Soon we heard the roar of the river. We knew its sound. It had lived among us for as long as we’d been there. We believed, just as before, that its lullaby would calm our souls. Yet, this time, its disquiet was of warning, not welcome. It told of a life that awaited, a reality filled with death and despair. It encouraged our escape, although this was hardly possible. A few, however, heard and heeded the call. How they slipped their chains we do not know, but they leapt, with the height of the impala, across tall grass until they disappeared into the past from which we had come. The rest of us, the fateful ones, continued marching until the river’s call deafened. We could not escape. The river was our kinsman, but it could not save us. It could not help us. Not this time.

In our own riverboats they took us, until the river flowed into the mouth of The Great Mother. Her reach was far and wide, her spirit turbulent. Our boats navigated carefully across her watery terrain and rested where the waters licked the shore. Then we were taken into stone structures where we were packed like herded goats. The space was damp and musty and hot, and there were no windows—only occasional cracks in walls where salty wind blew in and dried our skin, leaving us itchy and miserable. So many crowded into such a small space. We could hardly sit or move. Every hour, someone died. Whether from suffocation or illness, we watched people vanish without ceremony or burial. Sounds of suffering and sorrow became our daily song as bodies deteriorated before our very eyes. Moans, grunts, sighs, and cries echoed throughout holding pens like pleas of desperate, trapped beasts. We didn’t know what to do. Different pale men stood guard over us now They were not the ones who had captured us. Perhaps one had traded us to the other. All we knew for sure was that home was some distant place, and we were losing faith we’d ever see it again.

Day turned to night, and our misery multiplied. By the hundreds, we bowed our heads and grieved. Some tried to relive our capture, speaking aloud names of those left behind or killed. Some even admitted, beneath their breaths, that they’d sensed danger, but ignored it. They never forgave themselves. Others fainted from heat and heart exhaustion. They collapsed as if all life had been drained from them. A few touched these limp bodies sympathetically, but no one attended them. We didn’t have the strength. It was all we could do simply to survive.

Most children had been killed or left behind, but a few lingered among us. Their faces of terror and panic never left our consciousness. Trembling and shivering with eyes wide open, they clung like leeches to frantic mothers and fathers who wanted only to protect them. But they could not. We knew these children wouldn’t last. Their precious, fragile lives would be sacrificed to disease, suffocation, or distress. Only the strong would survive. And children are never that strong.