Chapter 1

I lie. I lie as I have been lying most my life. As to the circumstances that lead to my need to lie, lets just say they are better than most for doing so. I sit in my metal chair that, over the years, has become all too familiar. I listen to grown men screaming in my face and wonder what will happen when they realize I don’t understand them. They yell, they point, they slap. I know what they want to know and I also know that if I can somehow tell them, they’ll just kill me.  So to avoid that grim fate, I lie. I shake my head and say the word that is the same in most languages,

“No.”

I look up at the clock, that I can’t read but have come to learn the positions of the hands. Big hand at the bottom, small hand at the top.

It’s almost done. I think

Soon the screaming and the pointing stop. A man with black skin comes and unlocks my chains that bind me to my metal chair. I am hoisted up and marched out of the room.

The hallway is dark and I am reminded, as I am everyday that I am lost.

The man with black skin opens the door to my room and I am thrown in.

He gibbers something I don’t understand but I can pick the words that I think mean “nine” and “free”.

I nod knowing full well what he meant.

They would come for me again at nine and if I tell them what they want to know, they will set me free.

I sigh as he slams the door shut, they will never set me free.

I crawl over to the small bed my nine year old sister sleeps in. She is too young to be interrogated and far too young to be mixed up in the mess of unfamiliar speech. I brush her tangled brown hair out of her eyes and watch her sleep. Suddenly, I am jealous of her peacefulness and pray for my own but soon realize that it is pointless, as I know it will never come.

Soon the door opens again and a new figure is thrown in our room. My brother, who is sixteen, a year younger then I, pulls himself up onto his knees. I can tell by his face that today was a torture day for him. The strange men, who keep us captive, have decided that it is only right to torture male captives and limit themselves to only slapping the female. 

“Are you alright?” I ask.

My brother, who doesn’t talk unless he needs to, nods.

I scan his body trying to find the spot of torture, “What did they do to you?”

He holds out his hands, they are bleeding.

I breathe in sharply and gently take his hands in mine. I’d seen the injury before. The men take the hands of the victim and slice them with knife.

I grab one of our sheets that we have designated to medical needs and quickly tear two strips of equal size and start rapping them around his hands.

“Does this hurt?” I ask him.

My brother shakes his head, but there is pain in his eyes.

“Did you tell them anything?” I ask.

He shoots me a look and I know he is telling me “Of course not”.

I give a smile. They will never break my brother.

I hear my little sister stir from her peaceful sleep. She sits up in her bed, rubbing her tired eyes.

“Avril,” she calls me, “I’m hungry.”

I craw over to her, “Dinner is in a few minutes, sweetheart.”

All three of us wait in silence, waiting to hear the dinner bell. When it finally comes the doors to our room is opened and we walk out and down the dark hall to the dinner room.

The dinning hall is a large room, bigger than any of the other ones. It’s filled with five thousand tables and ten times as any chairs. The ceiling climbs high into the air and the walls are made of solid concrete. On any given day the hall is full, but ever since the sickness swept through, whipping out half the population, and almost my own brother, not all the chairs are full. The women over fifteen are swept into one line, the men over fifteen are filed into another. I let go of my sisters hand as she walks over to the line for children ages fourteen and under. We grab trays and plates and fill them up the usual Friday dinner: noodles, bread and hard carrots. I look at my meager plate and sigh, just like a do every day.

I sit down at a table with my brother and sister and the three of us eat in silence. The dining hall is loud with noise and I begin to wonder how anyone could possible live this way their whole life. More importantly, how will I?

Through my peripheral vision I see my younger sister eating her carrots happily. She has never known life outside of this prison; in fact, she doesn’t even know that we are in a prison. This place, this horrid dark place, is her home. But, it’s not where we belong.  We belong in another city, but in this place it seems like another world.

I am shaken from my daydream by a hard slap on my back. Sekra, a girl my age, seats herself next to me, along with Jimson, a boy a year or two older than me.

    “Avril!” she says in my language “How are you today? I hope you’re all right! Jimson and I went outside today, did you guys? Oh, wait, that’s right I’m sorry, you’re not privileged to go outside, because you three are prisoners here.”

    “That’s right,” Jimson chimes in, his English almost as bad as Sekra’s, “You’re not even citizens of Stone. I still can’t believe they let you eat with us.”

I forget that what is prison to me, is home to others.

“You know,” Sekra is saying, “you can become a citizen of Stone. All you have to do is tell our leaders where your little resistance camp is and –“

Suddenly she is cut of as my brother’s fists bang on the table.  He remains seated; his dark hair hides his face.

“Betrayal.” He says his voice is dangerously low. There is also a slight rasp to his voice due to the sickness he caught two years ago. He coughed so much his throat was damaged forever. “You suggest that we forsake our city just to become a citizen of another city that is the most forsaken of all?”

Jimson sands up, causing Shadows water to spill on the wooden surface of the table.

“You dare mock the city of Stone?” he says.

To my surprise Shadow gives a small laugh, “Your voice has a hint of a threat,” Shadow stands; he is a head taller than the Stone boy, “Jimson, are you threatening me?”

Jimson laughs, “Even if I was, would you fight me? I thought the citizens of the city of Fire loved peace.” Jimson steps an inch closer to Shadows face, “Or was that a lie just like the peace treaty?”

Shadow’s face twists in anger. He pulls his fist back but I catch it before it goes any further. Shadow turns round and gives me a glare.

“Don’t,” I say, “You know you’ll just hurt your hand even more.”

Shadow understands that not only will his fist hurt but we could also get in a lot of trouble.

Shadow quickly grabs his knife off his plate and puts a shallow but long cut in Jimson’s hand. 

Jimson lets out a small cry and backs away.

“That’s for this.” Shadow says unwrapping his hand and showing his cuts. He steps towards Jimson, “I will never forsake my city. And you will do well to remember that one day Fire will soon swallow up all your mighty talk about Stone.”

Shadow throws his knife on the table and walks towards the door. I pick up Willow and begin to walk after them when Jimson stops me.

“That brother of yours will soon get you into trouble. I suggest you keep a leash on that dog, for you and your sisters sake.”

I push him out of the way, “My brother made no mistake in trying to hurt you, he holds the sprit of our city inside of him.  Pure fire.  And if you think he’ll give in to a bunch of useless and weak methods of dragging out information then you are dead wrong.”

I walk past Jimson in a heat of fury.

“Avril,” Willow whispers in my ear, “Why are you angry?”

“Because,” I answer trying to keep the rage out of my voice, “I am tired of being a prisoner.”