AMARA [An African Mini story]

9. My little Amara

It was my perfect chance to escape, he would not be able to stop me now. I made a run for the exit but stopped when I heard him groan in pain. I returned to where he was laying and kneeled beside him. I observed the wound: it was deep, like a sword wound, he was losing so much blood in such a short time. I got up on my feet and ran around looking for what I could use to help this strange man. I improvised with a lot of them, but the result was good. I managed to stop the bleeding and dress the wound.

When I was sure he was fine, I helped him stand up and led him to my bed. He lay down, and although his weight pressed the wood down, it did not break. He laid there, trying to sleep, but I know he couldn't.

"Can you tell me who you are?" I asked in a soft tone of voice.

He looked at me but said nothing. He brought his finger up against the cave wall and wrote something on it. Before I could ask him what it meant, he closed his eyes, followed by a soft snore.

I covered him with the blanket he used on me before and stood there watching him. There were so many questions I needed answers to, but it seemed I wasn't going to be getting any.

"Amara!" Someone called my name again. But this time, it was a familiar voice, my papa's voice. "Amara, come out, it's your father!!" The voice reverberated.

I could not stay like this anymore, I need to go meet him. I took a step towards the exit, then another step until I began running. I ran outside. The chilly darkness engulfed me as soon as I exited the cave. "Papa?" I called out.

"Thank the gods I found you". His voice drew closer until I could see him holding a lamp and walking towards me. He hugged me, I hugged him back.

I followed him as he walked to another part of the forest. I tried to ask him questions but he ignored me. We walked for a long time until we arrived at a hut. By this time, my heart was becoming uneasy... I stopped in my tracks. "Papa, I can't enter here-"

"Why?!" He snapped at me. The tenderness I had seen in his eyes before —vanished.

"Where are we?" I asked while moving back, hoping I can outrun him. Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to, because someone grabbed me from behind. "Nnanna?" I recognized my stepbrother's face in the dim glow from my father's lamp. "What are you doing here?" I asked my stepbrother.

He ignored me and dragged me into the hut. The interior of the hut was small and empty, I grew confused at first, till I noticed a plank on the floor inside the hut. Nnanna bent over and pulled off the plank used to reveal a hole wide enough to accommodate any human. The depth was unfathomable from where I was standing, but it didn't seem shallow in the slightest. I looked up at the two of them, they had no emotion on their faces whatsoever. Nnanna gripped my arm, and as I struggled to escape him, he proved to be stronger than I am, and he forced me down the hole. I screamed out in fear thinking I was going to be falling deep, but my hands grabbed onto something— a ladder. Knowing I could not win this fight, I went down the ladder with Nnanna following right above me.

As we went further down, voices became louder and louder. Cries, Screams, and wailings came from down the pit, as I looked down, I noticed a reflection of the light from a flame... Is this the hell the white men talk about?

When my legs finally touched the floor, I realized I had reached the bottom of this pit. I turned around and saw an awfully large room illuminated by lanterns hanging from lamp posts on the walls.

Human skulls were hung on the walls like trophies and accessories. On the left and right sides of the room were cages, cages big enough to contain five elephants each. However, the sounds I heard coming from those cages did not belong to elephants, but to humans, so many of them —were unkempt, suffering, bleeding, crying, wailing, and screaming humans. All begging for help, praying to be rescued, a few seemed to have given up hope, sitting quietly and looking up to the ceiling.

What is happening here? I questioned mentally.