Finding Muna: A Palestinian Novel

Chapter Twenty One

Life was getting harsher and harsher and the trio had already given up the last bit of hopes the might have had before.

April's wound was nowhere near healing, her wound looked so bad and got worse over the days, flies were always flying over her wound and no matter what she did, the excruciating pain wouldn't stop. And after thinking over everything and contemplating her life, she took the knife she borrowed from their neighbour and almost slit her own throat when Muna screamed in horror and snatched the knife from her.

The both of them stared at each other silently, one with a disdained look on her face and the other with horror. April didn't bother to speak to her; she simply hissed and turned her face to the opposite side. Muna gently sat on the floor and held her head in her palms as she started to get dizzy, her poor mind couldn't wrap itself around what her friend was about to commit.

"April why?" Muna cried after a while of uncontrollable crying.

"Why what?" April snapped.

"Why do you want to do this? If you don't think of yourself then what about us?" Muna asked gently and April shook her head uninterested.

"We have lost too many people in a short time; you think we want to lose you as well? Don't you worry about us? Lamees and I, she would go crazy and so would I, why would you do this April?" she asked again, sobbing and April let out a frustrated scream.

"You don't get it do you? You're not the one whose leg is rotting away, painfully. If you felt a quarter of the pain I'm feeling Muna, you wouldn't say all this. You're just so selfish; you don't think about others except yourself, you think I'm happy to commit suicide?" April yelled while Muna watched her in astonishment.

"The disease I have caught from this wound will gradually kill me anyway, why delay the death? I'm done Muna, I'm tired."

"I was shot a multiple times on my leg; I don't even know how I managed to escape the site because I know if they took me then that's the end. I wish I would have allowed them to take me, they'd have probably killed me so I wouldn't be here," April continued to yell and tears started to gather in her orbs.

"I'm tired Muna, look at my leg. What did I do to deserve this?" April said as she broke down and lowered her head, she held her head in her palms as she wailed frenetically.

Muna rushed to her side and wrapped her arms around her, both crying as they held on to each other tightly. April recalled the day vividly, how could she ever forget such a terrible day.

She remembered how she was running after the vehicles and then suddenly she heard them shout and started to fire immediately, she was too shocked and taken aback to even notice she was amongst the first people who got shot, all she noticed was that she felt a pain in her leg but she didn't think anything of it. When she saw people fall into the ground and the soldiers roughly picking the people and tossing them in the car, she fled the site immediately.

She remembered throwing herself into the bush, hiding behind the school Mr. Ahmad and others got captured in. And with a hammering heart, she watched one of the soldiers picked the last person and put him in the truck, and then with a last look around the place, he turned around and hopped on the vehicle, signalling for the drivers to resume driving.

She stayed there for a few more minutes, scared she will be clocked out if she dared stepped out. And while she was still looking around in panic, she felt a sharp pain surge through her leg. She turned her head towards her leg and widened her eyes at what she saw.

She had originally thought it was a snake bite but she didn't expect to see her leg covered in three bullets, and the bullets were awfully close to each other and very large in size. The pool of blood around her leg immediately gave her headache and her head started to spin.