CHAPTER 6 – Lion in a Cage

A lion doesn't always roar when it is caught.

Sometimes, it just stares.

Unblinking.

Refusing to give the captor the pleasure of fear.

But still—caged is caged.

And that's what it felt like for K.B now. Not the bars. Not the darkness. Not the silence.

But the eyes.

The eyes that watched him everywhere he went now, as if the whole city had agreed in secret to make him feel naked in public.

Eyes from students who used to greet him but now turned quickly.

Eyes from the old women in the market who whispered as he passed.

Even eyes from teachers who used to pat his shoulder and call him "our future leader" but now wore the expression of people waiting to see whether the knife would cut or just glint in the sun.

And yet, he walked.

Not because he was brave.

But because he was stubborn.

And because some ideas, once they wake up inside you, will not allow you to go back to sleep.

It was Ama who found him behind the lab building.

Alone again.

He was sitting on the slab that covered the storm drain, eyes fixed on the dusty outline of a lizard climbing the wall. Watching it. Like it knew something he didn't.

"Why are you hiding?" she asked.

He didn't turn.

"I'm not hiding."

She walked closer, dropped her bag to the ground with a thud. She didn't sit.

"The others are scared. You know that, right?"

"They should be."

"And you?"

He turned now. Met her eyes.

"I'm not sure what I am anymore."

She sighed. Rubbed her hands over her arms, even though the weather was warm.

"They say the essay has reached Nairobi."

"Good."

"They also say someone from the National Intelligence Bureau asked about you. At the headmaster's office."

He nodded slowly.

She stepped forward, lower now, crouching so they were face to face.

"What are you going to do, K.B?"

"Keep moving."

"You'll get arrested again."

"I know."

"Worse could happen."

He didn't answer.

That silence hurt more than if he'd said yes.

Later that day, during lunch break, the New Lineage gathered in the abandoned workshop room. The door creaked. The floor was cracked. But the air inside still felt safer than the world outside.

Yao arrived last, breathless.

"There's movement," he said. "They're coming. Not now, but soon."

"How do you know?" K.B asked.

"My cousin. He works at the municipal office. He said someone from the Ministry has requested our student files. All of us."

No one spoke.

Not even Ama.

Because what do you say when the government begins writing your obituary with a file?

K.B stood.

Not with fire.

With steel.

"We knew this would happen," he said. "We said it from day one."

"Knowing it doesn't make it easier," Yao snapped.

K.B nodded. Took that hit. Absorbed it.

Then spoke again.

"They are more afraid of our ideas than we are of their guns."

Ama shook her head slowly. "That sounds nice, but dead ideas still don't speak."

K.B walked to the window.

The wind outside smelled of wet sand and metal.

He pressed his hand against the rusted bars.

"They want to cage us before we even learn how to run," he said. "And the worst part is, most people will cheer when they do it."

Yao leaned back in his chair, let out a short laugh—dry, broken, bitter.

"Because we were taught that silence is safety," he said. "Taught to bend before we learned to stand."

Ama walked up beside K.B.

"You still want to go to Lagos?"

He nodded.

She looked down at her shoes. Then at her hands.

"You'll need protection."

"I'll need witnesses."

That night, K.B couldn't sleep.

His mother had left a plate of food by his door.

She hadn't knocked.

She hadn't spoken.

But the plate was still warm.

He sat beside his bed with the door slightly open, watching the night refuse to end.

At 1:14 a.m., the message came.

From The Oracle.

"When the lion cannot bite, they say it is tamed. But they forget the teeth grow back."

"I'm going to Lagos."

"Then speak before you arrive. Let them fear your name before your feet touch their ground."

"They'll try to stop me."

"That's how you'll know you're on the right path."

Two days later, the conference invite came.

Pan-African Youth Forum: Reimagining Borders, Rebuilding Identity.

K.B's name was listed on the first panel.

Topic: "Can Africa be One?"

Yao whistled when he saw it.

"You're not hiding anymore."

"I was never hiding."

"No," Ama said. "But now, you're bait."

The headmaster summoned him.

The office smelled of polish and judgment.

The man sat behind his desk like a judge who had memorized his sentence before hearing the case.

"I hear you are traveling."

K.B nodded. "Yes, sir."

"To Nigeria?"

"Yes, sir."

"You do not have permission."

"It's outside school hours."

"You think that protects you?"

Silence.

The headmaster leaned forward.

"You're playing with snakes, Kwabena. One day, they will bite. And you'll realize you were never a lion. Just another boy with a loud roar and soft skin."

K.B stood.

Calmly.

"I'd rather be bitten trying to change something than be safe doing nothing."

That evening, when the others had gone, Ama found him again—this time in front of the statue near the school entrance. The one of the nameless student holding a torch, his face turned toward the sky.

She stood beside him.

"You've become something," she said.

"What?"

"A mirror. We're all looking into you and seeing what we could be. And that scares people more than anything."

He didn't reply.

She reached into her bag. Pulled out a small book.

Poems.

Pages marked with tape.

Folded corners.

"These are mine," she said. "If anything happens, make sure they don't die with me."

He took it.

Felt the weight of it.

Not just ink.

Not just paper.

But hope.

Buried in metaphors.

That night, just before the power went out, he got the final message.

"They will wait at the border. They will question you. You may not return. But your voice will already have crossed."