I
:
đź“– Chapter 9: Blood Memory
(Inkumbulo Yegazi)
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She didn’t fall asleep.
She was taken.
The imphepho still burned beside her window.
The wind had gone still.
And for the first time, no voice called her — yet she knew she had to follow.
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She stood barefoot on warm, cracked soil.
Red earth beneath her feet.
A scent in the air: clay, blood, and rain that had not yet fallen.
She wasn’t dreaming.
She was remembering.
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A woman sat by a fire, her hands round and strong, rubbing oil on her pregnant belly.
Her hair was tied in a doek of red and white.
Her skin glowed like the earth under the sun.
She sang a lullaby in low hums, her voice a mix of longing and love.
Oyena knew her before she knew herself.
> Nomandla.
Her mother.
Young. Brave. And glowing.
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She saw flashes, not scenes:
Nomandla running through reeds, stomach full and breath short.
Hands reaching out in a hospital ward, pulling the baby away.
A nurse, shaking her head.
An older woman whispering "They’ve taken her. Don’t fight now. Wait. The time will come."
And then, blackness.
A void.
Like memory had a locked door she wasn’t allowed to open — not yet.
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She gasped awake.
Sweat soaked her skin.
Tears pooled on her pillow.
But the ache in her chest was no longer empty.
It was rooted.
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That morning, she wrote only one sentence in her journal:
> “I came from fire and water, not fog. I was not lost. I was taken.”
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But with truth came a cost.
Because now she knew:
To remember more…
To see clearly…
To become who she was born to be…
She would have to let go.
Not of love.
Not of memories.
But of Aurora — the soft, polished name that got her through wealthy schools and silent stares.
The version of her that fit into a world that never asked where she was from.
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Oyena was scared.
Because Aurora had power.
Aurora had comfort.
Aurora had privilege.
To bury Aurora meant walking into the world unarmoured, bare and bold.
But the voice in the wind said:
> “The river cannot carry what does not belong.”
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She was no longer waiting to be saved.
She was remembering to save herself.
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