1943
The lantern inside the dungeon flickered. Shadow crept over the stone tiles and concrete walls, concealing the place with horrid vibes and unbearable odor.
Jules, with his filthy skin and blue eyes, moved to the other side of his cell with no reason whatsoever. He then pinched his skin, checking whether he could still feel them or not. The answer was the latter.
What did he do next? He pulled his twisted slice of hair from his head with two hands. No pain resulted from it too.
He didn’t even feel the cold sensation of the wall and the floor. He crumpled to the left side of the cell, hugging his knees in the most childish way possible.
It had been one year since Jules saw the outside world. For one year he stayed beneath the hundred years old European Cathedral, cut off from everything that happened in the world. He felt like an alien, a sewer monster that crept in the dark and leapt and consumed everyone who passed him. He felt filthy. He was disgusted by his own form, that maybe when he accidentally sees himself in the reflection of water, he would be scared to see his own visage.
He forgot what it felt like to breathe fresh air. He forgot the sensation of warm water. He forgot the taste of a fried chicken. He forgot the contrast of the color of the sky and the sea.
And the world also forgot about him.
Jules reached for a familiar object. He picked up his doll. “Today I’m thinking about Ms. Pelica. She was nice right, Ava?”
The doll was only as big as Jules’ palm, but to him, it had a big heart. The doll was made out of wool and flannel, hand-made but had an expensive quality.
“Jules.” A voice came from the cell next to Jules’. It was John. “Just stop it man. It’s just a doll. You’re making yourself crazier every day by talking to that all the time.”
“Don’t listen to him alright, Ava.” Jules brushed the doll’s imitative red hair softly with his fingers. He touched the half burned side of its face. “You’re not a doll. You’re real to me.”
“Jules, come on. You said yourself you don’t want to rot here as a crazy person.”
“John.” Another voice came from the cell in front of Jules’. It was Jai, the tall Dutch who was too handsome to be imprisoned. Even one year in the Bermuda Triangle can’t mess up his beautiful jaw line. “Let him talk to the doll. It’s the last reminder of his family anyway.”
The words stroke Jules’ head like an angry lightning. It jolted his memory of pain and sorrow, and the pictures rustled in into every corner of his mind.
He was transferred back to that morning in '41.
Jules flicked his head and the lantern’s fire came to his sight. He heard the bang-bang-bang of the Japanese fighters, flying above the docked armada of battleships. He heard the boom of the Japanese bombs. He saw with his bare eyes, floating irons on the water, all on fire. He saw people hurrying in to jump to the water with fire on their backs. Then, the fighters hovered low past the buildings. Fire and explosion erupted from the distance.
The anti-aircraft guns managed to destroy some planes, but their heavy and flammable shells fell to the city with thousands of people residing below.
The Japanese fighters descended away. Jules ran without stopping toward the building on fire. The older woman in her bedroom, the little girl with a white dress on the balcony. They all bled on the ground, eaten by flames.
“Mom!” Jules imagined. The memory played itself like a black and white tape. Jules crouched before his dead mother, and then he moved and found his sister still coughing.
“Ava.” Jules kneeled beside her and was not sure how to act.
It was only a memory, but it affected Jules’ whole life and how he would act. That morning in December 6th, 1941, his life was transformed. His soul died together with his family in the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
The reality slapped Jules back. His body tumbled down from the sleeping plank. His almost hairless head bashed the floor and his cellmates immediately woke up from their nasty sleeps and tried to see what happened.
“I’m okay,” Jules said. He stirred himself back to the plank and tried to sleep.
YOU ARE READING
Darkness Dissolves When the Door Opens
Historical Fiction[60.000-70.000 words] Trapped in a Japanese occupied island, Jules West and other allied soldiers were fighting for their survivals. Facing losses and mental breakdown were not their only problems since the whole island tried to kill them. It had b...
