Kaka Q stepped out of the portal into heat that hit him like a slap. He pulled his scarf over his mouth. It did nothing. The smell still pushed through. Rot. Sweat. Smoke. And something worse that he could not name at first.

Then he saw the bodies.

They lined the street in rows that no one had the strength to move. Some were wrapped in cloth. Most were not. Flies covered them in black clouds. A child lay in the middle of the road as if he had simply stopped walking and dropped where he stood.

Kaka Q had traveled through centuries, but nothing prepared him for Bengal in 1943.

He walked slowly, careful not to step on anyone. People who were still alive watched him with hollow eyes. Their limbs were thin as sticks. Skin stretched tight over bone. Some reached out weak hands, not even asking for food, just asking to be seen.

A man sat by a wall, barely upright. His ribs showed through his shirt. His face was sunken, but his eyes still held a spark. Kaka Q approached him.

“Sir,” Kaka Q said softly. “My name is Kaka Q. I am here to listen. Can you tell me what happened?”

The man looked up. “I am Abdul,” he said. His voice was rough, scraped thin by hunger. “If you want to know what happened, look around you.”

Kaka Q nodded. “I want to understand. For the future.”

Abdul took a slow breath.

“You see these streets? They were full of life once. Markets. Children playing. Now they are graves without soil. People die where they stand, boy. They walk until their legs fail. Then they lie down, and the world moves on without them.”

Kaka Q swallowed hard. The air tasted bitter.

“What caused all this?” he asked.

“Hunger did,” Abdul said. “But not the kind born from the earth. The fields failed, yes, but it did not have to become this. Boats were seized. Rice was taken. Prices rose until only the rich could eat. Some say it was war strategy. Some say it was punishment. What I know is this: millions of us starved while grain was exported under guard.”

He pointed down the street to a covered cart. “See that? Wheat. Perfect wheat. Leaving Bengal. Heading to ships. While our children die like this.”

Kaka Q felt his chest tighten. “And what about Churchill?” he asked quietly.

Abdul’s jaw clenched. “His voice reached us. Not his face. His words. He said Indians bred too much. He blamed us for our hunger. He refused to release grain. He called this famine our own doing. While we swallowed grass and leaves to stay alive.”

He paused, eyes unfocused, as if seeing ghosts.

“You want to know the smell? It is not just death. It is fear. It is a whole land grieving at once. When the wind blows from the river, the stench follows it. There are days I cannot tell where the dead end and the living begin.”

Kaka Q stood silent. He had interviewed warriors, kings, inventors. None ever spoke like this.

Abdul continued. “I watched my neighbors turn into shadows. I watched strong men collapse like empty sacks. Mothers tried to quiet their babies even when their breasts were dry. And every morning, the bodies multiplied. The British officers passed through with clean boots and rifles. They never looked down.”

Kaka Q knelt beside him. “How do you keep going?”

Abdul looked toward a small hut. “My mother. She told me to live. Even when she could not eat anymore. Even when her voice faded.” His eyes glistened. “I walk each day because she asked me to.”

For a moment, neither spoke.

Kaka Q then whispered, “Abdul, I promise your story will not disappear. I will carry it forward. People will know what happened here.”

Abdul nodded slowly. “Then tell them the truth. Tell them hunger is not just empty stomachs. It is broken dignity. It is silence from those who had the power to stop it and chose not to.”

Kaka Q stood, the smell of death pressed around him like a heavy cloth. He touched the small device at his belt. The portal hummed open.

Before stepping through, he looked back one last time at Abdul, sitting among the ruins of an entire world.

Abdul raised a hand, thin as a twig. “Remember us,” he said.

“I will,” Kaka Q answered.

And then he vanished into the future, carrying with him the weight of millions of unheard voices.

When Kaka Q stepped out of the portal, the forest heat wrapped around him like a thick blanket. Smoke drifted through the trees. Gunfire echoed far off, sharp and sudden. This was Kenya in the 1950s. The Mau Mau uprising.

He walked toward the sound of shouting and reached a clearing. Huts were burning. Flames tore through thatched roofs, turning homes into ash. Pots lay cracked on the ground. Clothes were scattered as if ripped from people while they ran.

At the center of it all, a man knelt with his hands tied behind his back. His face was bruised. Blood ran from a cut near his eyebrow, but his eyes still held a steady fire.

Kaka Q approached him slowly. “Sir, I’m here to listen. My name is Kaka Q.”

The man looked up. “I am Kamau.”

“You’re caught in this?” Kaka Q asked.

Kamau nodded. “I came here to work on plantations. I had no plans to fight. But plans do not matter when the world breaks around you. The British soldiers accuse anyone they wish. If they need bodies for their camps, they take us.”

Behind them, soldiers shouted orders. Villagers were being pushed into lines. Some were dragged toward the barbed wire of a detention camp built in a rush, the earth still fresh beneath the posts.

Kaka Q steadied his breath. “What did they do to you?”

Kamau looked toward the burning huts. “Beat me. Asked me again and again if I was Mau Mau. I told them I was not. Many of us are not. But they want confessions. They want fear. They want to crush the Kikuyu spirit so the empire stays firm.”

A scream cut through the clearing. A woman was pulled by her hair, shoved toward the kneeling line. The soldiers spoke with cold confidence, as if this destruction was routine.

Kaka Q’s voice shook. “Why so much violence?”

“Control,” Kamau said. “The British fear losing the land. They fear losing power. They tell the world the Mau Mau are savages, while they hide the torture camps. They hide the beatings and deaths behind fences and silence.”

He winced as smoke drifted across his face. “I have seen famine before in my childhood in Bengal. Millions died while leaders blamed us. Here I see a different kind of destruction, but the same hand behind it. Empire chooses who eats and who bleeds.”

Kaka Q knelt next to him. “Do you want the future to know what happened here?”

Kamau locked eyes with him. “Yes. Tell them we were human beings. Not numbers. Not rumors. Not wild stories told in London. Tell them the camps were real. Tell them the humiliation was real. Tell them these flames did not rise by accident. They were lit by orders.”

Soldiers were moving closer now. Time was running out.

Kaka Q reached for his device. “Kamau… I have to go. One last message?”

Kamau’s voice softened. “Tell the future to watch power carefully. Tell them suffering grows when no one pays attention. Remember this place. These people. This pain. It meant something.”

Kaka Q’s eyes stung. “I will.”

He opened the portal. Blue light cracked through the smoky dusk. Before stepping inside, he looked back at Kamau, tied, bruised, but unbroken under the burning sky.

“I won’t forget you,” Kaka Q whispered.

Then he stepped through, carrying Kamau’s truth across time.

The portal opened beside the broken wall of what used to be an apartment building. Dust floated in the air like drifting ash. Kaka Q stepped forward carefully. The street was quiet, but not peaceful. Quiet here meant exhaustion. Quiet meant people had cried for so long they had no voice left.

He saw a boy sitting on the ground with his knees pulled to his chest. The boy’s hair was covered in gray dust. He had a small backpack beside him, the zipper broken, one strap torn.

Kaka Q walked over and knelt. “Hello,” he said gently. “My name is Kaka Q. I travel to talk to people and learn their stories. What’s your name?”

The boy looked up. His eyes were dark and tired. “Youssef,” he said. “I’m nine.”

Kaka Q nodded. “Can I sit with you?”

“Yes,” Youssef whispered.

Kaka Q sat beside him on a fallen piece of concrete. “What happened here, Youssef?”

Youssef’s hands tightened around his backpack. “My home… it collapsed.” He took a breath. “My mom and dad were inside. My brothers. My little sister. Five of them.” He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t cry. The words came out flat, the way words come from someone who has cried enough already.

Kaka Q kept his voice calm. “You got out?”

“I was outside getting bread,” Youssef said. “When I came back… everything was gone. Neighbors said a strike hit the building. They tried to dig. They tried very hard. But…” He lowered his head. “They couldn’t find them alive.”

Kaka Q placed his hands on his knees, making sure not to reach toward the boy unless the boy wanted it. “Do you have anyone left?”

“My aunt,” Youssef answered. “Her house is full now. So many families lost people. Everyone is trying to fit everyone else inside. Sometimes we sleep on the floor. Sometimes outside. The nights are cold.”

“What is the hardest part for you?” Kaka Q asked softly.

Youssef’s voice shook. “The sounds. Every time I hear an explosion, even far away, my heart jumps. I think it’s happening again. I think I’m losing someone again.”
He paused. “Children here learn fear before they learn anything else. We learn where to hide. We learn how to comfort babies when the adults are shaking. We learn that some days the sky is something to run from.”

Kaka Q felt a heavy ache in his chest. “Do you still have hope?”

Youssef looked up, eyes bright but wounded. “I hope for school again. I hope for my friends. I hope we can sleep one night without sirens.” He pulled his backpack close. “I keep my mom’s scarf in here. Teachers say hope is something you hold onto. So I hold onto this.”

Kaka Q spoke quietly. “You’re brave.”

Youssef shook his head. “I’m just a kid. Kids shouldn’t have to be brave. We should be playing. We should be learning. Not running. Not counting which buildings are gone.”

Another distant boom rolled across the air. Youssef didn’t scream, but he flinched hard, instinct pulling his shoulders up. When the echo faded, he exhaled slowly.

“That’s what I mean,” he said. “Even when it doesn’t hit us, it hits inside.”

Kaka Q looked at him with steady eyes. “Youssef, I promise your story will be heard. The world needs to understand what children here face.”

Youssef nodded, clutching the backpack strap. “Tell them we are not numbers. Tell them we had families. We had dreams. Tell them we are still trying to grow up, even when everything around us keeps breaking.”

“I will,” Kaka Q said. “I won’t forget you.”

The portal opened behind him with a low hum. Before stepping through, he turned one last time.

Youssef sat on the concrete, small and strong in a place that demanded too much of him. The ruined street stretched out around him, but he held onto the scarf, held onto memory, and held onto whatever hope he could.

Kaka Q whispered, “Your voice will reach the future.”

Then he disappeared into the light, carrying Youssef’s story with him.