RUN

Bitter Cold

The cold wooden bench stiffened my body like the planks it was made of. The chilling winds wafted through the weak walls of the dining hall. Even in late May, Strasbourg couldn't find it in itself to shake off the last of the long winter. It nipped at my exposed hands as they tore apart the charred bread in front of me. It was this pitiful bread that kept me here. Not only me, all of us. It controls us and makes us docile. However ashamed we are to admit it, we need the bread, we must swallow whatever pride we have left and accept that we depend on them. There was so little food before. Days would pass where the ration store would remain closed and the morgue had to stop taking the never-ending pile of bodies that were left outside the door. And hunger is an ache worse than the bitter cold. So we must do what they tell us. We must oblige no matter how dehumanizing or however inadequate the conditions are. As I have done so for the past four years. It was those very same cracks in the walls and holes in the roof that shone a dismal light on a large group of defeated, hungry boys. 

 The hall remained silent save the sad whistle of the wind and a boy throwing up the last of his strength. It was a heavy silence. Always as if someone was about to speak. You could even feel it in your throat. Of course, no one ever did. It definitely was no content silence. My father always said a content silence is powerful. I blocked out the fading image of my fathers face. 

Today's flag was Mongolia. It hung limply from above the door. Every time the Germans defeated another country, they hung the flag and charred the edges to make a mockery of it. All the death that came with that flag. The blood spilt for yet another reminder of who is in power. The German's brutality is underestimated by countries with governments built upon pillars of glass which like France, realized their own instability only after it was too late. We are kept in the dark about the war. We know no more than the scattered rumours that are spread throughout the camp of terrifying battles and swift massacres. Of shameful surrenders and sad rebellions that spark an even sadder thought of hope. For hope doesn't survive in this camp.  It cannot thrive within the suffocating walls so it dies like the boys who can't find the strength to do what they're told.  

The door burst open and General Fischer stepped in. Within the snap of your fingers, the silence went from heavy to frozen. His mere presence was a cold far deeper and far darker than that of the winter wind. A presence that gnawed at you until you were nothing but the dirt beneath his polished boots. He wore the typical general uniform, with a shiny Swastika pinned to his chest. But he particularly wore a blood-scarlet sash. It displayed his power and status. And the worst thing of all was that he loved that. 

He brushed past and I felt like I was made of thin, weak ice. I dare not raise my gaze to meet his or even glance his way. The entire hall held their breath. A boy close to my age, maybe a bit older raises his head. The frozen silence only grows colder with small, sharp gasps. I risked a peek to see he had met Fischer's hawkish gaze. He stopped his taunting stroll in front of him and smiled a dark, malevolent smile. 

  "Bold today are we?" He chuckled as if to himself. 

He grabbed the boy by the neck and threw him against the wall so fast if you had blinked you would've missed it. Everyone jumped at the sound of the crack as his head hit the wall and he slumped to the floor.  

Fischer disdainfully glanced down at him, and without a second thought, he walked to the front of the room. He presented himself as if he was about to speak, but instead, let his icy gaze linger and the image of the unmoving boy seep into us like the wind that continued to do so into the hall.  

"Want to end up like him?" asked Fischer, staring at us, boring holes in our foreheads as he gestured towards the body of the boy who now lay in a pool of blood the same colour as the sash Fischer wore across his chest. 

No one moved or made the tiniest of sounds as if by doing so we could become invisible. 

"Seems everyone has forgotten I never ask twice," He said menacingly annoyed. 

All the boys timidly shook their heads.

"Great, well out of our very own generosity we have created a test so you can prove your worthy of a life of riches and power. Prove to us you deserve that." he laughed, strolling around the hall.

He let his words hang in the still frozen air of the hall. His false hope reaches some for it easier to accept that possibility rather than face the reality of our dire circumstances. He stopped his strolling, and with a flourish of his hand, announced, "As you should have suspected due to my pleasant mood, the trials are starting tomorrow. This year's date has changed. All boys aged fourteen will participate."

My stomach dropped, as I felt myself go pale. I heard other boys around the room cry out in protest, then quickly silence themselves as they noticed the soldier grimly observing their reactions. There are those times in your life when you realize that the inevitable, that you hoped and prayed wouldn't come, finally does. 

The trials are an inhumane invention of "depopulation" made by the Germans. Annually, to diminish the overpopulation of Strasbourg's orphan boy camp, they make the boys aged 14 take part in a trial. The best way to explain the trial is that it is like a game. Get from point A to point B without being caught. Except, points A and B are all the way across the country from each other and you're being chased by soldiers on horseback. If you get caught, well, you're dead.

       Each year, only a precious few ever make it running through the ruined wasteland once known as the country of France, which is now completely abandoned and destroyed after the failed Parisians revolution. The too few, too many survivors were sent to camps like these. They line the old border between France and Germany. So they stack all odds against us, diminish our hope to ashes and expect us to find the strength within ourselves to try and survive? Its the prize that really lures us. A to-good-to-be-true reward that catches our attention. A sickening way to toy with us as we ponder "what if?" The deadliest of thoughts. It's a cruel, spiteful prize of wealth and power. Everything we don't have. Because after being nothing for so long we greedily yearn for power, for authority over others. That thought of "what if?", that patronizing light at the end of the tunnel that they have placed just out of our reach now stirs feelings of sad hope within me for this year, is my year.

After several minutes of standing in one place, letting his words echo across the hall as if he would get a reply, he began to pace and speak once more. "If you are fourteen years of age, rise," he briskly called.

    After a few moments of hesitant silence, he barked "I said get up!".

I slowly stood from my spot, using my hands to help support my shaking legs. I continued to keep my head held low, but it didn't block out the stares the found their way to me. They were sympathetic, mocking and fearful eyes that met mine when I looked up. I hated being watched. Glancing briefly around the large, overcrowded hall, I noted the fact that there were probably only sixty or so boys that had risen with me.

"I will remind you, we will check your papers. If you do not stand and we find out you lied, you will have six hours deducted from your head start," Fischer stated, annoyed.

About forty more boys rose from their spots, each with a nervous expression all over their countenance. I scanned the room once more. These would be the people I would be competing against. Some had cold expressions, some were crying, but all of us seemed sad. Sad that we would die running towards a false hope. We were very much a sad bunch of kids with scrawny figures, sunken faces and tired eyes. The soldier bared one of his rare, evil grins. He looked around the room menacingly, as if deciding who he would like to personally kill. His icy eyes briefly caught mine, and his grin only widened.

"Follow me!" he barked.

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