Their feet shuffled as they joined the little crowd from their direction. Everyone of them carried their hope on their faces. Restless eyes. A thump in the chest. Weak legs, and broken will. With the stadium visible before their eyes, hope flicked with renewed strength.

Silence fell on their steps like a stalker. Mister Joseph latched onto his wife's wrist. It felt tight, but she understood. It was his anxiety clawing into his nerves.

Just like him, she nursed a growing tension like a coming storm. Her doubts grew. Thoughts of Kamila and Jones bugged her mind.

" Joseph. I am not sure I was right to leave the children behind." 

Her husband cast a sidelong glance at her, and resumed his pace. His eyes travelled three hundred and sixty degrees around them. He could smell the disturbance in the air. They were palpable.

" Something is wrong," he halted when the entrance of the stadium was within view.

Her forehead wrinkled in worry. “ The children?”

" No. There." He pointed at the soldiers loitering in the distance. Joseph faced internal turmoil. This is the stadium he promised to draw for Jones. He could have turned away, but to draw the image, he needs to see it.

“Eunice. We can not go together. If something happens. One of us have to take care of our children.”

“ But...”

" I don't feel at peace. You can not come with me." He drawled.

Their fellow Tutsis had gone ahead. The crowd reduced to a handful hurrying to join the pack.

“ If something happens. Tell Kamila and Jones I will draw the Stadium some other time.”

" Can't we just go back instead?" 

Joseph spent a second brooding. He weighed the chances. If something doesn't go wrong, returning would be a journey to hunger, and possible punishment from the government. 

He gave her a pat and turned on his heels. Eunice waited. She tarried in hiding. The gates closed and fire reigned.

Their screams reached her ears, and fear grazed her inner cores. " Joseph," she mouthed, and a little pool trickled down with rippling waves of emotions.

Joseph could not draw the stadium. He didn't make it out. No one who went inside survived. Eunice didn't lose hope of his return, until she stumbled on the newspaper. Bodies towered in a heap on the stadium grounds. It hit her like a sudden gush of wind. She will never see him again, and neither will their children.

A part of her died. She could have fallen beside him in that stadium. They could have slept there together, but Joseph wanted her to return to Kamila and Jones. Eunice retrieved her languishing soul from the ground. It was time to return to the living.