Johanna felt light-headed, the lack of food did not help, but the smell of other bodies was the main issue. The prisoners had been left in their cells; no showers, no toiletries, only food slid through a hatch every eight hours. Johanna considered not eating in protest, but needed her strength in case she got out of here.

The cage appeared less than half full, the raucous sound from the first cage gave way to solemn despondency here. The full cage next to them showed the fight and vigour they once had. To the other side appeared the view of what would come next, total resignation to what fate had in store.

Johanna sat in a corner, holding her breath as best she could, watching the grotesque pantomime play out. It appeared like an out-of-body experience, observing her own life from afar. The first cage once more shouting, pushing, being violent. Again she saw those that spoke out with both mouth and body being beaten down, more blood spilled, more bones broken. The lucky ones were bought, whilst the rest would appear in her cage in a few days time. The noise died down quickly, the inhabitants of cage one were gone, so too many of the consumers. In contrast, the auction for cage two was a much more sombre affair; those that had the intelligence to keep quiet lived with those who had any semblance of resistance beaten out of them, leaving a set of would be slaves with little fight. The only owners left could not make a decision or were after a bargain, people who rarely made a purchase and needed extra time to think. They circled round the kneeling objects from a distance, as if this group were infected. There was little activity, out of the twelve people in the cage, only one was sold, and even that took some extensive haggling. To Johanna's dismay, she was not selected. Her gaunt frame made its way back to her cell, to more time contemplating what might have been had her husband not been caught, to more guilt as to what she would have done had she known he was alive, to more pain in missing her daughter. Her hope was almost spent, she had just one last dwindling piece, one last chance to be saved, one last cage to sit in. Still, just in case it all went wrong, as she sat on the hard bed she took the time to say goodbye to her daughter.