What a Horrible, Wicked World: A Collection of Horrors

Breathe: Part Two of Three

     Sitting in the back of the truck-the bodies around me rhythmically thumping with every turn and pothole-I wondered what happened before I woke up in that situation. I remembered going to school one morning, and talking with friends on the way to class. Then, I went home after taking the school bus back. After that, it got a little bit blurry.
     I looked at my arm that was free closely, checking for scrapes or any indication I was in a physical accident. I didn't feel any pain, I just felt dry and like I couldn't breathe. My eyes gazed down at the body crushing me again.
     His hair was balding in some places and I couldn't see his face from the angle he was laying, which could've been a good thing if he had a violent death.
     I tried not to look at the corpses too much, gazing around at the ceiling to keep my eyes off them. A few times, I wondered how many were below me, because I could feel someone's hair touching my calf and someone's bare bottom against my left arm. I cringed and shivered in disgust at the thought.
     Another horrid issue was the smell. It was hard enough to breathe with the heavy man laying across me, but the smell made it almost impossible. Many of the bodies smelled like their bowels had emptied in the truck, or like they had been left in there just simmering under the summer sun.
     It was a sour combination of rotten animal mixed with ammonia and feces.
     A part of me felt like I was going to die all over again in the back of the truck. With the smell, the sounds, and the man on top of me, I didn't think I could last more than a few more hours. I was gripping a spiderweb string, trying to hang on just enough for the men to open the hatch and exclaim, "You're alive!"
     I smiled when I thought about seeing my parents again, and how relieved they would be when they saw me. It felt bittersweet to think of them at such a time, just because I didn't know whether or not I was going to make it out to be able to do those things. For me, it almost felt like a pipe dream.
     While I comforted myself with wishful thinking, I realized the truck had stopped moving. It's hum and the bodies stopped altogether, and I waited patiently to hear the clacks and screeching of the metal door behind my head to lift. I heard someone getting out of the truck, slamming their door. Then, I heard the gravel crunching beneath their boots as they walked past the left side of it, while running their fingers against the outside of it.
     Again, I tilted my head back and stared impatiently at the back door. It felt like an hour had already gone by and I started to wonder if he had left the truck completely. That was until I heard the clicking of the back hatch being unlocked. My eyes sprouted wide, and I tried to shimmy more out from the body so they could see me better when they opened it.
     "I'm alive," I croaked, lifting my free arm outward toward the door. I stretched my arm, grunting and wheezing from the pressure of the corpse still squeezing the breath out of me.
My thoughts began racing; images of my friends smiling through the school hallways, my kind mothers eyes wavering through the old trees that shrouded our house that I scolded constantly for being old and dirty inside and outside, my dog-damn I missed that ugly dog. I felt my heart twinge at the reality of how much I had taken for granted, and told myself that I was finally getting a second chance to right all of those wrongs. I would cherish every single time my eyes opened in the morning once I was pulled from the truck.
     "Why're you opening that?" I heard an old man call from a little bit away. My fingers drew back.
     "You aren't supposed to open the back without asking the manager first," the man scolded, "Just get back inside and fill out the inventory sheet." The person driving the truck sauntered away through the gravel, and I dropped my arm in defeat.