Blue as a Fedora

Chapter 11: Ella's Clue

Resting there, doing nothing, was perhaps more relaxing than she could have imagined. Malvina sat, playing with the necklace entwined in her fingers, the shiny 'm' sparkling even in the final rays of light, as the sun set gracefully below the horizon, flooding the camp into the darkness of the night.

All day, Malvina had sat behind that building, hidden from the guards and not being looked for either. She knew that Maggy and Ania would be worried about her, but that didn't matter anymore. She didn't really know where she wanted this to go: either she joins the workforce again, grows weak and is killed from exhaustion, or she refuses to work, the guards find her, and is killed by the hands of the Nazis. Neither sounded inviting. Malvina wanted to live, but that didn't seem very possible.

The sky was very dark now, but no stars could be seen, as there were too many clouds shielding the ground from the heavens above. The only light sources were that of the lamps that flooded the camp, intimidatingly tall and nasty-looking. Malvina didn't move from where she was sitting; she simply sat and stared at the cold ground, little bones, rats and other filth littered everywhere around her.

Then, like a foghorn, she heard the shouting and ordering of the guards, yelling for everyone to go to their bunks for sleep. The shepherding process was just starting.

Malvina gave a little sigh and stood up from where she was, stretching after a day of nothing. She still felt full after the food given to her by the camp chief, though she wasn't dumb, and knew this wasn't going to last for long. Soon enough, she'd begin to starve all over again...

Malvina went to the edge of the building and peered from behind: her suspicions confirmed, she saw that the scene in front of her was flooded with lines of prisoners being sent to the bunks. A few lines, she even noticed, were being sent to that thin building with the chimneys again. She didn't envy the prisoners in that line.

The shouting of the guards, the piles of dead bodies on the floor, the thin, colourless skeletons being pushed into lines. It was a disturbing sight. So why didn't it effect Malvina anymore? She used to almost throw up at this scene every night... now, she felt nothing. She'd lost something in her, something that connected her to the past Malvina, the one that was happy and care-free. That Malvina was gone, and she was worried that she'd lost her forever. Whatever was going through her mind, it didn't matter: Malvina's only goal now was to stay alive.

Not wanting to get into trouble, Malvina snuck into the scene and fell into the line she knew would lead to her bunk, no one noticing that a little girl had appeared practically out of no where. She followed the surrounding prisoners. From somewhere far off, the sound of yells of pain, disgusting smoke appearing from above...

The guards pressured the prisoners on, everyone's feet trampling on the fresh bones on the floor. Malvina looked down to see her bare feet trample on a dead rat.

Her feet were definitely bony, as was the rest of her body, but the food from before still made Malvina feel quite full. She wasn't sure if she had gained any weight or not; all she knew was that she was disturbingly thin. The side of her face, where the whip had flown across her skin, still burnt slightly, though it didn't feel as bad as the whip mark on her arm. She looked back down at the slender, dark scar: it looked like she was going to have it for life.

The guard finally reached the door and, inserting the key, opened it and allowed the prisoners to flow in. One by one they went through, Malvina following close by. A depressingly sister-less sight greeted her, but it didn't make her feel weak or horrid. She was unfeeling. The sight didn't bother her anymore.

The chief had said that they were alive. Malia and Ella. Could this possibly be true? Malvina hadn't any idea, but was quite certain that the chances of them surviving here were very slim. Just like her chances. It didn't seem like any of them would be surviving.

Malvina reached her bunk and was just getting ready to sit on it, when she caught sight of a slim, little piece of parchment, sitting upon the wooden surface. It appeared to be blank. Slightly puzzled, Malvina reached out a bony hand and took the paper, holding it up to her sunken face. She turned it over and, in familiar hand-writing, was a very strange message: