• Natalia - Chapter 2

    Bang
    The muzzle flashed and I woke up drenched in a cold sweat, as I had done every night for the last year, ever since Alex and Anna had been killed in cold blood, no remorse had crossed that bitches face when she did it, no sense of the evil deed she had done, no pity for the two bodies that were dropped lifeless into a pit, never to be seen again.
    I glanced at my now familiar surroundings, concrete, endless concrete, nothing green or living, just concrete.
    I peered over to the person who had slept next to me, my closest friend, James, he had been there with me for many years, since I first arrived at the orphanage, he stood up for me, helped me and cared for me, I loved him like a brother.
    “Wake up sleepy head” I said as I nudged him on the shoulder.
    “What is it Nat” he groaned in response
    “It is time to wake, the sun has risen”
    “I’m up, I’m up, where are we working today?”
    “Section B I think, but I don’t know you know how they like switching things last minute on us, I think they do that just to torture us”
    “They don’t, they do it because they must, they do it because some one else has been taken away killed or just could not take it anymore and have decided on the easy way out” he said solemnly
    “Well they wont today, I hope they wont have to”
    We dressed quickly, knowing the punishment for lateness, we knew it too well, and will never forget it.
    We marched to section B quickly but without haste, we knew what would have to endure for the next 10 hours, or so we thought, when we arrived at section B we had a surprise.
    “You’re going to Section F today, so get going” we were told to our great dismay, section B though hard was just sewing, making low quality clothes to sell overseas, mind numbingly monotonous work, but it was heaven when compared to section F.
    Section F opened only on one condition, death.
    What we had hoped would not happen had, some one had lost their life in the night, either they had just died from exhaustion, they decided they couldn’t do it anymore, or they received a punishment for a minor indiscretion, either way we would soon find out, and then we would pick them apart for any valuables, these valuables where not in gold or rings, we had been stripped of those when we had first arrived, these valuables came from inside, people will pay a lot of money for organs, a transplant heart, liver, even skin, this gristly ordeal had caused many to end it, rather to die then to have to pick a friend clean, adding to the irony that they too would be picked clean, and then thrown into the pit, without a name or a memory, only the remains to be frozen and shipped to be sold, the only slight good from this that some one would gain a new life from this factory of death.
    We set off to section F.
    “I can’t do this,” I sobbed as we walked “I cannot do this to another person, it is too…too”
    We stopped
    “I know, I know how horrible it is, how despicable these people are to make us, but we must, you know the price of disobedience” James told me “I don’t want to have to have some one do the same to us. To you”
    He embraced me.
    “Don’t worry,” He whispered into my ear “I am here, I will protect you, but we must do what we must”
    He held me at an arms length and looked deeply into my eyes.
    “Мы Должны сделать то, что мы должны” he spoke softly
    I cried, I don’t know why but I cried, maybe it was the nostalgia of hearing Russian, highly taboo, maybe the knowledge that if we were caught, not only standing still but speaking Russian, another of the minor discretions, I knew the price we would pay, the price we would all pay eventually.
    “Why are you crying Nat?” he asked still whispering softly
    “I don’t know” I joked, my rare moments of joy
    “We must go, we have dawdled for long enough, and they will be expecting us any minute”
    “Yes, I understand” I stated, not appreciating my lost moment of joy that he had taken by reminding me of the gristly job at hand
    We arrived at the giant doors that marked the entrance of section F, Jonas was at the front as usual, not guarding just always there.
    His massive hands caught my face with the force of a bus.
    “You are late, I was expecting you long before” he said in a heavy accent
    I spat out a tooth, determined not to cry in front of the b*****d who slaps teenaged girls for a lost minute.
    “We are sorry Jonas, we will work harder to make up time” I said without looking at him, despite my intentions a single tear had escaped and I would not give him the satisfaction he needed.
    “Who is it?” James asked
    “More than one” Jonas clamed bluntly “There is two today, you get the pleasure of each having one to play with” he said, making a joke about the ordeal just made my hatred stronger.
    “Who then?”
    “David and Alexis”
    I gasped; they had both been no older than five
    “They deserved it, they tried to escape together, Garth caught them running to the gate”
    Garth, the man with the sniper rifle and the tower, as ruthless as he was skilled, able to kill two children as easy as blinking, knowing it was them made bile rise in my throat leaving a bitter taste.
    “Well hurry up or I will get you again” he said while opening the large door to Section F, to what was collectively known as the Slaughter house.