Sealed and Silenced (Watty Awards 2012)

Sealed and Silenced: Chapter 6

| A/N: This is a huge chapter! YAY! I just wanted to say thank you for reading this far and I hope you enjoy this! Have a good day.

P.S Remember that she is just learning to talk, her english isnt the best!|

It had been hours since Sam had passed into shock and most people had gone back to their spots on the ground to sleep worried dreams.

I was still by Carter’s side. I wasn’t quite sure why. Perhaps it was because I didn’t have another place to sleep, or maybe I just didn’t want to be alone.

Carter sat in silence, kneeling beside the blonde girl, staring at her. Probably praying, if he prayed. Every once and a while, he would refresh the cloth he laid on her forehead, or take her pulse again. Either way, it was silent.  

As I stared at the still girl, I wondered if she would wake up and if she ever did, if we would be friends.

Time passed on. Slowly and immeasurably.

“I heard you, you know.” Carter’s voice broke the glass shield of silence. Panic spread through me as it used to when I talked on the boat. I stared at him with blank eyes. If he heard me, why didn’t he turn, just for a moment?

“You said thank you. I didn’t think you could talk at all.” Neither did I.  “Can you speak now?” I started to shake my head, but stopped. Try, my mind said. This was all happening so fast.

“Y...” I stuttered. “Yess.” My voice was dry and cracked and my s sounded snakelike. I hadn’t spoken to anyone in three years. I had just kept my mouth shut, unless it was needed for something else.

“I’m sorry I didn’t respond.” Carter was plain and simple and he knew what was bothering me. He read me like a cheap book.

“I just, I was more focused on what was wrong.” Carter took a deep breath.  “I got here at the same time as these girls. I saw Sam raped in front of her little sister’s eyes. All because she wouldn’t take any crap from Billy and his minions. But, once we got down here, she recovered, and the three of us stuck close together. There weren’t many of us here at the time. But more and more came pilling through that door. Even more upstairs.” My heart ached for the girls upstairs, what they went through every night.

“Nat, Lexie, Sam, and I were some of the first to survive down here. We taught others as they came in.”

“How d-did you... ah... know... ah medical,” I was a stuttering fool. It sounded like I was speaking a new language. It reminded me of the movies I watched when I was younger about how Native people and English people tried to talk to each other.

 “I was training in medicine before I was taken.” Carter knew what I meant at least.

“Why do they take?” My lips were already sore from moving so much and I could taste the blood coming from the cracks. My throat was sore as well even though I was barely above a whisper.

“Mostly when people enter their land. It’s a war zone where ever we are. But, I... I was special so to speak.”

I took a deep breath.

“W-h-y?” I sounded out the word like I did when I was a child.

“I’m not sure, to be honest. I was taken from my apartment in New York a few years ago. I never knew why. It was a long trip here.”

“We are... ah... near... wa-ter.” I made wave motions with my arms just to make sure he got the point.

“Interesting.” Carter mulled this over.

“How old are you?” He asked. My mind went blank; it had been at least three years since I needed an age. I must be around eighteen now, since I was fifteen when I went shopping alone at the fish market. I don’t think I’ll ever eat fish again.

“Eigh-teen, I thunk.” Oh, how my mouth hurts from talking. I pointed to Carter, signaling the question towards him.

“I must be around twenty-three or so now. I’ve lost track. Isn’t that sad?” I nodded.

“Do you,” Carter paused. “Do you remember you name?” It had been so long since I needed to use that one too. Then it hit me. Just like that. So fast and unexplainable.

My name was Adalyn Rose.