“I’m sorry.” I whisper to the girl who gives me a small smile before dropping her gaze back down to the floor. Before she starts walking again, I tap her shoulder with my finger, the other hand holding the pen whilst keeping the torn robe around my naked body. The girl turns to face me, her green eyes shining with unshed tears. “Could you walk in front of me?” I ask.
“What, why?”
My eyes dart over her face and I can see the terror that’s written all over it. I want to tell her my full plan but I also don’t want to give her false hope either that this will actually work. Instead, I show her the pen and she looks at me with confusion.
“What are you going to do with that?” She whispers, her eyesbouncing down to the black pen in my hand.
“I need to leave a message for someone, but I can’t let these guards see me.” I say, keeping a look out for the guards. The girl pauses for a moment, probably assessing whether I’m worth the risk, but then after a couple of seconds she takes the space in front of me and covers her body with mine, keeping me out of eye sight.
We begin to move in sync, every time she takes a step, I take the same one, all the while I’m carefully drawing a thick black line across the concrete bricks, mapping my path until we reach the doors. Lifting my gaze, I notice a guard stationed next to the black van that’s waiting for us and that’s when I put the final piece of my makeshift plan in place. Just before it’s our turn to climb inside, I quickly scribble the wordsHome, Bunker, Millon the walls. The writing is scruffy but I’m hoping that maybe either Dean or Eli will understand what I mean, and I pray that they know it’s fromme.
“Alright ladies! Next lot inside!” The guard belts out and I immediately drop the marker on the floor before quickly kicking it towards the edge of the wall, then go to step inside the van. My foot freezes mid air before the van’s step, the smell of burning flesh hitting me like a freight train as flames that seem to reach the sky burn brightly just on the outskirts of the open space at the edge of the treeline.
A strange kind of sickness seems to take over my body at what I’m witnessing. Bodies upon bodies are being carried and dragged towards the fire before they’re flung into the burning inferno to burn alive, right in front of my eyes. I can’t seem to make myself move, it’s like my whole body has locked itself into place to witness the horrific horrors, almost like a cruel torment that will forever be branded into my brain.
My eyes will never unsee this form of torture, this savage andinhuman act. Women that I’ve probably stood next to in the showers, shared a slice of bread with, bumped into on Selection Day are facing their fates right in front of me.
The sickness that threatened to show its face earlier rises up my throat like an active volcano when I spot Nico dragging my friend’s body across the patchy grass, her body battered and damaged. Vomit spews out of my mouth onto my feet, coating them in a sticky yellow substance and I scream, a sound so visceral that I feel it shaking my vocal cords.
“EMILY!”
I don’t even think about what I’m doing, I just run, straight towards the blazing fire. My feet slam heavily on the rough ground, sending agonising shockwaves up my legs. Each slam of my foot has me whimpering in pain but I can’t stop, and I don’t even bother to look back. I need to save my friend, I have to.. I promised her I would get her out.
“Emily, please! No!” I howl like a banshee as tears stream down my face and my lungs scream for me to stop, but I don’t. I deserve every ounce of pain, not her, not like this.
I’m moments away from reaching her when a burning pain fires through the back of my calf, sending me crashing to the floor. I don’t even have the time to brace myself, my face quickly coming in contact with the hard ground. Not even the stinging of my skin scraping against the floor is enough to outweigh the throbbing, burning pain that’s currently spreading through my leg.
Guards quickly surround me like a swarm of killer bees then I’m being yanked up by heavy hands, and that’s when I clock the blood that’s profusely pouring out of a bullet wound in the back of my calf. The sight of it has my stomach turning and my skin suddenly becomes clammy and warm as shock takes over mysystem.
The cloudy gray sky above me seems to swirl in circles, a white haze threatening the corner of my vision. Voices and screams whoosh in and out of my ears, my brain is struggling to focus on one thing as everything hits me all at once, and the last thing I hear is my husband’s voice.
“Let this be a lesson to never run from me again.”
My head sways from side to side as I come back around, the motion pulling me from my forced slumber. The space is dark when I open my eyes and panic quickly grips my lungs in a vice grip.
“Where.. where the?” I fire out in between rapid breaths and my hands wander aimlessly to find something to hold onto.
“You’re okay. Calm down.” A woman’s soft voice washes over me like a plush blanket and I try to find the source of the sound but it’s hard to see in this darkness. Tears immediately prick in the corners of my eyes. I’m so frightened, I just want to go home, to myreal home.
A hand lands softly on my shoulder and I jump at the contact.
“We’re in a van, sweet. You were shot in the leg and then blacked out.”
My mind feels hazy and heavy at the woman’s words, almost like I have no recollection of being shot, except the pain isveryreal. The muscle in my leg throbs in time with my heartbeat, therhythm makes me feel sick all over again but I manage to keep a hold of my stomach.
“I.. I don’t remember what happened.” I mumble out to the voice in the darkness and I hear the woman softly sigh before she begins to speak again.
“We were being sent into the vans when you started to scream someone’s name, Emily, I think, then you just ran straight towards the fire.”
Her words suddenly begin to paint a vivid picture in my mind, and I can see myself clearly running across the grass towards the burning body pit, my friend’s lifeless corpse inches away from being burnt to ash. My friend didn’t make it out, I failed her. I was supposed to get her out of this hell hole, back to where she belongs, not to be thrown into a fire like discarded trash.
She was somebody’s child, somebody’s daughter or sister maybe, she never got the chance to tell me if she had any siblings. My bottom lip begins to tremble and I let the tears fall freely now, feeling the warm liquid trail down the side of my face before welling into my ears like small rain puddles. If I think hard enough, I can almost feel the rain on my skin, the saltiness that fills the air after it’s poured down from the sky on a sunny day.
My brain is quickly becoming a danger zone again, like I’m falling into enemy territory. I have no control over it anymore and I can feel it slipping through my fingers like fine grains of sand. The silence is so loud sometimes that I’m convinced other people can hear how deafening it really is.
Will they tell me it’s too loud?
Will someone help me turn it down when it starts to hurt my ears?
