By the time I got back to Krome… something in me had changed.

The fear was quieter.

The anger was fading.

And the hope I saw in the newer detainees felt unfamiliar now.

As the pandemic spread through the world outside, life inside detention kept moving the same — quarantine dorms, rumors, phone calls, card games, and men trying to convince themselves everything would somehow work out.

Some still believed they were going home to America.

I wasn’t so sure anymore.

This was the point where survival turned into acceptance.

The beginning of the end.