I Will Never Grow Up...

It is the Second World War…

And I am going to die.

I am not a soldier.

I will not be firing machine guns at the front line, shooting down my enemies as they shoot back at me.

I am not an innocent bystander who will get shot in the head, purposely targeted as I walk down the street.

People I know and love have died before their time, way before.

Now it is my turn.

* * *

I am standing with a group of others who are the same as me.

We are going to die before our time in a cold cement room that is below ground.

* * *

There are no windows and the only door has been sealed so we can’t get out.

Four thick walls of grey cement are trapping us from the outside, closing us in from a freedom we will never know again.

The hard cement floor is so cold on our bare feet that our toes have already started to darken in colour.

Huddling together for body warmth is our only option to try and keep ourselves from freezing.

It is also the only way to keep ourselves from crying out in despair as the seconds slowly ticked by.

Making us wait for when it will start.

When the gas will start to creep in from unknown places and crawl into our bodies, suffocating us.

* * *

My family and I had been taken from our home by men in uniform with a strange symbol on their arm. Papa had tried to struggle against them, but the leader of the group just simply got out an instrument from his waist and in a second of aiming it at my papa’s head, it made a cracking noise.

I had my first experience with guns and the horror that came along with them as I watched a hole appear in my papa’s forehead…and one was made at the back of his head as a grey mush mixed with a bloody red suddenly erupted and oozed onto the ground as all resistance immediately left his body.

He was released by the two men holding him and his lifeless body had fallen onto the ground, unable to support itself no more.

Mama screamed and had started to fight against the man holding her.

My younger brothers and sisters began to cry out, piercing noises that erupted into the night.

I kept quiet.

The soldiers began to attack my mother and siblings as the noise that they were creating was deafening.

He began to suddenly talk in a language that I didn’t understand.

He sounded slightly worried but the soldier who was holding me yelled back an order that clearly told him to be silent.

Mama was still screaming as she looked down at my fallen papa. I knew he was dead but I knew that I had to be quiet otherwise I would get the same sentence.

The soldiers holding mother suddenly hit her really hard on her head, instantly she was silent. Her body went limp in their strong grip on her, but I saw that she was still breathing.

She wasn’t dead like papa.

My brothers and sisters were also instantly silent as they watched the treatment that mama had received from screaming.

They all looked at me with tears in their eyes, hoping that I could say something that could comfort them. Tell that it was all going to be ok…

I bowed my head and looked at the ground.

Things were never going to be the same again.

I suddenly felt the soldier holding me prisoner begin to haul me along the dirt road that ran along our farm house.

Looking up I saw two lights off in the distance. They slowly came closer and closer, and as they approached us the outline of truck started to appear.

It was a truck that had a huge cage on the back.

It was filled with screaming people.

I knew we were going in there and to struggle against these men who would do that to us was futile.

To struggle would mean death by a bullet to the head.

We were roughly pushed into the back of the truck, having great difficulty as the prisoners already in there rose against the cage door in an attempt to escape.

Five people were shot at by the soldiers as they rammed themselves against the door.

Five dead bodies dropped onto the floor, showing to all others that if you didn’t resist then you wouldn’t die.

We stepped over those five dead bodies as we were hauled into the truck.

It took less than an hour for those bodies to go cold as we hurtled along the road at breakneck speed.

Every time the truck would go over a hole or a bump in the road, everyone on back was thrown into the air and collided into the metal walls that contained us and into each other with bone crushing ferocity.

We were being thrown around like animals in a cage and our captors didn’t even care.

I didn’t know who they were or where they had come from, but I knew they were bad men.

Who knew how long we were in the back of that truck for, but it seemed like hours and by the time it finally came to a stop, my brothers and sisters had either wet themselves or making themselves sick from fear.

The entire cage that held us smelt of human waste and vomit.

The smell was overpowering, but how I had managed to not bring up the entire content of my small stomach puzzled me exceedingly. Maybe because I had not panicked like my fellow siblings and wet myself…or screamed like mama.

The other prisoners had looked at us with pity because we were the only children on board. In fact, excluding us, everyone was grown ups. I found this really strange because I had expected there to be more children like us.

While glancing out of the gaps made from the unbreakable metal, I saw that there was a light far off in the distance but it was bizarre because the light was hovering high off the ground. It kept on spinning around in circles and it wasn’t until we got rumbled closer in the truck did I actually see that it was a tower with a spotlight.

The truck finally came to a stop as it pulled up besides a huge cement wall that was so high we could barely see the top. When the spotlight suddenly flashed at the top of the wall though, we saw that it was covered with barbed wire with so many blades that if you tried to get over it you would simply be torn to shreds.

As the rattling truck engine was turned off, fear suddenly began run through me so quickly that I felt my heart begin to beat so fast I thought it would burst.

Heavy footsteps suddenly were heard on gravel as they began to rapidly approach the truck. Two doors were opened and I heard the soldiers get out of the actual truck. They met whomever it was that had approached they truck and I knew they were the same as the bad men as they began to talk in the strange language that I didn’t understand. I wished I knew what they were saying because whatever it was, I knew it would determine what was going to happen to us.

Their gruff deep male voices were clear in the cold night air, but from their tone I was more confused than ever about what they were actually saying. When their voices suddenly stopped and footsteps started to approach the back of the cage, I knew that they were coming to get us out.

Our prison had now become our protection against whoever these men were, but even the cage would not protect us for they had the key to unlock it. The cage would work only for the men.

Suddenly I heard the lock that was holding us all in ‘click’ and every single person in the cage surged forward against the door. Immediately I was pushed against the side of the cage as people tried to pile out of the small door.

Nobody got far.

The instance that people tried to escape out of the door, shots were fired and all of the prisoners at the cage door suddenly cried out in pain and collapsed on the filth-covered floor of the cage.

After the first shot of rounds had been fired, only half of my fellow prisoners were still standing. Except now everyone was standing still like a statue, not daring to move. Now the filthy stained wooden floor under our feet was covered with blood so fresh that it warmed our bare feet.

So this was going to be if we tried to escape again.

A torch was suddenly turned on and it beamed on my brother and sisters before being shone directly onto me blinding my eyes so I couldn’t see whom it was. More gibberish was exchanged between our captors and three of them suddenly hauled themselves into our prison and made their way over to us over several dead bodies.

When us children saw these three brutal looking men coming towards us with both of their arms outstretched, ready to grab us, we all panicked and backed away as far as we could away from them. We only ended up backing up into the end of the cage, yet they still came.

They grabbed my younger sisters first as they were obviously the weakest, but they screamed as loud as they could. The man holding them didn’t even seem to notice or care as he hauled the both of them out of the cage and carried them alongside the truck then out of my sight.

My two younger brothers looked at the other man in the cage and started to suddenly try and struggle as he leaned forward and grabbed them by the scruff of their clothing. Their small punches, kicking, scratching and pinching deflected off this hard man of war as he just simply picked them up and pinned them under each arm so they couldn’t hurt him.

I could still hear my brother’s and sister’s screams and cries even though they were now out of my sight. The fear and panic they must have been feeling at that very moment was nothing compared to mine as the final man was looking at me with a stern expression on his face. I knew that he expected me to try and run or put up a fight against the inevitable of him taking me away to where ever my siblings had been dragged to.

But I would not give him that pleasure.

Offering my hand out towards him, I waited for him to grab it and give me the same treatment that I had just witnessed earlier which my scared siblings had just received.

Except he didn’t.

He just looked at me with a strange expression that started to cloud his stern face. From the lack of light that shone on his face from the torch, I would’ve been bold to say that it was sadness and guilt but whatever it was it quickly disappeared as the leader of the men shouted an order at him that sounded like ‘hurry up’.

The soldier facing me didn’t grab my hand with ferocity or with unnecessary strength. Instead he just simply took it and started to lead me out of the cage slowly. He helped me onto the ground and started to lead me away by the hand from the truck when suddenly a woman’s voice suddenly yelled my name out with a sorrow filled scream.

I risked turning my head back with a quick glance and I saw my mama with her face pressed against the side of the cage and her arms pushed through the gaps outstretched, towards me.

She was screaming my name over and over with tears streaming down her face, but I couldn’t respond.

I kept on walking, holding the evil soldier’s hand and turned my head away from the heartbreaking scene of my mama in the cage.

Suddenly a shot was fired and my mama’s screams were instantly silenced.

I didn’t look back as I heard a body drop heavily onto the cage floor.

To see my mama dead would be the final straw for me, and I couldn’t allow myself to lose that.

My captor looked down at me with a bizarre expression but he didn’t say anything, he just kept on holding my hand as we kept on walking forward along the gigantic cement wall.

I had no idea how he could see where were going when the only light I could see was the spotlight that was high above us in the tower at the top of the wall. Suddenly my captor came to a stop as he turned to face the wall, making me do the same as well. We waited for several seconds and I didn’t know what was going to happen when a loud creaking suddenly was heard but the sound appeared directly in front of use.

Two enormous doors were opened in front of us and inside were buildings and numerous men dressed like my captor. They didn’t even give us a second look, as I was lead throughout the main courtyard, past the marching men and towards a cement building.

The soldier opened the door and walked in and I quickly followed. Inside was a small room that had many shelves against each wall. I was confused to see these shelves filled with children’s shoes. What on earth would they want with so many shoes that simply would not fit them?

While glancing around I suddenly noticed another door, except this one was different compared to any other one that I had ever seen before.

It was made of a silver metal that I had never seen and it had a huge lock on it that looked like it needed at least three keys to open.

The soldier suddenly pulled on my hand and started to lead me over to that very door and it was then that I knew what would be awaiting me behind it.

I made myself come to a stop without pulling on my captor’s arm or making a fuss.

I just simply came to a stop.

My captor came to stop as well and turned around to look down at me.

His face was scarred yet it was still worthy enough to be called handsome.

Tears began to rise in my eyes as I looked up at him, silently pleading for him to let me go.

We may have spoken different languages but he understood me.

With a sad shake of his head, he looked at me with tears also in his eyes and I knew he felt just as awful as I felt scared.

Maybe my captor had even the smallest heart inside him.

I gave a small sniff and nodded and it was then that I took a step towards the shining metal door that I knew would be the last door I would ever step through.

The soldier walked forward with me and he let go of my hand as he started to unlock the door. He kept on glancing at me every few seconds just to make sure that I wouldn’t try and run off, but I stayed put. That was until I looked down at my feet and saw just how dirty they were.

They were covered in blood and other things that I didn’t even want to think too much about.

I felt unclean so I quickly glanced around the room to see if I could find a tap or something that I could clean my feet with.

Turning my face I finally saw that there was a crack in one of the walls and water was slowly trickling out of it. Obvious that the water pipes inside the wall had burst, I turned to see if my captor had his back turned to me. He did so I quietly walked over to the falling water that had made quite a puddle on the floor, but I didn’t care as I sat down and started to wash my feet.

The instant I put my feet in the puddle, the water started to turn red as the dried blood came off into it with red streams, making a trail through the clean water, contaminating it. Suddenly I heard a loud yell and I turned to see my captor running towards me and I cowered on the floor as he looked at me with rage.

When he reached me, he raised a hand to hit me but he stopped with his hand frozen in mid air when he saw the dirty bloody water that my feet were resting in.

He didn’t say anything except he lowered his hand and stood, watching me as I cleaned all the dirt, muck and blood off my feet.

When I had finished I slowly got off the floor and walked back towards the silver metal door again under the watchful eyes of my captor.

He followed me very closely but when we reached the door, he slowly opened it and then I walked in without even giving him a second glance. I could feel his eyes on me though and I knew that if I turned around and looked at him, then his expression would be a sad one again but I kept my head straight and my face forward as I walked into the cement chamber inside.

I came to a stop after I had walked in the room and I saw that there were at least twenty other children in the room with me. They were all sitting on the freezing floor in a group and the majority of them were silent but there were one or two that were crying quietly.

Suddenly I heard a joyous cry as I turned and saw my beloved brothers and sisters running towards me with tear streaked faces. They collided into me with such force that we all fell onto the ground. I was being hugged and clung to by them as if I was going to disappear. Never before had I ever seen them like this. They had lost all hope of getting out of here alive and the other children in the room already knew their fate.

I made each of my siblings sit on the ground beside me and I gathered them into a group hug to try and keep each other warm. I didn’t want to tell them what they already knew but what I didn’t expect was all of the other children in the room come over and join in.

We all clung to each other and waited.

* * *

Suddenly the air in the room smelt different and I knew it had started.

As the gas started to fill the room, some children panicked and began to try and run to the corners of the room where the air was still clean. The majority of us though just sat on the cold floor and held each other as it began to become difficult to breath. We all started to cough so badly that it sounded like our very lungs were going to rip in half.

Slowly though, one by one, children started to go into unconsciousness, no longer coughing.

My last thought before darkness took me was of my family and how I would never grow up.