Hidden Artifacts

In Hidden Artifacts, the 3rd chapter of The War Within: Breaking Out of Perdition, the protagonist enters a shadowed cave — a place of silence, secrecy, and memory long concealed.

The cave becomes more than a physical setting; it is a metaphor for the archives of truth deliberately hidden from the world. Within its walls lies a collection of artifacts, manuscripts, and suppressed histories that piece together the “true” story of humanity.

Among these are echoes of civilizations erased or distorted: the grandeur of the Kemet empire, fragments of the books destroyed in the Library of Alexandria, and records of genocides denied recognition. Scattered throughout are rare inventions attributed to the wrong hands, confidential reports of political betrayal and corruption, surveillance of Black liberation movements. The cave also holds chilling mysteries of modernity : documents on infamous plane crashes, alongside whispers of otherworldly beings and forces beyond human comprehension.

Artistically, the artwork portrays the protagonist seated in this cavern, surrounded by relics of erased memory and silenced truth. His face is marked by shock as he reads a prohibited book recounting the hidden and glorious history of Black people, a history deliberately suppressed to perpetuate control and oppression. His shock embodies the breaking point: the moment when hidden history collides with lived identity.

This artwork speaks to the heart of The War Within: the struggle is not only external but deeply internal, born of fractured identity and the weight of lies imposed across generations. The protagonist’s battles are not only against external oppression but also against the internal weight of lies he has been forced to carry; lies about who he is, where he comes from, and what his people have achieved. This erasure creates a war within the mind. Without access to their true history, people are left with distorted narratives of inferiority, division, and limitation.

Hidden Artifacts is a confrontation with concealed knowledge. It is reminder that liberation begins when the silence is heard, when the hidden is revealed, and when the truth, no matter how overwhelming, is finally faced. It shows that liberation begins not only by resisting external oppression but by reclaiming the truths that were stolen, because the greatest prison is the one built on erased memory.