TRIGGER WARNING: HUMAN TRAFFICKING

Restlessness comes easy when your daughter is dead, or worse, captured in the veiny clutches of death himself. Her sudden disappearance imbalanced the Earth's atmosphere alongside the now mercurial temperatures in the air. I sent her to meet with Doug Carson to collect opium poppies—they aren’t in season now, and my clients are demanding. I haven't gotten a wink of sleep after that day. Daily, I yearn to hear her echo; through our frail shattered walls. The garden soil dwells in her absence as the weeds have started to strangle the life out of plants. I pull the sleeves of my robe down the other as the hairs on my forearms stick up from the foreboding shadow cast upon me. With little resistance, I allow my mind to wander into its underworld, where my daughter and own brother chime. 

We've lived in an RV lot since we found out Zion conned us. He never loved me even when we were just siblings–let alone parents. Zion has wanted our brother, Hades, to marry Ezra since the moment she breathed. I would rather kill us both than allow that. Hades is his alias, and he’s used it for so long that my memory of our shared life is lost. Mara Salvatrucha and sex contaminated my brother’s will for good to the extent that right is part of wrong’s spectrum. He's the founder of the underworld; every illegal cartel in Latin America traces back to it. I never thought he would make it this far. My fear isn't his influence, but rather his indoctrinated blindness. He was good once. I remember it.

I can't compel my limbs to rise without clasping into my own presence until I hear the cat clawing to the door's rawness. Walking toward her, she leads me outside and through the crinkled forest. I no longer feel my toes on the Earth's floor, and my vision blurred the colors before me. As I move further into the density of green, I refuse to look behind my shoulder, moving toward the unknown blindly. 

However, that was a few days ago. As of now, I no longer communicate with the outside world. The wind carried me toward a well shrouded by five figures seeking to quench their thirst with golden liquid. One was an aged woman, frantic and weary, struggling to speak, but succeeding in communicating fright. She had escaped danger from a land far underway. Left bruised along the cheekbone, lips no lighter than the bloodshed river, she wobbled toward me. She explained to me that she had fled from pirates who sold her in an unscrupulous business I can not utter. They offered me honey wine and a warm place to reside until the Earth lapsed around the only star anew. 

Famine dominated the masses swiftly and nature shriveled into itself. I’ve been able to overcome myself and have slept softly on seldom occasions. Yet the fear of my daughter potentially being in the devil's ground, encapsulated by soil herself, leaves no room for rest. 

Since the women and I lived together, every morning we would go pick pomegranates; they seemed to be full of vitamins and I never questioned their rituals. The only concerning aspect of this group I was now a part of was their ability to find me at any given moment— it’s as if the pomegranates served as a GPS.

I hear a whistle in the distance, a piercing sound perking my ears toward it. Footsteps stamped on the ground led me to high-pitched squeals as I pushed through leaves and branches. I encounter a real bed of grass in what seems to be a negative sky with a child trapped behind her eyelids but not in slumber. The baby bird has a broken wing and hair plucked out of her skull as her chest shakes with a breath. I walk toward the girl with fear strapped under my heart and as I inch closer I notice, it’s Ezra. 

Pomegranate juice leaked from her mouth as another red liquid bled from her brows and lip. I picked her up and to my surprise she bit me, her legs flung across my neck and had me in a lock. My arms spasm in desperation, trying to escape and at this point she has me stationed. “Do not move,” she whispered. She peered through the forest attempting to glimpse at potential threats, and then she let me go. I’m afraid to speak. Her knees are clutched to her chest when she begins to explain to me where she's been. 

“I was walking to meet Carson, just like you said. I saw his henchmen hanging around. Before I could even cross the street, they were on me like dogs, latching onto my ankles. One of them hit me over the head, and I was out. The next thing I knew, my mind was blurred, gravel was imprinted onto my skin, and shards of glass made a home in my flesh. One of the other girls whispered to me that we were in Honduras. In the corner of my eye, two paper-thin girls clutched one another. That’s when I knew I would never leave. A grimy man with a breath of rust and black fingernails hoisted me on his shoulder. My  fists pounded against his back just twice. I never hit one of them again. I couldn’t tell you where I’ve been even if I tried. The days have melted into each other. Or months, I’m not sure. I don't know Mom, I don't want to think about it.”

At that moment, I transitioned into a parallel version of the Greek goddess Demeter. 

I no longer knew myself or my daughter. How could I allow myself to live in peace as my child was tourtured with the masses. 

I asked her how she escaped and Ezra responded with, “we made a deal”. A deal that sold herself into voluntary hell one-third of every year. 

It was the fear of death and torture that stopped us both from facing reality with the authorities. To this day, one-third of every year the Earth's nature wilts to mirror Ezra’s inhumane conditions. But year round we live handcuffed to Zion and Hades, afraid of what shadows hold outside of our forest.

03/23/2025