The Wounded

“Who’s next?” the shadow yelled in an accented tone.

Our eyes darted from side to side, trying to co

Everyone stopped struggling. Our own wills slumped as the poor Survivor had. Joseph strained against the vice-like grip to get to him, two men attempting to hold him back. They let him go suddenly, and he stumbled forward into a puddle. I gagged when I realized it was blood. He lifted the man’s head, which lolled at an u

Joseph walked slowly, trying to stay in line with me, his eyes angry, his muscles begging for a fight. I shook my head and gestured towards the motionless man in the street. Not now.

As we were pushed further down the road, my eyes moved frantically from Olga, who was struggling to keep up, to Pelo, who strode proudly down the street, not letting them see his fear, to Rash, who looked bewildered and frightened. We were prisoners.

I couldn’t believe we’d assumed we were alone in this world. This big world. It was so drummed in we didn’t question it. We were stupid.

Our sneakers dragging and limping across the broken-up road were the only noises save the breath of the men guiding us. They were intent and silent, walking quickly through the center of the town and out the other side, where buildings five-stories high gleamed with unbroken windows turning towards a browning patch of overgrown lawn in a semi-circle. They were glum-looking buildings, despite being intact. I glanced up, noticing a white clotheshorse dangling over one the balconies, only to have my head pushed back to my feet. At the base of two of these grey buildings, we turned sharply and squeezed into the narrow gap between them. We bumped and scraped as our arms grazed the dimply, rough render and then popped out the other side into an old basketball court. I gri

Fabric rustled, and then what little I could see was blacked out as sacks were thrown over our heads. We were prodded in the back and forced to walk forward.

*****

I counted our steps to five hundred, and then gave up. When we finally stopped, earthy and unfamiliar smells filled my nose. Metal scraped against metal, and the people spoke in a language I didn’t understand. A lot of shushing and swaying filled the words, making it sound fast yet comforting, despite the situation. Female voices dominated the conversation. I heard a child cry, and it spiked my heart. Where were we?

My captor pushed me roughly to the ground, one hand still pressing deeply into my shoulder blade. They grabbed my arms and yanked them back, tying my hands tightly around a small tree. Someone’s fingers grazed my lower back reassuringly.

“Rosa, is that you?” Joseph whispered through the cloth.

“Yes,” I sighed.

The sack was ripped from my head, and a pour of warm, golden light hit my eyes. Leathery tents formed a circle around three fires. Dark-haired women with plaits snaking down their backs squatted over large, metal pans, scraping and shaking. Their clothes were layered and dark. The men wore black. The smell wafted towards me, and I licked my lips without meaning to.

“What do you see?” Joseph asked from the other side of the tree, as I watched the men walk towards the women cooking, leaning down to kiss them and smell the food.

“Um, I don’t even know how to explain what I’m looking at,” I said, my eyes widening as a small child ran from a tent to his mother’s arms. She mussed his wiry hair, blew on spoonful of food, and fed it to him, cupping her hand under his chin lovingly. “What can you see?” I asked carefully.

“Trees, chickens, and horses.”

Trees, chickens, and horses?

“Can you see the others?” I asked.

“They’re all tied to trees just behind you,” Joseph answered.

I craned my head, but all I could see was the tip of one sneakered foot. I couldn’t tell whose it was.

One of the women closest to me snapped her head towards in our direction, like she’d only just noticed us. She turned to the man who’d just kissed her and shoved him, her words fast and angry. The man shrugged and gave an explanation, which she didn’t seem to like the sound of since she slapped him. He grabbed her wrist and I winced, expecting him to hit her back, but he just laughed and helped himself to the food she’d been cooking.

She shook her head, scooped some food into a metal bowl, and made her way towards me.

Her eyes were crinkled, her skin as dark as my own but with a more yellowish tinge to it. Her hair was silken black, almost blue, like the wing of a crow. She held a spoonful of food to my lips. I tried to decline, but she shoved it in my mouth anyway. I swirled it around, the complexity of the flavors bursting in my mouth.

“What’s going on?” Joseph asked, trying to shift his position. He soon found out as the woman shuffled around to him and force-fed him some of her soup.

“Just eat it. You saw what they did to that guy back there.”

“His name was Ansel,” Joseph said sadly between mouthfuls.

She fed all of us, throughout the day. Groups were led to the toilet and then tied back up. The day passed dusty and kind of hot, despite the ice creeping around the edges of the camp. They kept their fires so high and strong it fought back the weather.

The day ebbed, and night flowed.

A child of maybe eight or nine dragged a handful of coarse-looking blankets through the dirt and up to us. A woman stood back from him, hands on her hips, eyeing him carefully, proudly. He looked back at her, unsure, and she nodded. He gently draped a blanket over each of our laps, averting his eyes. When he got to me, I tried to catch his eyes and smile at him. He narrowed his eyes and smiled back, revealing a mouthful of fangs, each tooth sharpened to a point. I shuddered. The woman who was watching approached us, tapping the young boy on the bottom and ushering him away. She then proceeded to tuck each blanket awkwardly up to our chins. Then, through a series of hand gestures, ordered all of us to sleep.

I tried to keep my eyes open but once the guards were posted and the fire had burned down to amber coals, my heavy head dropped to my chest, my chin grazing the rough rug, and I was out.

The morning was filled with clanging and water boiling. Children played in front of me, as I struggled to comprehend what I was seeing. This was a small community of people who all looked very similar. They were certainly not All Kind; they were Own Kind, descended from the same race.

With nothing to do except sit and observe, my eyes soaked in the details of this tiny tent town. They had simple dwellings and no technology. Small vegetable patches decorated the spaces in between and in front of the tents, and I watched the women harvest what they needed for our food as they cooked. It was like we had stepped back in time to thousands of years before the war. This was how humans eked out a life when there was nothing to help them. I appreciated the idea, but these people were not kind. They were animalistic. The children fought with teeth bared, the men were rough with each other and even rougher to us. Only one woman fed us and not out of kindness, it was her assigned responsibility.