Cement Wall

Chapter 2

Tonight I have the wall. A few years ago someone was assigned the wall and he was so stressed he is now locked up. Now, there are multiple guards trained for the wall and we take turns every night. I have every Wednesday, because I was the best in training. Although no one knows why, Wednesday is the worst night. The howls and screams are so inhuman it makes most common peoples ears bleed. Many of the older guards believe that I don't deserve this high of a position because I am only 17.

Everything is quiet and peaceful, as it is most of the time. Until the moon is high over head. I watch as the full moon casts a bright spotlight on me. The shadows dance and the howls grow. It starts off faint, like a whisper, but soon grows to a deafening screech. Reflexively my hands fly to the knife that I strapped to my thigh. My fingers brush along the hilt and I stare into the dark forest.

There are legends of other guards, and even children, running out into the woods at night and showing up, their faces smashed into the wall screaming in pain. But these are not true, of course.  Old wives tales told to keep children away from this end. Away from whatever our ancestors built these walls to keep out.

I see something move out of the corner of my eye and am pulled away from my thoughts. There is a dark shadow moving across the top of the wall. This never happens. I've heard from the officials training me that this might happen, but it hasn't happened to me yet. All those months of training have built me for this, I need to shoot whatever it is fast. But there is something about it that they never told me. It looks like a human; a girl. The moonlight skims across her face long enough to tell she is staring directly at me. She turns and grabs something from the other side of the wall. Gun in hand, fully loaded and pointed at her head, I make my way towards her. As I get closer I see something glint in her hand.

A knife.

As silent as a cat she jumps off the wall. A 20 foot or longer jump, I have no idea how she survived.

"Who are you and what do you want? You have about 30 seconds to convince me not to kill you and keep you as a trophy." I say, not lowering my gun.

"Quit the act I know your not brave enough to shoot anything," She said looking less like a teenage girl and more like a lion about to eat its prey. "I'm Zariah and have come to ask you to join me."

"Not a chance." I sneer.

"But I haven't even had a chance to tell you what it is. Unless you're too scared, I know you were raised in this wimpy village by your grandma because you parents left. They went over this wall, to be exact, when you were only 3." How would she know that?  I think.

"I've heard about you. From my people, who were once your people. They have told me your story countless times because your parents helped so much in the Beginning. They fought like you, apparently. But right now you look like a fish out of water." A fish out of water? I figured she was crazy, since she had come over the wall, but I've never heard that before. And what is the Beginning.

"Why were you outside the wall? How did you do it? You know the rules of this village, you should be sleeping in you hut right now." She is probably just some sleep walker.

"I'm not from this village, don't you understand even the smallest things. I'm from outside the wall. Do I look familiar to you?" She walked into a square patch of moonlight so that I could see her face fully.

The village is small, around a hundred people or so, and I have seen everyone. I shake my head, knowing she is telling the truth. How else would she know my whole life story, no one else knows about my parents. Our leader, my grandma, and I told everyone they died of disease, but I saw them leave. They wanted me to come them, but grandma heard us and had held me back. They had climbed over a rope to the other side of the wall, leaving me and grandma. That's one of the reasons I trained to be here. To save others from destroying their lives.

I didn't notice earlier, but the moon had already begun to sink. How long has she been here? I questioned myself.

"Shoot! I'll be back next Wednesday. Until then, decide. Save your parents or stay with the corrupt little village they ran away from?" And with that a rope tumbled down the cement wall and she was gone, just like my parents.

I slowly sank to my knees and rubbed my eyes.

This can't be real.