Zone Albrecht

17. Like Auschwitz

I felt strange, lying there in my hospital bed. My nails were clenching at my bed sheets, my eyes were shut tight, trying to veil the world around me, to pass a sort of protective covering before it. I didn't want to see it, no. The tears were in the back, hiding, begging me in plaintive voices to let them out, so that I didn't have to suck in the pain, to hide the sadness. I'd never so much in my life felt like being hugged.

But by who? There was no one here for me, except Angela. She loved me more than life itself, but as time passed by, it was obvious that the invisible barrier preventing any outpour of emotion, any expression of feelings on our part, would never collapse. Not even in death would we admit it, this passion, this feeling of pure trust, and deep love so plain and obvious for the other to see, so evident to the both of us, yet so taboo. Right now though, that's all I wanted: love, hugs, affection, words of comfort. But not from her, no, I wanted to hear these words from my big sister, who was married and in her mid-twenties. She always had a big smile plastered all over her facewhenever she'd see and Thomas. Stephanie was the one who would always cheer me up, occasionally with Mom.

My dad loved me, I knew that, but he wasn't exactly an amazing demonstration of tact and attention. Stephanie compensated for it all. She was the only person with who I could actually be considered cuddly and loving.

I curled up into a tighter ball, shivering. It was quite cold in the nursery, and the bed sheets were much too thin to warm us off; yet another reason to wish for a warm embrace in such a dark moment. If only I could sell my soul: I'd stop the hurt, and make the pain cease once and for all.

--

Extract of Maxence's Memoirs

Everyone stared at that dude, whatever his name was. He just busted into the room before talking lots of crazy shit about soap, Auschwitz, and dead people. After that he curled into a ball on the floor and buried his face in his hands, rocking back and forth, sobbing. A bunch of girls I don't even know went up to him and started to cheer him up. I heard one of them say his name, Alexander. That made me think about my pal Alex, and I had to fight back the urge to cry. I had seen that he was dead on the screen the day of the first Zone, I had seen it. Alex was an amazing guy, a friend of Angela's and also a pal of mine. And since pain never comes alone, mixed images of Alex, Zoe, Chloe, Alix, and of my sister Margot started twirling in my head, appearing one by one. Sometimes the image of more than one of my friends would appear at a time, and it's in times like these that I was thinking I should end it. If I had any guts, if I could I would, I'd finish it right now. How is it worth living when the ones you care about have died, how the fuck is it useful?!

It took me a few seconds to snap out of my depressing thoughts and notice that someone was next to me.

"Max..." It was Angie. She looked a bit worried, and extremely tired. I wondered what had happened to her now, my poor Angela. I was never really religious, but now that I was here, I wondered if perhaps we weren't in Hell. Because, in all honesty, how could it get any worse than this? How can life become more horrible?

She stared at me for a while before hugging me. It was really weird, and not something I was used to coming from her, so I pat her back gently before shyly wrapping my arms around her. Very quickly she let go, and we both turned to look in direction of Alex. He had long cuts on both of his cheeks, something which he had done to himself back when he completely lost it. Now he seemed a little calmer, but his eyes were still gone. It was like his soul had died, like most of him had already disappeared.

--

It was dark, and I was afraid. No, afraid is an understatement. I was fucking terrified. I didn't tell Angela anything, didn't let her on to the fact that something was wrong. Ever since the very second I had returned in the nursery room, I kept wondering over and over again, worry viciously biting at various corners of my mind, like a despicable rat: were the nurses going to kill me? I had disobeyed. I was an injured who had left the nursery. The big question was, would the nurses automatically know? Did they sense it, smell it? But most importantly, what would I do when they found out, if they found out? What would they do? Would they kill me, devour me alive on the spot, or would I be forced to do the Zones just like everybody else?