Second Chance Matches | ONC 2020

𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙀𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩

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Smell. The first sense that worked when Sabine arrived in her new destination was her sense of smell. She smelled grime and filth layered over a strong odor of urine and feces. Taste. She could taste the stale air and the saliva flooding her mouth until it dribbled over her lips. Feel. She felt a stiff, scratchy material rubbing against the exposed skin on her arms and legs. Hear. Sabine could hear the screams and cries of people of all ages; their whispered pleas and prayers almost as deafening.

Before Sabine could open her eyes to fulfill the last sense, she felt something deep within her soul: familiarity. She recognized the smells, the tastes, the feelings, and the sounds. She had experienced all of these not too long ago, back when she had been a prisoner...back when she had been trapped in Natzweiler-Struthof.

Sabine really didn't want to look around at her surroundings, but she knew that she had to eventually. She would still be in that damned place even if she couldn't see it. Back in Paris she had told herself she was ready and she had thought that meant ready for anything, but was she ready for this? She wouldn't know until she opened her eyes.

Sabine's eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks as one-by-one she slowly opened her eyes. She stared up at the familiar hunk of dull gray metal that held the bunk above her and traced her fingers along the scratches she had made with a loose bolt. Each scratch represented a day she had been in the camp and there were many; too many for her to sit there and recount.

Sabine rolled her weary body off the cot and placed her feet on the dirt ground. She unfurled her fingers and glanced down at the crumpled matchbox in her palm. Even though it didn't seem like she could lose them, Sabine decided to tuck the matchbox under the stiff mattress to keep them and herself safe. They were contraband within the camp and if anybody caught her with them it would mean serious trouble.

After hiding the matches, Sabine knew that her next task would have to be finding a tattered uniform to replace her yellow floral-printed dress and to ditch the black buckled shoes on her feet. Even in their dirty, sweat-stained state, she knew that if she walked around the camp in them that she would be an immediate target for Nazi officers. Nobody was allowed to have real clothes in the camp, nobody was allowed to have an identity.

It was a little harder to come by, but eventually Sabine found a uniform to slip into and she once more disappeared into the background. Once she had changed, she could feel her tattoo throbbing on her forearm. In a sea of identical uniforms, it was strange how the ink that had been stamped into her skin to strip away her individuality was now the most unique thing about her.

Sabine's next fear was that the Nazi officers who had chased her down in the forest what felt like eons ago would recognize her as an attempted escapee and punish her for her malfeasance. She didn't know how much time had passed since she last resided in the camp, or if any time had passed at all since the matches didn't seem to care about linear time. Sabine had to hope that the Nazis' view of Jewish people as insects pervaded enough that they'd overlook her in the crowd; after all, cockroaches all looked the same.

Sabine wandered carefully around the camp, taking any and every chance to hide within crowds whenever a Nazi officer loomed inside her view. Her skin was already a setback, as black people were a minority within the camps and the light brown color painted all over her body set her apart from the rest. She had received extra lashes and punishments for this simple fact alone.

In the midst of finding her way around, Sabine caught sight of someone familiar in her peripheral vision and her feet planted to their spot. Roughly twenty feet to her right, Sabine recognized one of the boys that had attempted to escape the camp with her and the other kids. The boy's muddy brown hair clung to his sweat-stained face as he dug a large hole into the earth and his slick muscles gleaned under the daunting sun.