World Of Silhouettes

Two

                ------KATIE AS I PICTURED HER. THANK'S @katchat45 FOR THE IDEAS------

"What are you doing?" I ask,trying not to panic.  I jerk back but his grip just tightens. Panic lodges in my throat, but I try not to show it. Not to the likes of him.

"What am I doing?" He cackles. "What any ordinary man would. A stupid girl, a superior man. . . what should I be doing!?" 

Obviously drunk.

"Let go of me," I say. "You yelled at me for stopping for one moment to make sure a elderly person was alright. If that was holding up the line, this must be insanity! Control yourself, nobody wants someone as ugly as you." I say smugly.

"You dare speak to a soldier like that!" He puts his hand in a fist and punches my lip. I yell and clasp my hands over it. My working papers fell onto the floor so I bend down and reach them, still holding on to my lip as if it might fall off at any second. 

"Gimme that, girl!" He snatches it and scans the paper. I glare at him, not showing him the fear that is deep inside for disrespecting a soldier. Ill always hate them. I will. 

He takes a piece of bread and stuffs it into the basket along with some water and cheese and smirks down at me. I stare at him. How does he expect me to survive for a week on that? 

"Maybe being hungry will teach you to respect us more!" He snickers and I walk away, my face flushed with anger. How on earth can you be so cruel?  The heartless jerks.

"I hope you choke on your abundant food. . ."

"Girl." A voice says behind me. I stop my walking and turn around. The old Lady from before. . . waited for me? Now I'm just confused. Today is moving way to fast for me. I barely have any time to think. 

"Its actually somewhat sad, but I've  taken a liking to you," She tells me. "You can't expect to live on that bread and work at the same time. You are just a girl. Now come with me!"  

Everything she says perplexes me. Is she inviting me to eat her food? Impossible! Nobody does that around here. We worry about ourselves and nothing else.  Thats how we live. Eat or be eaten.

I would love to see someone change that. 

"I can't do that!" I protest weakly, "I'll survive. Trust me, its been worse."

 It has. There have been times I've begged on the streets in the rain, asking men for food or whatever they can spare. 

She stares ahead of me. "Look,"  She says. "is that a friend of yours coming down the hill?" 

Katie is walking down to us. Does she know what happened? No. She's smiling. 

I stare at the lady and stutter. "U-um, excuse me- just a moment!" I run over to Katie. And wave frantically to her. 

"What took you!?" She yells. "I was starting to- Oh my! Your lip is swollen!" She runs over to me for a better examination of my most likely swollen and ugly face.

"Yeah. . . they sure mess around a lot here, huh?" 

"Um. . . to say the least." Her eyes cant seem to leave my most likely swollen lip, so I snap my fingers up to her and smile. 

"Yeah. . . ." I glance back at the mysterious Lady. She stares at me.  Tell Katie to go home! my mind screams at me. I know its the right thing to do. "Katie," I say. "go to your family. I need to do some other stuff. Ill be back, I promise."

"What?" She asks. "Why? I thought you could come to my house later.

"I have a job," I lie. 

 She smiles. "That sounds important. Ill go home then. You. . . take better care of yourself! You don't want to look any more horrid than you do now!" 

"Thanks!" I yell to her as she runs away. I walk back to the woman. Is this the right choice? It better be. I don't like lying to my best friends. Especially when I owe her and her family my life.

"Took you long enough," She says as I catch my breath. For just a split second, my head throbs, and my vision changes to black and red. Almost silhouetted. I shake my head and blink. Its gone. Im just tired. 

"Yeah. So um . . . what do we do now?" I ask. My lip throbs uncomfortably. One of these days, ill kill that solider. 

Yeah right, like some girl could do that.

"You follow me." She chuckles and walks up ahead.  "Come come now. Hurry up!" 

After an hour of walking, she  found a boy with a wagon and payed him to drive us. I stare at the changing scenery, my legs dangling off the side. I didn't know the world kept going on like this. Guess I just imagined it to end. But in a way, it does. We've reach a very large wall. Its at least sixty feet tall, and has wire looped around at the top. I shudder, imagining how skin would tear in contact with the wire. 

My eyes snap back to the woman, who walks in a quaint cottage. Vines grow around the brick walls and smoke comes from the chimney. The roof is made of what seems to be string wood. I used to have a house, I sold it for more food when my mother died. This is bringing back so many memories. I follow her and blink. Its not large, but its comfortably built. A round uneven square tablet with two chairs on opposite chairs serve as a clue that there is another living here. The kitchen has a small stove and two cabinets. There is a door right next to a fireplace, which has a log in it but its dying out.

"One question for you," She says to me while throwing another log in the fire.  "The walls-from outside-remeber? Are they for keeping things out, or just keeping us in?" 

"The. . . walls? Well. . . I didn't know. . . didn't know there were walls." She chuckles and sits down in the chair. She beckons me in the other one. 

"Uh. . ." I look at the chair with uncertainty. 

"Please," The lady says through a sigh. "the one who occupied that chair is long dead." 

I sit down, not wanting to cause trouble.

"So you didn't know there were walls?" She asks. 

"No. Nobody talks about it from where I come from."

"And where is that?" 

"District seventen. Right by the food supply. Very helpful, being I don't have any animals." 

"You know there are districts," She muses. "Haven't you heard of the edge ones?" 

"Yeah!" I say. "I mean, I just kind of figured it was some. . . like a name or something. Like. . . you know."

"So I imagine you don't know the history of why you and I. . . everyone-that is, is here in the districts." 

"Not especially," I say. "The first king supposedly saved us from some nuclear war or something." The word king is like poison on my Tongue.

"Whats this?" She says, "You don't respect the king?" My throat tightens. Nobody speaks their hate of the king. Will she report me? To my surprise she grins and starts a long laugh. One that is bittersweet. I can't tell if its of joy or sorrow. 

"Girl. Ill tell you something right here," She roars. "I like you! I like you a lot! You remind me just like her. . . my daughter She smiles and heaves a sigh. "Ahh. . .," She laughs one bit more. "So much to learn. . . so little time." 

What a psycho. Just like me.