Caesar Obong Ng'bong ocen
Chapter Seventeen: The Ghost and the Cave (part IV)
As Peter struggled to recover, my own thoughts began connecting the scattered pieces of a puzzle that had haunted us since the moment we entered the cave.
I remembered the mysterious Pubunnggu Cave in Pakwach, famous for its powerful magnetic anomalies. I thought of the strange force that had lifted Peter and me into the air after his phone translated the ancient inscription. I remembered the fearless honey badger that had awakened us and led us to a hive of wild honey before disappearing without leaving a single track behind.
None of it felt accidental anymore.
Looking at Peter, I asked quietly,
“Was the Pubunnggu site destroyed?”
He slowly shook his head.
“No. The Pubunnggu site was never touched. It is a protected heritage site. I have only been there once in my lifetime. The place is guarded by what the locals call talking baboons, and the most remarkable thing is that the site lies beneath the water. The River Nile flows directly above it.”
Waisswa Jalobo remained silent as Peter continued.
“The site still exists. What they destroyed were the people connected to it. Anyone who investigated it was demoted, forced into exile, imprisoned, or died from mysterious illnesses. It was a campaign of fear designed to protect a secret.”
Jalobo nodded grimly.
“I investigated several of those cases,” he said. “Officially, every death and disappearance had a different explanation, but the pattern was impossible to ignore.”
Peter stared into the darkness stretching beyond the chamber.
“It was state-sponsored terror against its own people,” he said quietly. “Not to erase the site, but to ensure that no one would ever dare reveal what was hidden there.”
His words lingered in the cold air.
As I looked around the vast underground city, I realised that our greatest danger was no longer the cave itself.
It was the people above ground.
If powerful men ever discovered that one could navigate from Kamuli to Kwania through these underground passages, they would not seek to preserve them. They would seek to profit from them. They would turn them into assets, commodities, bargaining chips, and political weapons.
The thought angered me.
Even in modern Uganda, there were still men and women who would gladly table such matters before Parliament, not to protect them but to control them.
Eventually we climbed out of the underground passage.
Peter emerged behind me, exhausted but determined.
“We are in Lango,” he said.
I looked around.
The landscape was dominated by endless swamps and grasslands. There were no houses, no roads, no signs of civilisation—only the distant cries of birds and the rustling of reeds moving in the morning wind.
The wilderness unsettled me.
At any moment, a fully grown python could emerge from the grass and decide that our exhausted bodies would make an easy meal. A crocodile could be waiting in one of the countless channels hidden among the papyrus.
As we descended a muddy slope, my lips felt dry and cracked.
The sun had already begun its slow ascent into the sky.
Fear is a strange thing.
Every person carries it, whether they admit it or not.
Some fears are loud.
Others remain silent.
But every human being knows fear.
After some distance, we found a patch of firm ground and stopped to rest.
Peter opened his rucksack and removed a compact solar charging device. He spread out the panels and angled them towards the sun before connecting his phone and a small handheld tablet.
A few minutes later, the phone vibrated.
Waisswa Jalobo was calling.
Peter answered immediately.
“I’ve located you,” Jalobo announced.
His voice carried the satisfaction of a man who had solved a difficult puzzle.
“You are in Dokolo District.”
Peter exchanged a glance with me.
Jalobo continued.
“If you travel east from your current location, you should be near Koroto Detention Facility within three hours.”
I stared at Peter.
After everything we had endured underground, after surviving on bats and wild honey for days, I did not expect him to entertain the idea of another journey.
Yet after resting for nearly an hour, he stood up.
“We move,” he said simply.
I groaned.
Neither of us had bathed for days.
Our clothes were filthy.
Our bodies carried an odour so unpleasant that I suspected even predators were avoiding us.
Perhaps that smell had become our greatest survival tool.
Before long, we found a stretch of clear water hidden among the swamps.
For the first time in days, we bathed.
The cold water washed away layers of mud, dust, and exhaustion.
Using improvised lines, we caught several tilapia and roasted them over a small fire.
To my surprise, I found myself disappointed.
The fish tasted good.
Yet somehow the bats tasted better.
Perhaps my taste buds had changed after surviving on dozens of them.
Or perhaps extreme hunger had altered my understanding of flavour.
Either way, I found myself missing bat meat.
That thought alone convinced me that the cave had changed me.
By late afternoon we finally reached a main road.
A passing truck driver took pity on us and offered a lift.
Several hours later we arrived in Soroti City.
Neither Peter nor I expected to meet anyone we knew.
Yet fate had other plans.
The moment we stepped into the city, we ran into Maggie.
For a country that often felt vast, Uganda had an extraordinary habit of making the same people cross paths again and again.
The moment she saw us, she stopped in her tracks.
Her eyes widened.
“You look like you’ve been through hell, Peter.”
Peter frowned.
He possessed a remarkable ability to remain silent whenever he believed a question had an obvious answer.
Maggie laughed nervously.
“My husband and I came for a crusade at Soroti Sports Ground,” she explained. “Several renowned pastors have flown in for the event. Perhaps you’d like to help with the media coverage. Your camera skills would be useful.”
Peter said nothing.
Maggie smiled.
“At the very least, let me buy you both a proper meal.”
Then her eyes shifted towards me.
“And you, Obong,” she asked, “how is my daughter doing?”
For a moment my mind went blank.
I stared at her.
My mouth fell open.
Whether I forgot to close it or my jaw simply lost its grip on reality, I could not tell.
Of all the questions I expected to hear that day, that was not one of them.
And judging from the look on Peter’s face, he was enjoying my discomfort far more than he should have.
This post was created with our nice and easy submission form. Create your post!
Written by
Caesar Obong Ng'bong Ocen is a Ugandan writer whose work traverses narrative fiction, cultural memory, and moral inquiry. Drawing on African cosmologies, and reflective storytelling, his writing engages with issues of power, identity, faith, and the human condition within post‑conflict societies. His series blends political realism with interior psychological struggle, articulating the tensions between duty and conscience, tradition and modernity, exile, redemption. Obong Ng'bong's work bridges literary and social worlds: it interrogates African historical and political realities while exploring philosophical and ethical questions that resonate across disciplines. His narratives are grounded in cultural authenticity and moral depth, making them relevant to both literary and humanistic inquiry. He also mentors emerging writers and contributes to dialogue on African storytelling traditions and their place in contemporary literature.
Did this story move you? Every gift goes directly to Caesar Obong Ng'bong ocen — writers on Muwado earn from reader appreciation, not algorithms. Even $1 makes a difference.
Muwado weekly chart
Get Africa’s top 10 stories every Thursday
No account needed — just your email.
Want to follow Caesar Obong Ng'bong ocen and get notified every time they publish?
Create a free Muwado account →