The first thing he noticed upon waking was the silence—not the gentle quiet of his village at dawn, but something sterile and hollow, like death holding its breath. It sat heavy in this room, thick as the morning fog that used to gather in the valley where the ancestors whispered their ancient songs over the red earth that stained everything it touched.

Three days had passed since the sea spat him out, since he awoke to this world that was not his. 

And each day, she came. 

The young woman moved with the quiet authority of a priestess, though her ritual objects were strange metal tools that gleamed under harsh lights. Her brown hair was pulled back severely, not a strand dare escape its bindings, and her dress was as blindingly white as the walls—the color of bones bleached by sun.

Her voice—soft yet firm—flowed around him in words that meant nothing. A song without meaning. He did not know the language she spoke, but there was something in the lilt of her voice, in the way she met his eyes, that made him feel less like a lost thing, less like something the sea had discarded. 

That first day, when she approached with the gleaming needle, his body remembered older fears—of colonial doctors who came to their village with false smiles and sharp instruments. But she saw his terror and stepped back, her face softening like clouds parting after rain. She touched her own arm first, mimicking the motion of the needle pricking skin, then waited patiently. Her eyes held his with such gentle insistence that he found his fear ebbing like a receding tide.

When he still hesitated, she carefully gestured again, mimicking the motion, tapping her own arm as if to say, see? Not so bad. 

He understood. He did not like it. But he understood. 

When the needle finally pierced his skin, her other hand found his shoulder, warm and steady as a midday sun. The touch sparked a memory so fierce it nearly broke him—Ifemma, the way she would grip his arm during lightning storms, her fingers pressing courage into his flesh. Ifemma, who used to sing to the yams as she planted them, claiming they grew sweeter with song. Ifemma, who had joined the ancestors.

The second day brought attempts at bridge-building. Sitting up now, his body stronger, he watched as she pressed a hand to her chest. "Maria," she said, the word falling from her lips like a stone into still water. She repeated it, her smile encouraging but not demanding. "Maria."

He watched her mouth shape the word, studying how her tongue danced behind her teeth, how her lips curved around these foreign sounds. When he did not respond, she took a small step closer, her shadow falling across his bed like a gentle reminder. "Maria," she said, slower this time.

He nodded, understanding at last the gift she was offering. "Maria," he repeated, the name catching in his throat like unripe fruit, his tongue struggling against the strange rhythm of it

Her face bloomed with delight, teeth flashing white as river pearls. "Good," she said, the word meaningless but her tone clear as morning light. Then she pointed to him, waiting with the patience of a fisherman watching his nets.

Ah. Now he understood the fuller shape of this exchange. Names for names—the oldest kind of trade.

He pressed a hand to his chest, as she had done. "Onwuka," he said, the name flowing from him like honey from the comb, sweet with memory. His father had given him this name, had whispered it into his ear when he was seven days old, had told him it meant 'death is greater.' Not a curse, but a reminder—that even in death, there was something vast and meaningful, something that connected all living things.

She tilted her head like a curious bird, frowning slightly as she repeated it. "Wuka?" 

"Mba," he shook his head, the movement sending a ripple of pain through his still-healing body. "Onwuka." He let each syllable roll forth deliberately, like his mother teaching him to pronounce the names of the ancient ones during evening prayers.

"Wuka," she tried again, her tongue stumbling over the first syllable as if it were a stone in her path.

He sighed, a sound deep as tree roots. This was going to be like teaching his sister to pound yams—a task requiring endless patience and accepting that perfection might never come. He repeated his name once more, slowly, trying to shape it in a way her foreign ears might grasp. But still, she said, "Wuka."

Her face was earnest, her tone light, teasing. But something about hearing his name mangled, reshaped, made him feel further from himself, as if the last piece of his old life was slipping beyond his reach. 

He tried again. "Onwu—" 

"Wuka," she interrupted, smiling brightly, pleased with herself. 

He exhaled sharply, shaking his head in surrender, and suddenly—like sun breaking through storm clouds—he laughed. It was a small sound, weary as an old man's joints, but real as earth beneath his feet. Perhaps this too was part of his journey—learning to hear himself renamed by foreign tongues.

She laughed too, a gentle sound, before turning away to continue her tasks. 

For three days, she came to him. Three days of gentle hands on his wounds, of words that floated past him like leaves on a stream, of placing before him food that sat bland and hesitant on his tongue—so different from the peppery soups his sister used to torment him with, the ones that would make their eyes water and their souls sing. And each time, before she vanished back into the white maze beyond his door, she would say it again: "Wuka." The name becoming a bridge between their worlds, imperfect but standing nonetheless.

☀︎

On the final day, she arrived bearing clothes that spoke of another life—not his own garments, which surely had been destroyed, their threads still singing with salt and sea-memory. These new ones were foreign things, stiff with newness, their fabric speaking a language his skin did not yet know. She laid them beside him with careful hands, gesturing for him to clothe himself in this new identity.

The fabric felt strange against his skin, stiff where he expected softness, light where he expected weight. He missed the feel of woven cloth, of the garments his mother had woven  for him. But there was no going back. 

When he was ready, Maria led him through the halls, her pace brisk, purposeful. The walls gave way to corridors, then to doors that opened into the world beyond. The brightness outside was blinding after days within the dim-lit ward. His feet hesitated at the threshold, uncertainty weighing him down. 

A man waited there—tall as an iroko tree, his hair the color of wood ash, dressed in European fashion. His face was smooth as polished bone, but power rolled off him in waves, the kind of authority that needed no announcement, like thunder before rain.

Maria spoke to him in rapid Portuguese, handing him papers, exchanging words too quick for Onwuka to catch. The man nodded, then turned his gaze onto him. A sharp assessment. A measuring. 

When Maria turned back, her eyes held something new—a softness edged with sorrow, like the last light of day touching water. It was a farewell wrapped in silence, in things unsaid but understood across the vast ocean of their different tongues. She extended her hand, the gesture foreign as the clothes he now wore.

Among his people, partings were sacred things, marked with embraces that pressed memories into flesh, with words that carried power enough to guard travelers through dark places, with prayers that rose like smoke to guide lost children home. But here, in this new world, everything was stripped to bare bone, to simple gestures that carried neither history nor magic.

Yet when he took her hand—slowly, he felt something pass between them. Her grip was firm, lingering. Then she was gone, slipping away like morning mist, leaving him to face whatever fate the gods had spun for him in this strange new world.

He turned back, watching as she disappeared behind the doors, her figure swallowed by the hospital walls. 

She had been his first bridge across these foreign waters, this Maria who had tried to shape his name with her tongue, who had tended his wounds with hands that spoke kindness in any language. Now she disappeared into the white maze of halls, taking with her the last familiar thing in this unfamiliar world, leaving him to stand alone before the man who would determine his next path.

☀︎

This foreign town rose before him like a fever dream, a place where even the ground beneath his feet spoke of difference. Not the living red earth of home, but cobblestones—cold, unyielding things that pressed their ancient patterns into his bare soles. Buildings stretched toward heaven like proud warriors, their walls adorned in colors that seemed to mock nature itself: blues deeper than sky, yellows brighter than yam flesh, whites purer than full moon light. As if the gods of this place painted with different pigments altogether.

The ocean's scent filled every corner, salt-sharp and insistent, weaving through the marketplace symphony of scents—fresh-caught fish glinting silver in wooden crates, the heavy musk of bodies moving through heat, and something achingly sweet that reminded him of the mangoes his sister would steal from the chief's garden. The air itself felt different here, heavy with histories he did not know, with spirits he could not name.

People bustled around him, their voices a chaotic blend of languages. White people moved with the entitled ease of those who had never questioned their place in the world, their clothes stiff and confining as cage bars. Black bodies navigated the spaces between, some with heads bowed like stalks heavy with grain, others with straight spines and careful eyes that spoke volumes in their silence. And there were others—children of both worlds, wearing their mixed heritage like elaborate masks, their very existence telling stories of midnight encounters, of violence and love, of choices made and choices stolen.

Church spires pierced the sky like spears, their bells singing songs of a god he did not know. In the harbor, ships rocked on restless waters, their sails snapping like the wings of giant birds. Each vessel a potential prison or passage, depending on which gods you served, which prayers you whispered in the dark.

This was not home. And yet, here he stood, breathing air that his ancestors had never known.

They led him to a different quarter, where the town's proud face gave way to humbler truths. Here, the buildings crouched closer to earth, their walls remembering mud and thatch. Life breathed differently here—voices rolled and tumbled in familiar cadences, children's laughter rang out like small bells, and cooking fires sent up smoke signals that spoke of memories: palm oil bubbling, yams roasting, pepper burning hot enough to make spirits sneeze.

The dormitory waited—beds arranged with military precision, each one a small island of possibility. The matrons who received him were women carved from the same wood as his mother, their faces maps of survival. He recognized the steel in their spines, the wisdom in their careful eyes. They had walked this path before him, learned to navigate these foreign waters without drowning.

One woman's hand found his shoulder, her touch firm. Portuguese flowed from her lips first, then transformed—fragments of home tongues spilling forth like water from a cracked pot: Yoruba sweet as palm wine, Hausa strong as kola nut, and other languages that felt closer to home. 

He did not know what came next. But for now, there was this: a narrow bed, a roof to shield him from strange stars, air that smelled of other people's cooking fires.

As he lay down, the night pressing in, he thought of Maria's voice, of the siren's song, of the sea that had brought him here. 

Freedom. The word tasted different here, sharp as unripe fruit. Or was this just another kind of chains, gilded with false promises? The question coiled in his mind like smoke from a dying fire as sleep finally claimed him, drawing him down into dreams where the red earth of home still clung to his feet, where his mother's voice still called him by his true name, where the sea had not yet learned to hunger for African sons.

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