100 Days and Nights

Chapter 12

At dawn we headed into the town. My knees were a little sore but not as bad as they were yesterday. I was a little worried that my knees might give way, but I pushed the worry aside. I didn’t have time to worry about anything, which is what Maddison tells us all. She reckons that worrying about what’s going to happen won’t leave us focus on what we needed to do. We would be putting ourselves into doubt all the time. If we did that, we weren’t going to get anywhere with fighting against the Japanese.

By the time we reached the other town, the sun was fully up. We climbed through a man hole and onto a street that was deserted. Maddison went over the plan one last time and then we headed off to make war.

We walked through the streets, keeping an eye out for the soldiers. Since it was early morning, not all of the soldiers were on duty just yet so walking through here shouldn’t be a problem. But still we had to be careful because you never knew when a soldier was to suddenly appear.

We split up in two groups. Nelly, Sophie, Zack, Seth, Peyton, Scott and I were on the ground while the others followed Maddison inside a building. Keith had gotten a bomb the other day which he had found inside a jeep. Not exactly sure how he got a hold of it, but he did.

Seth set the bomb underneath a car while Zack grabbed a wire from it, walking across the street with it. He handed me the end of the wire and I tied it to the lamp post. You couldn’t even see the wire at all. I imagined in my head what it would be like if the soldiers was to walk by and get blown to nothing when they touch their wire. I even pictured them driving their jeep by and imagined this perfect explosion in my head. I smiled to myself just thinking about it.

Once the bomb was in place, we hid behind some buildings or behind cars further down so we weren’t near the explosion when it goes off. I wasn’t sure how big the explosion will be.

The jeep drove through the wire and as it did, the explosion went off. We dropped to the ground as we felt the force of the bomb head our way, as well as glass exploded from the windows in surrounding buildings. We glanced up to see some cars on fire and the buildings nearby collapsed on the street. Smoke and dust was everywhere and I was almost afraid that we wouldn’t be able to see through the smoke at all.

We stood up from the ground and glanced around us. Any minute now soldiers will come, shooting at us. We prepared for the attack since it was a little hard to see through the smoke. We could hear people yelling in Japanese and we knew that at any minute there will be war.

The dust slowly subsided but the smoke was still visible as the fire continued to burn on the cars. The soldiers emerged from the smoke, ready to shoot anyone that appeared. I wonder if the battle is going to be put up on the screen for everyone to see. I hope they don’t because I really don’t want my parents to see me or my siblings die during the battle.

We emerged from our hiding places and began shooting. The soldiers fired back, but we were too quick for them. They fell to the ground.

“Let’s move,” Seth commanded.

I wasn’t sure where Seth was going, but I followed him and so did the others. He led us down an alley way. A back door to a building was there and we entered it. Seth thought that maybe we could get up high so we could see where the enemies were before we got back down on the street again.

We ran up the staircase until we got to the fourth floor and walked over to the window. Down below it was hard to see the street through the smoke. But even though we couldn’t see, there was a lot of screaming and gun shooting.

“Seth, we should move,” I told him. “There is no way we can see through this smoke. “It’s too thick.”

Seth was about to open his mouth to say something when we heard footsteps running up the stairs, followed by voices talking in Japanese. We looked around to see where we could hide knowing that if we didn’t get out of here we will be caught. Zack tapped my shoulder, pointing to a window that had a drain pipe. It took me a few minutes to work out what he was trying to say.