I've been pushed into a hut that has dirt for its floor and holes in its ceiling. The soldiers threw me on here along with Ayana. In the gray light of the room, I can barely make out streams of tears flowing from her eyes. She whimpers and whimpers and whimpers.

I rip my eyes away from her, not even able to imagine what must she must've gone through already, only to end up here.

Perhaps it's best for me not to think right now. Thinking is only going to make everything hurt more.

Dreaming up why Ayana's face hasn't dried in the long hours we've just been sitting here. Wondering if I'll ever see my family or Odette and her sisters ever again. Fearing what's going to happen to me... What's going to happen to her....

No. Thinking will do me no good.

Ayana and my hands are now free from our bounds, the most generous thing the soldiers have done for us.

I notice the sound of Ayana's cries has started to subside and I turn my face to see if she's, perhaps, gone to sleep. I crawl my way towards her still form on my hands and knees. She shifts a little and I hesitate to advance further. She rolls over to face me, lying on her side. A late tear travels over the bridge of her nose until it plops into the dirt.

She sits up so suddenly that I'm a bit startled. She starts signing towards me, frantically. She spreads out the palm of one of her hands and stretches her fingers, tapping her thumb against her chin. Then she desperately points towards the wall behind her.

I bite my lip.

We couldn't get one stroke of luck, could we? If they had to separate Odette and I, they could've at least put Odette with Ayana, yes?

I feel rather stupid. I get the sense that she's trying to dumb this down as much as possible so I can pick up what's going on. But I haven't the foggiest notion what she's trying to tell me.

Shrugging, I look at her apologetically. She stops trying to sign and buries her face on her hands before looking back up at me with eyes that make me want to cry. I rack my brain for the sign for sorry, thinking I must've learned some basic signs somewhere randomly in my life. But there's nothing there. Absolutely nothing. My sign language brain filing cabinet, is empty.

Ayana suddenly gets a thoughtful look in her eyes. She untucked her knees from her chest and flings herself into her stomach. Her finger begins to move through the dirt.

I furrow my eyebrows and lean in a little closer to try and catch on to what she's doing.

Three stick figures come into my view. One, I'm guessing is meant to be a man, one a woman and the one in the middle is shorter so, I suppose that's their child?

Ayana taps my knee to get me to look at her. One she catches my eye she looks back at the drawing. She points to the middle stick figure and then to herself.

I nod slowly, beginning to get the idea that the picture is of her and her parents, but not seeing where she's going with all this.

Her chest rises and falls slowly and she raises up her hand as if what she has to do next pains her physically and emotionally. She brings her hand down on the father figure and swipes the dirt, erasing his image completely.

I swallow hard, almost positive I understand what that means. But why would she share such a harmful part of her past with me. A little tear escapes her eyes but she quickly brushes it away. She looks up at me expectantly and I nod firmly, swallowing the saliva that has begun to collect in my throat.

Ayana doesn't even seem to know where she's going with all of this for a moment. Then her gaze shifts to the mother figure. I swear, if she swipes that one off to, I won't be able to help but bawl... But she doesn't she just stares at it for the longest time. Then she draws a circle around her. She goes and makes seven more stick figures a little to the right of her other two. She gives two of them smiling faces and the rest are frowning. The smiling ones are holding something up to one if he others' backs...

Oh. That's us. When we got captured. I look at her curiously. She points at one if he figures and then at me. I nod again. She points at another figure and furrows her eyebrows, deep in thought. Her finger makes contact with the earth again, forming letters this time.

O-D-E-T-T-E

Ok....

She looks at me. I nod again.

She goes back to her first drawing. She makes a line from her mother figure to a third figure in the second drawing. Then she stands up and points fiercely at the wall.

It finally clicks. Her mother. Her mother's here.

It took so long just for Ayana to explain that her mother is the elderly woman. I wouldn't have even been smart enough to come up with the dirt drawing thing. So in all honesty, I'm scared.

Maybe when they put us to work, I'll be able to see Odette and maybe, just maybe one if us will be able to develop some sort of... Plan...

Ayana still stares at me blankly and I realize I have yet to confirm that I understand the message she'd been trying to get across. I nod once more to let her know I understand.

Oh.... Wait.

Gosh.....

Why did she let me know that was her mother? Just to let out some emotion? When was the last time they've been together? Chances are, her mother is the only one Ayana can carry on any kind of conversation with. What does Ayana want from me though...?

It hits me like a ton of bricks. Maybe a fairly obvious realization, but an overwhelming one nonetheless. I don't have to understand the signs she slowly trying to communicate to me to know what she wants... What she needs from me.

She needs me to get her out of her. And not just her. She needs her mother back too.

I sit back on my heels and breath deeply, in and out. Staring at the ground, I start thinking. If I were the only one captured, I may have just let myself starve or die of disease whenever that time rolled around. But I don't want that for Odette, Ayana, her mother or anyone else.

I look back up at Ayana. I stop looking at her hands, and I look right into her eyes.

You know how they say, "The eyes are the window to the soul"? It's never felt more true.

In those innocent eyes, I see a lifetime of heartache. I see scars that children were never meant to have, things children were never meant to see. I see cuts deeper than the ones that tear your flesh.

But what ironically scared me the most, is that there was hope, too. Hope that someone was sent to get her out of this mess. Hope that that someone will get rid of all the garbage and fill her life with the love and beauty that it was always meant to have.

Hope that that someone.... Is me.