"Her daughter?" I ask.

"Yes."

I swallow hard and look at the woman, whose cries of agony continue to make my insides churn.

"Do you know who her daughter is?" I speculate, thinking of the way she looked at Ayana.

The lady next to me shakes her head. She then proceeds to slowly crawl her way over to the woman. She picks up speed when the woman's agonizing screams suddenly turn into a violent coughing fit.

The lady reaches her quickly and begins to stroke her thin hair. She coos in her ear, trying to offer whatever comfort she possibly can, while I watch, helplessly from my position in the back. The woman's coughs slowly become less severe, but they don't seem to stop for the longest time.

When they finally do, the lack of noise leaves the room feeling... Creepy. As if Death himself has laid his dark blanket over us.

Paranoid, I ask, "Is she ok?"

An eternal moment passes before she answers me with, "I don't think she has been for a long time, dear."

Her words haunt me as we sit in the dimness and the silence. I have countless other questions but none can make the journey from my burning heart to my itching tongue. A sudden shiver runs up my spine, but it's not cold in here. If anything it's the most stuffy place I've ever found myself in.

Irritated with the bonds that still hold my wrists together, I wiggle around seeing if I can get free. It's useless. They're extremely tight.

"Uh... Ma'am?" I call hesitantly.

The young lady turns her head to face me.

"Could you help me with... Uh..." I nod my head in the direction of my bound hands.

"Oh! Ya I help."

She gently lays the woman's head on the hard ground before making her way back over to me. She works for a while at the knots until finally, I'm free to move my wrists again.

"Thank you," I sigh.

She simply bows her head in reply.

We sit in silence for a moment, letting our own thoughts occupy us. Then I glance back over at her and ask, "Could I ask what your name is?"

"Ebele." She smiles. "My friends called me Eby."

I cringe at the way she used "call" in the last tense, as if the years where she could be with friends was lifetimes away.

I nod and almost forget to respond with, "I'm Odette. Nice to meet you."

Her smile widens. I admire the way she can be in a horrid place like this one and still wear a smile.

"Beautiful name."

The silence stretches on again. My imagination begins to turn on me. It goes on a wild rampage, creating pictures of what could happen to me, what could happen to Chris and Ayana... What could happen to Ebele and the women lying on the ground that seemed too frail to even take care of herself anymore. My brain shrieks that trying to help Ayana has only causes more pain.

Because of you, Chris is hurting right along with Ayana. You didn't help Ayana, you didn't help anyone. Did you really think you could make an impact? Did you really think you could change the way this cruel world operates? Did you really think you could fly in here and save the whole country from poverty with some Chex mix and a couple bottles of hand sanitizer? Well news flash, Odette: The problems here are a lot bigger than you thought. You can't do anything to change that. You learned that too late and look where you ended up. You can't.

You can't.

You can't.

You can't.

I put my hands over my ears as if they were off buttons to my thought process. Tears squeeze their way over my eyelids as much as I try to suppress them. Feeling as if I'm sinking, I dip my head in between my knees and try to cry as quietly as possible.

I feel hands touch mine and gently remove them from my ears. I look up. Ebele smiles gently.

"It good to cry, you know?" she says.

I shake my head and smile sadly. "No," I say with a forced laugh. "No, it... It does me no good and remind me what a wimp I am."

She shakes her head and looks at me sternly. "Crying show you care. Crying show you feel," says with a poke to my chest. "Feelings be a beauty in life. Feeling show you care."

I blink at her. "I- I guess but-"

"Crying good," she insists, with a smile for good measure.

I shrug and do an awkward swipe under my nose. "If you say so."

"Ayana?"

The old woman's voice brings our attention back to her.

Ayana! Her daughter? Is her daughter Ayana??

"AYANA!"

"Oh dear," Ebele says, concerned. She quickly makes her way back over to the old woman who's desperately trying to push herself up, but keeps collapsing.

"Ayaaaannnaaa!!!!"

"Ssshhhhh, sh sh..." Ebele starts comforting the woman and coos to her again in her native tongue. The old woman settles a little and her cries quiet down. But she suddenly starts shaking. Her body is racked with coughs just as it was only a short time ago. I'm starting to get really scared...

I wait until the coughing subsides a little and then crawl up to join the two of them.

"How sick is she?" I ask Ebele. She remains quiet and simply holds the woman's head in her lap, gazing at her with massive amounts of concern.

Suddenly, the rock at the entry way opens up, letting on the small amount of pale moonlight that it could. Stale pieces of bread are thrown at us served with a side of angry shouts.

Ebele finds two out of three of the loaves without looking away from the woman. She breaks off a piece and begins to feed the older woman as you would a young child. I grab the third piece and try not to gag.

"Hurry and eat. They come to take us to work in matter of minutes."

My eyes go wide. "It's the middle of the night!" I exclaim.

She nods.

I gaze at the hard piece of bread in my hand that is meant to serve as dinner.

"What do they have us do?" I ask.

Ebele visibly tenses. "Different every time. God only knows what will happen to us."