“Sampson...hey...Sampson.”
It’s the most silent of whispers, but I’m used to that, learned how to hear them in my sleep. Communication is important, and right now, in the dead of night, is the only way we can. I slowly open my eyes. One opens more easily than the other, due to the blow I received yesterday. My Arabic has gotten pretty good. I mean, it’s been six years...I would hope I would understand most of it by now. Apparently not. Apparently I did something wrong, because that son of a bitch punched me in the face while I was bent over, cleaning his fucking bathroom.
I wanted to take my scrub brush and shove it up his big fat ass.
When they put me back in my cage, I fell asleep with a smile on my face, thinking about it.
“What’s up?” I rasp, turning my head slightly to look at him.
“They’ve been talking. I’ve been listening,” Lennot says. “They want to make another blind bomb.”
I lean my head back against the bars of the cage, taking in the information. “When and who?”
“I don’t know.”
There were twelve of us, down here in these cages six years ago. Six years ago, I knew I was getting out too. That the government back home would send out a task force and bomb the shit out of this place to get us out of here. Six years ago I had hope, I wouldn’t give up.
But now six years have passed, and nobody has come to rescue us. I live in a square cage, only big enough to allow me a spot to sit down. They feed us stale bread and nasty, rancid water three times a day to keep us alive. It used to make me puke, but my body has gotten used to it. For eight hours a day we are clamped in shackles, made to clean, to weed the garden, and do whatever else they tell us to, or face horrible consequences.
There’s three of us left from twelve now. Three. Lennot was in the air force. His plane crashed down, he was taken prisoner, sold, and brought here. Christensen...he was a marine, got separated from his squadron, and wandered right into an insurgent trap. He was sold four times before he ended up here with us. I was patrolling the mountains with two other men in my company, when I took a wrong turn, tripped, and landed in the eye line of the enemy. A knife was held to my throat. I was sure I was a gonner, but then one of them got this queer smirk on his face, muttered something in Arabic which I now know means “good cow”, and shoved a bag over my head before tying my hands behind me. It took days before I was allowed to see anything, and by then, I didn’t know where the hell I’d been taken. All I knew was that I was here, in a cage. Lennot was here already. He told me that I’d been sold as a slave. That their royalty bought American prisoners as slaves, since most of their servants had been forced to join the Taliban army.
I just...I just couldn’t fucking believe it, and I still...I still don’t know what part of the country I’m in, after all this time. Lennot says our government doesn’t know anything about this ‘soldier black market,’ that they probably figured us for dead after the first year. That they most likely printed up death certificates for us, and told our families to have a nice life.
Lennot has three kids and a wife back home...he’s thirty seven now, still clings to the hope that he’s going to go home to them again. Christensen was twenty when he was brought here, he had a girlfriend back home that he’s sure has moved on by now. Our backgrounds are similiar. His cage is too far down from mine though. I never get to talk to him unless we are made to do tasks together, and even then it’s hard. If they catch us talking, we get whipped.
I’ve lost almost everything. My stability, my strength, my mentality.
What keeps me going? What keeps me from making them slit my throat? Her. The only thing I have left now is the image of her plastered in the back of my mind, walking towards me, laughing and smiling. I’ll let my life dwindle down slowly, just so I can keep envisioning her. I can die with that image of her in my brain...happy and at peace.
It’s the one thing they can’t take away from me.
Oh, my Abbey. I wonder what’s become of you?
I hope you found that rich guy. I hope he’s a gentleman, that he gives you everything you want.
I hope you don’t think of me anymore.
I smile. She’s happy. I can just feel it inside of me.
“What are we gonna do,” I whisper to Lennot.
“We gotta get out. We can’t let them...we can’t let them finish us all.”
I laugh, a little bit too loudly, and cover my mouth with my dirty hands. “We’re defenseless. Remember Ericson? They made an example out of him to show us that.”
Ericson tried to run my second year here. Out of all of us, he was probably the most daring. I felt horrible for him. He had a brand new baby girl back home, a young wife that he would have done anything to get home to. I didn’t blame him for trying. For a few moments that morning, I thought he might have actually gotten away. He ran into the trees... I couldn’t see him for a while. They brought us all down to our knees. There were eight of us then. One of those turban wearing muscle men found Ericson within twenty minutes.
They slit his throat right in front of us and yelled: “We will shed the blood of any American trash who defy us!” in Arabic.
Nobody tried to run after that.
The rest of us have been getting picked off, one by one, over the last four years. They like to take us places, strap bombs to us, and kill us in front of our own troops. I see what they do to prepare us, because they do it down here, as we sit in our cages and watch in horror. They dress him in traditional Afghan robes, gag him, wrap his face with dark material, so it covers every part, except for the nose, so we can’t be identified. They put a bomb vest on him, lock it onto him with padlocks and chains, and tie his hands behind him. Lennot told me that they dump the prisoner in the street, and drive off to a far away point to detonate the bomb. The prisoner is left to wander around blindly, hands tied, with no chance of escaping or calling for help. Lennot calls it the ‘blind bomb.’ Our government believes that we are suicide bombers when we are presented in the streets, faces cloaked by a mask. That we are insurgents. It’s a lie.
It’s a fucking lie.
And I hope that’s not the way I go. If I die...I want my family to know how, I want Abbey to know how.
But I could be next. I could be the next blind bomb.
I’m immune to crying. At least I thought I was.
But I feel the tears on my face now, for the first time in years.
“Lennot.” I croak.
“Yeah, kid.”
“I wanna go home...so bad.”
He’s silent. I know he’s trying to figure a way out for the both of us. But it’s so hopeless. So damn hopeless when all we have are the clothes on our backs, and they have machine guns that could take us out in half a second.
“Then we’ll make it so,” he says gruffly.
“Lennot...”
“Leave it to me,” he tells me, in a normal tone of voice, and I know he’s getting bold. I mean, they could hear him. “I’m gonna see it through. I promise you kid. We’ve made it this far, the three of us...we’re not dying now. When they decide who’s next, that’s when we strike. Try to tell Christensen if you can, or I will.”
“But how...how can we if we’re locked up?”
“It’s going to take the person they choose to put the plan into action. If it’s you, grab their gun, do whatever you can to knock them out. Once you get the keys, you unlock the cages, and we get the hell out of here.”
It’s a good plan. A smart plan. Something that would work in the movies. But these guys are twice our size and armed. It’s just...I hate to be so down. I really fucking do. But I just don’t see how it can work.
I just don’t see us getting out of here alive.
Footsteps approach our dark living space. I know it must be dawn. Lennot closes his eyes quickly and pretends to be fast asleep and I do the same. I hear the door being thrust open. I pray to god this isn’t the blind bomb day.
“You, up,” I recognize in Arabic, and my eyes spring open immediately.
But they aren’t talking to me.
I hear Christensen asking them what’s going on, as his cage is opened. I see the robes being unfolded, the bomb vest held out in one of the insurgents hands, ready to be slipped over his body.
Oh no.
“Hey!” I yell. “Hey! NO!” I rattle the door on my cage, trying as hard as I can to knock it open. It doesn’t work. I just hear them yelling at me in Arabic to shut up.
Christensen looks at me as he’s made to strip down out of his clothes, naked after a moment or two.
This is the end for him.
“Fight back!” Lennot yells. “Christensen!”
I cover my face, when all he does is stand there. It’s silent now. They’re dressing him. I hear him whimpering as they gag him. Please God. Please help...
Please.
I hear him shuffling and it makes me pick my head out of my hands. He’s being led out, head covered in fabric, hands tied behind his back. I can hear him crying. He’s being walked to a horrible, horrible death. Why? Why him? Why not me?
“Why not me!” I scream at them in Arabic.
They laugh.
“You’re next.” One of them babbles to me in Arabic. “A few months more, and you’ll be gone too. You’re stronger than this young one. We can work you a little more before we kill you.”
It makes me shut up, swallow hard, and I lean back against the bars of the cage again, while our friend, brother, and comrade is taken to his death.
I hope it’s peaceful, hope it goes fast.
“Goodbye, brother,” I whimper.
Now there are two. Two from twelve.
And soon, Lennot will be the only one left here to die.
Author's Chapter Notes:
This is off the beaten path and completely random! Don't kill me! *ducks*
Story Tags: triangles justinandtrace executivej
