The sun beat down harshly on young Kemet's back, sweat streaming down his spine as he lifted another sack of cotton onto the wagon. His fingers were raw, his spirit even more so. The year was 1829, and he was property. His mother used to sing him lullabies of freedom in hushed tones, but she had been taken to another plantation two years ago. Since then, silence had been his only comfort.
Kemet was eighteen, but in a world that didn't permit innocence for boys like him, he'd long since stopped feeling like a child. Every morning he woke with bruises, blisters, and hunger gnawing at his belly. Every night he dreamt of running, of disappearing into the forest behind the fields where the trees whispered secrets no white man could understand.
He had watched others try. Some caught, whipped, or worse. A few were never seen again—maybe they made it. Maybe they didn't. But the not knowing lit a flame in Kemet that grew with each passing day.
It was on the third moonless night of August that kemet decided to stop dreaming and start running.
He didn't have a plan, just the rhythm of the wind in his ears and his bare feet pounding the dirt. He ran through the thickets, vines grabbing at his legs like hands trying to pull him back. But he ran, deeper into the unknown.
Kemet ran until the sounds of barking dogs and snapping whips faded behind him. His chest heaved, his skin scraped by brambles and thorns. The forest grew denser with each step, the canopy above thickening into a cathedral of green. Somewhere behind him, the plantation burned in his memory—the place of his captivity, of scars both seen and unseen.
He stumbled into a clearing just as the sun began to dip, and that's when he saw it. The air shimmered like heat on stone, forming a glowing oval suspended between two ancient trees. It pulsed with energy, humming softly like it was alive. Kemet stood frozen. Was this God's doing? A trap? A vision?
He reached forward.
The moment his fingers touched the edge, a jolt of energy surged through his body—but it didn't hurt. It welcomed him. He took one trembling step forward and was gone.
The first thing he noticed was the noise.
He stumbled out onto hard concrete, surrounded by glass towers that reached to the heavens. Metal beasts roared by on wheels, belching smoke and light. People moved in every direction—so many white people, dressed in strange clothes, holding glowing objects, speaking in sharp, clipped language he could barely comprehend.
Kemet froze.
The air smelled like smoke and oil. Music boomed from nowhere. Lights flashed from signs above. And everyone moved like he didn't exist.
Panic rose in his throat. His breath quickened. This couldn't be real.
Two white boys passed him, laughing, one pointing at him and saying something he didn't understand. Kemet backed away. His heart pounded. In his world, white people had one purpose: control. Domination. Ownership. And now they surrounded him.
He turned and ran.
But this place didn't make sense. The ground was hot and solid, not dirt. The air tasted chemical. He crossed a path, didn't see the vehicle coming.
A blast of sound.
Screeching tires.
Then, pain.
Everything went black.
When he woke, his body ached, but he wasn't on the street. He lay on a soft couch in a bright room that smelled like flowers and lemon cleaner. A woman was standing nearby, pacing, muttering to herself. She was in her mid-40s, with sharp features, curly blonde hair, and nervous eyes. She wore a red dress and held a phone in one hand, but she hadn't dialed.
He tried to sit up.
She rushed over. "No, no, just stay down. You're… you're okay."
"Where…?" he croaked.
"You were hit by my car. I didn't see you—God, I didn't see you." Her voice shook. "I panicked. I didn't know what to do. If I'd taken you to a hospital, they'd have asked questions. Why was an injured boy in rags running barefoot in the middle of the city?"
Kemet blinked, trying to understand.
"I couldn't risk it," she whispered. "So I brought you here. My name is Catherine Jameson. You're safe. For now."
Safe?
He didn't know the word anymore.
Catherine's home was in a quiet suburban neighborhood—neatly trimmed hedges, painted mailboxes, two-car garages. The kind of place that seemed peaceful, but Kemet could feel the tension under the surface. Like a trap waiting to snap shut.
He stayed silent, observing.
Later that day, he met her daughter.
She came downstairs with music in her ears and a textbook in her hand. Seventeen or eighteen, just like him. Her name was Lily—freckled, fiery-haired, with a bluntness that didn't match the plastic perfection of her neighborhood.
She stopped when she saw him.
"You didn't tell me you brought someone home," she said to her mother.
"He was hurt. I'm… helping him."
Lily looked at Kemet like she was seeing both a stranger and a puzzle. "Where are you from?"
Kemet didn't answer. He looked away.
Catherine tried to change the subject, but Lily's curiosity had already locked in. Through out the day, she watched him—this boy with ancient eyes, who flinched when someone raised their voice, who stared at light switches like they were sorcery, who didn't know how to use a fork properly but knew the stars by name.
She asked questions. At first, he didn't answer. But slowly, a bridge formed.
"You're not from here, are you?" she asked that evening while she joined him on the porch.
Kemet looked at her, the shadows of his past flickering in his gaze. "I from a place... where men owned men. Where running could mean death."
She didn't laugh. She didn't doubt. Instead, she whispered, "What kinda of place is that?"
Lily leaned back against the porch railing, folding her arms across her chest, the wind brushing strands of red hair across her face. The night was quiet, crickets chirping in the grass, the stars above blinking gently—though drowned a bit by the haze of suburban streetlights.
"What kind of place… what kind of world lets something like that happen?" she asked, shaking her head slowly.
Kemet looked down at his hands. "A place called Louisiana."
Her brow furrowed. "Wait… Louisiana?"
He nodded. "I lived on the edge of a town called Ravenbrook. Big house near the river. Men in white coats. Horses. Whips. Chains."
Lily's eyes widened. "Ravenbrook?" she echoed, incredulous. "That's… that's here. I mean—this town. This neighborhood is Ravenbrook. It's a small city now, but back in the day it used to be… farmland, plantation land." She trailed off, eyes flickering with dawning horror.
Kemet tilted his head, his gaze steady.
She let the silence hang, the implication crashing in waves.
Then she asked, "Kemet…throughout the day you speake like someone out of a… a movie. You say things like 'Forgive me, ma'am' and bowed your head every time someone talked to you."
Kemet's eyes dropped again, shame crawling up his spine. "It's how we had to talk. If you didn't say 'sir' or 'ma'am,' you got beat. You got taken. I'm sorry if—"
"No, don't apologize," Lily said quickly, almost cutting him off. "I didn't mean it like that. It's just…"
She leaned forward now, squinting slightly like she was trying to see through the veil of time.
"Kemet… what year do you think this is?"
He hesitated. "I don't know much about years. We didn't count them like that. The master kept track, not us. But I remember Ma said I was born on a spring morning. The flowers were bloomin'. She used to say, 'Boy, you were born with the sun in the sky and God watchin'. Spring of 1810."
Lily's breath caught.
"Two hundred and fifteen years ago," she whispered. "Oh my god."
He watched her quietly. "Is that helpful, ma'am?"
"Don't call me that," she said softly. "Just Lily. Please."
She stared out at the lawn, trying to process the impossibility of it all. A boy—eighteen years old—had walked out of thin air and into a future where everything he knew had crumbled into textbooks and documentaries.
"You're telling me," she said, barely able to speak, "that you're standing here, in the same town you were enslaved in… but in the year 2025."
Kemet gave a small, solemn nod but not understanding what she meant. "It feels wrong. Like the ground's the same, but the air ain't."
Lily couldn't argue. She looked at the street—the same soil, maybe, where his blood had once spilled. Her home could have been built over what used to be slave quarters, cotton fields, pain.
"Come on mum has told me to show you where you will sleep tonight. " lily said as she escorted him up stairs to a beautiful room painted pale green with a golden brown lighting.