevant. We’d simply decided to reserve something for ourselves. They could buy our bodies, but not our resolve.