Pavement of Sapphire

Chapter One

The bombs started ten minutes before school was supposed to. No one ever saw them falling from the sky, only the ground flying into the air like disturbed water. One bomb landed on the school’s above ground building, then another one two feet from the first. Deena was walking towards the library entrance, which had been built underground back in the days of the war. She heard ear piercing screams.  She stood motionless for a second, not knowing whether to run or to die. She thought of herself standing as still as the statues of saints that her grandmother used to put out, and she could picture the pensive, knowing look on her face as the bombs dropped around her. But something screamed inside of her, telling her to run. The library was the safest place to go. She started sprinting for it. Another bomb fell, three feet behind the school. There had been people behind there, Deena knew, and above the new debris she saw a body twisted in mid air. She looked up as she ran, but couldn’t see any plane that could be dropping the bombs. Cowards, she thought, afraid of getting too close, of seeing the truth of what you’re doing.

“Deena!” she heard someone shout. She turned around quickly. It was Sparrow, Linus’ younger sister. She was running, screaming. Deena felt useless standing feet away; she meaninglessly ran up to Sparrow and grabbed her hand, pulling the girl with all of her strength, but Sparrow was keeping up anyway. Deena’s hand shook as pulled open the door that lead to the steps which lead to the library, to safety. The girls half ran, half jumped down the stairs, and Deena slipped and fell down the last few.

“Deena!” Sparrow was still screaming.

“It’s okay, we’re underground now,” Deena said. She looked up at Sparrow’s face, which looked much younger covered with tears. She was only a year younger than Linus, but the two were very different. Linus was a more of a quiet intellectual, Deena thought, and Sparrow had a fire inside of her. Deena’s thoughts raced towards the subject of Linus, wondering why he was not walking with his sister.

“Is…is Linus all right?” Deena asked hesitantly.

“I think so. He should be in here.” She motioned to the library door. “He told me that’s where he was going.”

“Thank god,” Deena said softly. The ground shook; another bomb had dropped. Sparrow banged her head against the wall from the shaking. Deena grabbed her under her arm and pushed her into the library.

Boys were pushing computers off of tables and duct taping the table legs together. It was the best that they could do to protect themselves against the ceiling, which could crumble above them any minute. The sky is falling, Deena thought. Any bomb shelter had been filled as storage after five years without war, which the URC had known, of course. All of the boys looked up when the door burst open. Deena saw Linus holding two tables together as another boy taped them. He murmured something, a look of relief on his face.

“Deena! Sparrow!” a voice shouted from under the table with happiness. Magdalen Sabau stuck her head out from under the table, smiling. “You’re safe! Come under here, the boys are making it safe for us.” Magdalen was one of the kindest girls that Deena knew. She was from Romania, and she had long, dark hair and a beautiful face. She smiled brightly as the girls crawled under the makeshift shelter. Ethi Patel was squatting there as well, smiling at Deena through a tear stained face.

“How is it out there?” Ethi asked, her voice quivering.