In The Shadows

Chapter Three

Two years ago on the day that Kaylie and Thomas arrived, Irine and I were drawing silly portraits of each other on the porch. We looked up to see Debbie leading a five year old girl and her nine year old brother up the path. They each had mops of blonde hair and despite Debbie's consoling whispers, tears stained their reddened cheeks .

That night, Kaylie and I laid out on the soft grass under the twinkling stars. I twirled her soft blonde hair between my fingers and searched for constellations in the night sky. I felt at home here, and I was hoping that Kaylie would feel the same way. We lived in isolation, in a house that was falling apart at the seams. But this was where I felt the most calm and relaxed. However, she was anything but comfortable, and I could tell when her little body started to quiver with the oncoming threat of tears.

I didn't stop twirling her hair, just whispered reassuringly, "You're safe here."

"That's what my other fake home said too," she hiccuped. My heart ached, desperately reaching out to fix her broken one.

"Well, this isn't a fake home. This is a real one."

She shook her head vigorously. "No, a real home would have a mommy, a daddy, sisters, and brothers. I know Thomas is here with me, but there are so many strangers."

"Don't think of us as strangers then, think of us as your family. Debbie is the mommy, and the rest of us are all of your brothers and sisters."

She sniffed and wiped her cheeks, nodding at my words.

"We're sisters?" She asked, rolling over to her stomach. Her blue eyes shined with the idea.

"We're sisters." I smiled. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

"Promise?" She stuck out her pinky.

"Promise." I looped my pinky around hers.

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Patches of sunlight streamed through the gaps in the leaves, creating random spots of warmth and light. Judging on the angle of the sun, I still had a couple hours before Debbie's noon curfew. A light wind whispered through the trees and I lost myself in my bubble again. A bubble of serenity and silence.

Until the screams. They shattered my bubble like fragile glass, falling in shards all around my feet. I had walked for only a couple minutes when I heard them. First it was one person but it grew to a chorus of bone-rattling screams. They were the kind that forced a skeletal hand down my throat to clench my heart with cold fingers and twist my stomach until I felt sick. The kind that made me shiver from the chills that raced down my spine.

It was the horrifying curiosity that forced my feet to move. I found myself stumbling towards the direction of the screams and gasped at the scene. I hid behind a tree and looked down the hill to the quaint farm with animals and a cute house with logs stacked outside the front door. But there were men in fatigues, like the kind I had seen earlier, exiting the house. One of them held a screaming and kicking boy who looked about fifteen, dragging him out of the doorway of his own home. There was a woman in her fifties standing in the doorway, struggling against a second man in fatigues, screaming and crying out for her son. A girl in her twenties ran over from the fields, crying out and rushing towards the man who was taking her brother. She grabbed a log and hurled it at the man, not being able to see it make contact before she was knocked out by another man in fatigues. Although her efforts helped and the man holding her brother loosened his grip, her brother was soon again trapped. Both were carried over to the trunk of a metal box on wheels and tossed in like sacks of grain, their mother watching helplessly the whole time. When the wheels spun into the dirt and the metal box took off, I tucked myself around the side of the tree, staying there, frozen to the spot, until the sounds of their wheels were long gone and the mother's cries had faded.

I blinked in disbelief, forcibly swallowing the cotton balls lodged in the back of my throat.

Go, get out of here. You can't stay here.

So just like that, I ran. I sprinted the rest of the way to the orphanage, only stopping once I had closed my bedroom door behind me. It was only then I realized that I had been crying. Tears slipped down my cheeks and my breath coming in rattled intakes from the large stitch in my side.

"Amber?" A soft knock tapped on my door. "It's Irine. Can I come in?"

"Yeah." I wiped the tears from my chin and shuffled away from the door.

"I heard-" she trailed off when she saw me. "What happened?"

One look at her and I broke down again. She just nodded and closed the door, taking my hand to lead me over to sit on the floor against the wall.

"They took more people again today. They lived on a farm," I hiccuped and she put her arm around me to hug me close.

"How far?" Her caramel colored hand comfortingly rubbed the back of my freckled one.

"Not far from town. But their screams, their screams could have been heard for miles." I shook my head in the horror that I had seen, disgusted. "They're monsters."

"I know," Irine murmured.

Squeals of laughter erupted from downstairs and Irine stood up, saying, "I know it's not fair. I know it's not right. Those men are so thick-headed but there's nothing we can do for people who won't listen. We can only hope we're far enough away that they won't be able to find us." She stuck out a hand to help me up. "But today's not the day to worry about that. It's Kaylie's birthday. Let's make it the best day of her life."

I nodded, taking her hand and drying my eyes.

"Did you get her present, Miss Procrastination?" She asked and I rolled my eyes.

"Yes, I did. Now, go ahead and I'll meet you downstairs."

"I'll see you down there then." She smiled, her curly black hair bouncing against her back as she ran down the stairs.

I crossed over to the old mirror to take off my black wig and tie up my real hair, double checking my eyes to make sure that any sign of my episode was gone. Taking the bracelet out of my pocket, I wrapped a pretty piece of cloth around it and tied it off with one of my ribbons.

I sucked in one last deep breath and smiled at myself in the mirror. Today was Kaylie's birthday and I wasn't going to ruin it by dwelling on the scene that I had witnessed. But the thought couldn't help but return to me, no matter how many times I pushed it away. The picture was engrained in my head, burning like hot iron. It was so different than any of the other times because of the slap of reality it brought with it. It was a reminder that the army was venturing farther away from town, more than they ever had. They were like a dark fog, silently and stealthily creeping closer. No matter how fast you ran, it would whisper through the grasses and dance around the trees until it enveloped you from all sides. Slowly, its cold fingers slip around your throat until all you have left is the option to surrender like a candle to a flame. You melt into a puddle of wax at its feet and give in to the false hope that you'll be able to breathe easily again. But it's all a lie. Instead, there's more fear and more anxiety and more uneasiness until all you're left is a broken shell of the person you were before. The girl in the mirror's smile faltered, wavering slightly in paranoia, as she wondered when she would have to worry about the dark fog, or was it already too late? 

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thanks for reading!! you guys are amazing and I love all of your support!! please vote and comment what you thought! 

what do you think about what Amber saw? crazy, huh?

-Scarlett :)