Acker Nights

Acker Nights {Short Story}

My name is Darby Acker; the rough grip on my arm tightens. I'm 14 years old; the large metal doors are pushed open in front of me. My dress is striped blue and white; I'm guided into the dark hall ahead, the doors behind me close and lock.
I have two winkles, one a letter P to mark me polish, and the new one the large hands are currently pinning to my chest. It was round, black along the edge, white in the next ring, and red in the center, to warn them that I was an escape suspect. Or maybe to remind me of what I tried, what I needed, to do.
I was now being guided into a old dusty elevator. I turned my head a fraction to the right. Maybe to see if my mother was following like she promised, but I knew she wasn't. A hand that wasn't holding my arm slapped my head that small fraction back ahead. I didn't make a remark, like I would have if a boy in school had done so, this wasn't school. Saying something back would make my fate worse, and I most likely wouldn't be understood, being as I speak Polish and they speak German.
The men in the suits led me down the inky corridor. Silver steel doors alternated along the walls the whole way down. When my breathing was quiet, and the men's footsteps shallow, you could almost hear quiet, cold wails for help.
Nonetheless I kept my shoulders back and my head straight. They wanted to scare us, they enjoyed it, but I didn't offer such pleasures.
I soon found my home among the cells. It was cramped and stuffy. There was no mattress or lou, or anything really besides rough stone walls and concrete floors.
As the men faded into the distance, I realized that the light left with them. I suppose giving light to the prisoners was a waste of time and energy. At least now I had a way to know when a nazi was near.
It took just seconds to begin to feel uncomfortable, only minutes for the anxiety to start. I sunk into the darkness of my corner.
How long would I be here?
*****
"Fourty-three thousand two hundred," my voice cracks in a whisper. Bread? Where's the bread?
A plate slides under the thin crack beneath the door. Another, smaller plate, not that either are big, follows quickly behind. I don't know how many hours are in 43200 seconds, but I know that bread comes by the time I'm done counting it. So I start again.
"One," I reach for the first plate, taking the whole of the undercooked bread into my mouth.
"Two," my bony hand grabs the smaller plate, slurping down the murky water like its a life line. And it is.
"Three," I shove the plate back under the door. I don't like to think about eating the enemy's food. About the fact that I would die without the ration of bread that they give to me.
"Four," I don't like to think about how, if they thought me useless, they would have let me die ages ago, which means that something has yet to come.
"Five," my voice shatters, my mind begging me not to continue the repetitive routine of counting. That my bread will still come at the same time. I inhale a sharp breath of the dusty air. But what if I stop counting? Will the bread keep coming?
"Seven-"
"Six," a strong but broken voice calls out from across the hall.
I shift, pulling myself from my corner, closer to the door that I can't see. The silence once again filling my cell. It seems as though the voice was a ghost of my imagination
I drag my weak, thin body from the cold floor that I've managed to grow used to. I wrap my hands around the bars that I know are there, showing me freedom but not giving it.
"Hello?" I call into the darkness, part of me begging for the simple satisfaction of socializing, part of my praying I don't alert the guards. "Hello? Please is someone there?"
Shuffling answers my question. I grab the bars tighter, anticipation builds so quickly I almost feel dizzy.
"Yes," the voice in the dark answers, "yes, someone is here." I let out a heavy gulp of air, and I once again enter a sense of confusion. What does one prisoner say to another? It's not the type of question we are trained to answer in class.
"What's... What's your name?" I ask, squeezing my eyes at the stupidity of my question in the midst of our situation. But mother always told me that you must know ones name to speak to them, or else you're being impolite.
"Maria Kuśmierczuk ," the voice confidentially answered, "I'm 24, and I study mathematics and natural sciences." For a person in prison, she carried an air in her voice. As though she was determine to let none of it affect her.
"How long have you been here?" I asked, I doubted she would have a confident answer, but I assumed I could get a rough estimate.
"I couldn't tell you," she replied, "the sun doesn't rise or set beneath the ground. I would say I have been here longer than a life time, but when you've nothing to do, no time seems like all the time in the world."
I thought about what she said, the meanings behind her words. She was right, time was nearly impossible to tell. Nearly. I had eaten 79 pieces of bread. Each piece of bread slithered beneath my door every 43200 seconds. If only I had payed attention in math... Wait.
"How many hours are in 43200 seconds?" The pause from across the hall was understandable, although I couldn't tell if it was from the rashness of my question, or the spinning of the wheels in her brain.
"Twelve. Why do you ask such profound questions? How can you think such things in these conditions?" I didn't have much of an answer to that. I was always thinking things off topic, but this was the first time it ever had, and most likely ever would, benefit me.
"Well, that doesn't much matter. What is twelve times 79" I heard her breathy chuckle across the hall. I thought about how long it may have been since she last laughed. Since I had last laughed.
"948," she chuckled again, "although I really don't understand your reasoning for th-"
"I have been here 948 hours," I interrupted, "I know how long I have been here, 39 and a half days." I felt important. I had come up with a way to tell time. My bread came every 12 hours. Every two pieces of bread was one day.
"For someone so young," Maria puffed, "you sure do have a way of thinking."
And we stood that way. Maybe for minutes or hours, it's very hard to tell. We stood that way until our legs collapsed beneath our bodies. We sat that way until our waist couldn't support the weight of out shoulders. We talked that way until our voices were shrewd and our mouths were dry and talking was impossible. Even then we stayed that way, our beings in our cells, offering comfort in the darkness.
*****
Days. It's been days. It's always days. Nothing but days. Nothing but half days and hours in days and seconds in days. Nothing but lying on the floor counting days.
No talking, no singing, no dancing, no learning. Oh how I yearn to sit in a class among students and learn.
How I wish for such trivial things as seeing the color of another's eyes, or teeth through a smile. How I desire asking Maria if she's alright, and how I can't get the words past my lips.
I tear a smell piece of bread off the newest roll to slide beneath my door. One of the several rolls I now have. My hunger is not something that can be tamed by a roll of bread. Bread makes me sick.
I see light return to my should-be dark hallway, something is happening. The light trails down, getting closer and closer to me, before stopping directly in front of my door. Only, it didn't stop in front of my door, it stopped in front of Maria's.
I watched from the crack beneath my cell as they opened her large metal barrier. I watched as the dragged her groaning deprived body from the depths of the room. And I watched as they took my dear friend away. Yet I did nothing. I tried to find words to say what I felt, words that wouldn't have been heard, words that would kill my already dead body. I found nothing.
I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream at the villains that took all and only gave bread. I wanted to yell for Maria, for the life that she once had. But I could do none of it. So I just lie in my spot, considering what might become of Maria. And for the first time in my life, I prayed without being asked.
*****
I'm alone. But then again, I've always been alone. Even Maria wasn't really here. She was always just out of reach, there, but yet not.
The bread at my door does not tempt me. The water pooling in plate after plate does not entice me. I think they know that I do not eat the bread, although they've never opened my cell. I think they knew the day I stopped giving back the plates. I think that's why they took Maria.
As a light once again flows through the hall at the wrong time, for the sixth time, I've begun to understand. They want us to stop eating. They want us to be sick because they are sick. They're using us. Somehow, someway.
The light grows closer and closer. I try to stand up, I know they're coming for me. I would like to walk out of my cell, not be dragged like a rag doll. But hard as I try I can't lift my weight.
The light stops, and I can hear the clattering of keys from my resting place. I try to calm my breathing, as attempting to lift my body winded me.
The door flings open, and I am blinded with the unexpected flash of light. The two young men need to take a step back from the foul stench of my room. Rotten bread, standing water, and myself. Covered in dirt and musk. For some reason I feel the need to cover myself, although my dress covers everything it needs to. I'm scared, in a way, to leave my cell. It has been 104 days since I last saw the sun, but even now I'm not sure the the sun awaits me.
Once the young men overcome the stench, they reach in and grab me by the arms. Their grip is so tight I feel as though my fragile bones must be breaking.
I'm pulled down hallway after hallway, the lamp casting shadows that reflect things of nightmares. There's so many doors. So many people. It's incredible how I could feel so lonely surrounded by so many.
My eyes begin to flutter, but before they have a chance to close I'm thrown onto a cold metal table. The men begin to fasten my arms and legs into tight leather holds. Hard as I try, I'm too weak to fight them. Before I truly understand what is happening, my whole body is glued down. Still, I waste energy on kicking in my restraints.
There was a clicking sound nearing me, different than the sound of the soldiers shoes, higher. Though I couldn't lift my head high enough, I could feel the trailing of long nails against my arm.
"Well," a high pitched feminine voice chimes, "aren't you a cute little thing." Her words sent chills down my spine. She put her hands to either side of my head and looked down on me. Her features were sharp and angular. Her blonde hair was pulled in a tight knot on the back of her head. It angered me that she was so healthy, so beautiful.
"Now, don't let it be said that I am a liar. This will hurt, but, sweetheart, if you're valuable you won't die." I could say nothing even if I wanted to. Her soft hands covered my eyes with a silk ribbon, "my name is Dr. Herta Oberheuser, and today you will be my patient."
The pain was excruciating. My leg felt as though it were being skinned, though I could see nothing. Something sharp, glass, maybe wood, both. Pain. Did it matter where it came from?
My eyes flickered, black, silk, black. My breathing was short, and my screams were swallowed. Air seems impossible to inhale. I gasp, choke, struggle, but only for a few seconds. A few seconds of minutes of hours of days. Of days. Of nothing but days. The world fades, and I wonder how many days I have lived. Enough to know pain, enough to know death. I have lived enough days.
The pain now is unbearable. So I will tell myself that I don't need more days, and I will let the flickering stop. I will let the pain stop.
*****
My name is Maria Kuśmierczuk; the gates that bound me to this hell open up. I am 26 years old; the pain in my legs lingers as I follow the men with the red stripes on their hats. I was tortured at Ravensbürk; these men call themselves the red army soldiers. I once knew a girl named Darby; I don't look back. I walk into the field, and I remember things I have seen.
Darby was young, an impressionable girl. She was sweet and bright and virtuous. If it were not for her, I would have spent far to many nights feeling as alone as I was. I can only hope that the flowers on the stone I made her will be enough. Enough to show her that I loved her, and that I will never forget her.

*****

Citations:
http://www.auschwitz.dk/doctors.htm
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravensbrück_concentration_camp
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badge

Aside from Darby Acker, all events and characters mentioned in this story are true.

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I hope you all enjoyed my story! Please feel free to comment and criticize, I'm always open for tips to improve my writing!