The forest never seemed to end. The trees rose like prison bars, tall and unshakable, their branches knotted together in a canopy that shut out the sun. In that darkness, Tessa had forgotten how many days had passed since her abduction. Weeks turned into months, months into years, until seven years stood behind her like a shadow.
She was no longer the woman she had been. Gone was the bright mother who sang lullabies to her newborns, the woman who dreamed of family picnics and birthdays. What remained was a survivor…tired, scarred, and carrying a silent scream inside her chest.
The kidnappers' camp was nothing more than a clearing carved deep into the jungle, hidden from all eyes. Huts made of rotting wood and tarps stood crookedly, and the smell of smoke, sweat, and fear always hung in the air. The women no longer wore chains, but the invisible walls around them were worse. They could move, yes, but never leave.
The rules were clear. Work or suffer. Obey or die.
Every dawn, a horn blew, dragging them from shallow, haunted sleep. Tessa, barefoot and trembling in the cold mist, joined the line of women. They were handed buckets of water to carry, firewood to fetch, food scraps to clean. Their lives were not their own. They served the men—cooking, washing, scrubbing, and when ordered, sitting silently as they were mocked, beaten, or used.
Tessa learned to lower her gaze, to speak only when spoken to, to tuck her fury inside like a knife she couldn't yet unsheathe. But at night, when the camp grew quiet and the men drank themselves to sleep, she whispered to the stars above, begging them to carry her prayers to her children.
"Do you still remember me?" she would murmur, pressing her hands together. "Do you know I never abandoned you?"
The ache was constant, sharper than hunger, deeper than exhaustion. She had been stolen from her babies before she even knew their names but she called them Sunshine. Their names lived in her heart like fragile glass. She feared one day she might forget the sound of their cries, the warmth of their tiny hands. That fear kept her alive.
The kidnappers thrived on cruelty. Once a year, they made a show of their power.
It always happened the same way. The horn would blow, but instead of being sent to chores, the women would be ordered to kneel in the dirt. The leader, a scarred man named Garrick, would circle them like a wolf, his boots sinking into the mud. Then he would pick one woman at random.
Sometimes he chose with a sneer, sometimes with a laugh, sometimes with a finger pointed lazily as if selecting meat from a butcher's stall.
And that woman would be dragged away, screaming, begging, clawing at the earth. None ever returned. The others were forced to listen until silence fell, heavy and final.
It was their warning. Their leash. Their reminder that escape meant death.
Tessa still remembered the first time. A woman named Salma had been taken. Salma was young, no more than nineteen, with a laugh that had once reminded Tessa of wind chimes. When Garrick pointed at her, she fell to her knees, sobbing, "Please, please, I'll work harder."
Her cries had followed Tessa into her dreams for months.
Now, seven years later, Tessa was hardened, but not numb. Each killing tore another piece of her away. She had learned to hug the other women at night, to whisper courage into their ears. They became sisters in suffering, a broken family bound together by pain.
One of them, Mariam, often sat beside Tessa by the fire. She was tall, with kind eyes that had dimmed but never fully gone out. "One day," Mariam whispered, "someone will come for us. Or we'll find a way. Chains can't last forever."
But hope was dangerous here. Hope made you reckless.
Still, Tessa clung to it. Quietly. Secretly. For her children.
That year, the annual killing came again. The women were gathered. Garrick's boots crunched over the earth as he circled them, smiling with cruel delight. His eyes landed on Lena, an older woman whose hair had turned gray in captivity.
"No, please," Lena sobbed, her wrinkled hands clutching the dirt. "Not me, not me…"
Her cries echoed through the clearing as she was dragged away. The women wept silently, their tears hidden behind lowered heads.
Tessa's heart hardened that day. Something inside her snapped not with despair, but with resolve.
Enough.
That night, when the camp fell into drunken slumber, she sat with Mariam and another woman, Ayisha. They huddled together, whispering beneath the cover of shadows.
"We'll die here if we stay," Tessa said, her voice low but sharp with determination. "I won't wait another year. I won't let them kill us one by one."
Mariam shook her head. "Tessa, it's suicide. They'll catch us. You know what they do to women who try…"
"I know," Tessa cut her off. "But I can't… I can't die here. My children…" Her voice cracked, and she pressed a fist to her mouth to stifle the sob. "They think I abandoned them. They think I chose another life. I need to find them. Even if it kills me, I need to try."
Ayisha's dark eyes flickered with fear, but also something else. Longing. "If we escape, where will we go? The forest is endless. We don't know the way."
"We'll follow the river," Tessa whispered. "It must lead to a village. To someone who can help us."
The three women sat in silence, the weight of the decision pressing down like a mountain.
Finally, Mariam exhaled. "If we're doing this… we do it together."
That night, they didn't sleep. They waited, listening to the snores of their captors, the crackle of dying fires, the distant howl of wolves.
When the camp grew still, they moved. Quiet as shadows, they slipped past the sleeping huts. Their hearts pounded, each step a drumbeat of terror. The forest stretched ahead, dark and dangerous, but full of possibility.
Tessa gripped Mariam's hand, then Ayisha's. For the first time in years, her heart dared to beat with hope.
Behind them lay years of suffering.
Ahead of them lay freedom or death.
But for Tessa, there was no choice.
She had children waiting for her, even if they no longer knew it.
And she would find them.
No matter what.