Hey guys. The song above is We Are Young, by Fun. While I am here, I will just say that we are drawing closer to the end, and as great as it has been, writing this and sharing it with Wattpad, I can't keep publishing chapters forever. I have some great ideas for future stories, and the skills necessary for putting them out there, but this will always hold a special place in my heart. Without further ado...
When the seventh day was over, I was finally allowed off of my bed-rest sentence. I couldn't have been more relieved. As kind as Nurse Ada was, and as good as it felt to talk to Mrs Franz, I had to get out of this bed and finally do something. So when morning finally came, for everybody in the barrack, I waited impatiently for nurse Ada to do her rounds. She was wary of the idea at first, but after firmly reinforcing my decision, she called for one of the other nurses to bring in some clothes for me. They were two sizes smaller than what I wore before deportation, and even then I was naturally slender. But I hadn't worn civilian clothes in a long time, so to me this was a miracle.
It was a dress-red, to be more coincidental. I remembered red being my favourite colour-red roses, red dresses, anything and everything I owned, I wanted to be red. I didn't know what to think of it now. Along with that red dress was a pair of thick, woollen stockings, a pink, embroidered cardigan, and a pair of genuine leather, brown shoes. To keep me warmer, they'd also given me a scarf, a pair of hand-knitted mittens, and another, newer headscarf to wear if I wanted to. I took the scarf, and the mittens, but I held onto that old headscarf I'd had since the first night. Nurse Ada had washed it the best she could, and it was practically in tatters, I refused to give it up. I hadn't gone without it for a long while-just doing so straight away was a foreign concept.
After helping me to dress, Nurse Ada took a wet, warm flannel and used it to gentle clean my face. She offered to help put on some makeup, but I just shook my head and gestured for the mirror. I was a little afraid of seeing myself-probably because I knew I wouldn't like what was staring back at me. However, there were going to be plenty of reflections when we got back to France-all I had to do was glance into a shop window, look into a bathroom mirror, or even the water's surface at the duck ponds. I might as well get used to it-it was never going to stop anytime soon.
I nearly jumped back when I saw an emaciated, grey-skinned, freak of a girl staring back at me. Her face was covered in scabs of dried-up gashes, her thin lips split and blue, and her eye sockets like big, tea saucers, staring back at me with sad, watery eyes. Oh god, was that me?! I was so...so grotesque! The scarf, wrapped around my head as well, made it look unnervingly bigger than any other part of my bony body. I didn't want to look this way, so I tried my best to consider what had changed for the better. I had more hair than I did before, at least! Some of it surpassing the edge of the scarf at the back of my neck. And my cheeks weren't as hollowed as the others were. I had a little weight on me-not that much to count, but still something.
"Are you ready Kate?" Briana asked beside me, taking the mirror gently from my hands.
"Yes, I'm ready."
Setting foot outside the Barrack was surreal. Because this land known as Birkenau didn't look like Birkenau at all. Corpses no longer littered the outsides of the buildings-most of them, buried properly in more, mass grave-holes, all of which you could identify from the white, painted crosses which lay overtop of them. The air too, didn't reek of death like before, for the decay buried, along with ones we'd lost. As we walked down the dirt-roads, we saw soldiers with meal-stands, handing out canteens of soup and cool, clean water. But as we passed Barracks twenty two and twenty three, we saw something I'd never thought could ever exist. A man I vaguely recognised as one of the Nazi soldiers-chained to a post, surrounded by other prisoners.
"What's all this?" Briana asked the nearest soldier, another American man.
"One of the guards here got left behind. We found him in the men's camp, dressed in one of the prisoners uniforms. Problem was, he was far too healthy, and didn't have any identification number. Then one of the other men pointed him out as a German guard, so we've kept him here until new Authorities decide what to do with him."
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Historical Fiction"Once upon a time, my entire world seemed like a dream. It was no wonder they called Paris the city of love; because sometimes, you just couldn't help but love it. No matter how much it rejected, betrayed, and turned us away, I would always love Par...
