Short Story Number Three

It’s cold and raining. The floor hurts my back. I sit up. My family is still asleep. The train tracks are bumpy, the engine is loud. Everyone else around me is seemingly asleep, but I can not sleep. How can I sleep? I was taken from my home yesterday by these strange men. They came in these big things my Daddy told me were tanks. They were loud and noisy and they hurt my ears. As I saw them from my window, I yelled “Mommy, what are those.”
“What are what Jacob? I’m making dinner for when your Father gets home,” my
Mom says.
“Come here Mom. Look they are so big and loud. What are they? Come here Mommy, what are they?”
“Jacob, what are you talking about?” She starts to walk over to me. The door swings open and hits the wall. My Dad rushes in.
“Jane, grab the kids, the Germans are here!” my Dad screams. My Mom’s aqua blue eyes open wide. The rolling pin falling from her hand.
“Jacob, Rachel, Anne lets go now we need to leave” my Father yells at us. I grab my wooden horse. It’s my favorite toy. My parents got it for me on my birthday a couple of days ago. It is so cool. My Daddy picks me up by my arm. My Mom gets both my sisters and pushes them out the back door. We start to run.
“Mom, where are we going” I say.
“We are going on a trip Jacob. I’ll tell you when we get there,” she says. We keep running. My feet are hurting. I can’t run fast. I have tiny legs. I can’t keep up.
“Jacob, you have to keep up,” my Dad yells to me. I start to try to move faster. Boom! I hear something. I see the smoke in the distance. My Dad says something about shots from the tank being fired. I see other people. They are dressed in gray uniforms. There are some symbols on the sleeves. They see us. They start running at us. We start to run away from them. A shot is fired. My dad falls to the ground. He is yelling in pain and grabbing his leg. My mom stops running and falls to her feat next to my dad. She starts to sob. Someone grabs my shoulder and shoves my face into the ground. It is one of the men in grey suites.
“Stay on the ground and don’t move you piece of crap,” the soldier says to me. He kicks me in the side really hard. It hurts. He does it again and again and again. Other soldiers are doing the same thing to my mother, father, and sisters. My head is throbbing now. The soldier kicks my nose and it starts to bleed. He kicks the side of my head. My vision is blurry now. Head pounding and dizziness setting in, I start to fall asleep.
Now I am here on the train awake while others are asleep. The train stops quickly. It is so quiet. Why did we stop? Where are we? When am I going back home? Mommy never did tell me where we were going. I hear footsteps outside the train. The train cart door slides open.
“Get up you pieces of shit. Stop sleeping and get out of the god damn train,” a man in one of the grey uniforms yells at us. Everyone on the train slowly wakes up and then quickly get off the train. My mommy grabs my hand real tight and drags me off the train with him. Lots and lots of people are all around me. A soldier gets up in front of the group on a stage like the one they have at my sister’s dance studio.
“All of you are here because you do not deserve to live freely. You will work here until we are told that you are now worthy of living in the real world,” says a soldier with blonde hair and bright blue eyes. He is tall like the tree in my backyard. I like that tree. I climb up it all the time even though my Mommy tells me not to because I could fall out. I haven’t fallen yet though so I don’t listen to mommy. The man starts to yell real loud again. “Now you will be divided into groups and will be assigned to different areas to get your identification numbers and new uniforms.”
They start to divide us into groups. I am put with Mom, while the rest of my family is in another group. I’m scared. Why are we not with Daddy? Daddy told me he would always be with me and would never leave me.
“Mommy why aren’t we with Daddy? He told me he wouldn’t leave me. What is he doing over there?” I say.
“They are just separating us for now sweetie. We will see them again soon.” I believe her. Mommy is always right and she has never lied to me before. I will see Daddy again soon. My group is then pushed over to a small building where we grab our told to strip of all of our clothes except our under wear. It is so cold outside. Why do I have to take my clothes off? A soldier stops yelling at all of us again.
“Now all of you go stand up against that wall for us to evaluate your physical appearance,” he yells at us. I hold my Mommy’s hand and we line up against the wall.
“Turn around and face the wall!” a soldier screams at us. We all turn around and face the wall. Everything is quiet. Bang! I hear something like a gun shot. Then another and another. My mom then lets go of my hand. I look to my side. My mom falls to her knees. Blood is dripping from the back of her head.
“MOMMY!” I scream in terror. Tears start streaming down my face. “MOMMY wake up please !” I sob between breathes. Another shot is fired. I feel a sharp pain in my back. It hurts real bad. I fall to my hands and knees. I’m coughing up blood now. My head hurts now and so does my heart. I can’t even breathe now. I’m trying to get air, but I can’t get suck it in. Now I can’t even see. I fall to my stomach. Slowly breathing, I lay on the ground gasping for air, trying to yell my Daddy’s name, but no words are coming out. I’m too tired now. Laying here, I’m just going to sleep until I feel better. My Daddy will come get me, because that is what he does. I am just going to sleep for a little bit now.