I scream as the Nazi officer twists my arm and drags me away from Mama.
“Aviva!” I hear my mom’s voice scream after me as I am yanked away from her.
I feel the warm tears dripping off my chin as I scream for her, not wanting to leave the only person I have left. The officer drops my arm and throws me to the ground.
Panting, he spits at me and bellows, “Shut up, you grimy creep!” He forces me back up to my feet and when I don’t stop screaming, he slaps me. Hard. That shut me up quick. I immediately stopped screaming and brought my hand to the spot where he had slapped me. My face burned with agony and tears pricked their way into my eyes from all the pain in my cheek.
“Don’t touch my baby!” Mama screamed hysterically. I watched her struggle to get out of the officers grip on her arms.
“Mama!” I cried.
“I’m coming Aviva! I’m coming! Hold on!” Mama called. I slam my heel down into the officers toe. He winces and loosens his grip on me. I wiggle out of his grasp and make a mad dash towards Mama. I reach my arms out towards her, wanting to jump into her arms, and wanting to wake up from this horrible nightmare. All of a sudden I feel myself get jerked back and pain erupts through my body as pitch black closes in on me.
* * * * *
I try to refocus my blurry eyes by blinking. I slowly open them and immediately see nothing. Darkness. Did I hit my head harder than I thought? Am I even alive? Where am I? I thought to myself.
I stand up and feel around, when suddenly I bump into something. I shake my head and my eyes begin to see color. After a while, my eyes can see what’s around me. I turn and see what I had bumped into. A man is curled up against a wooden wall. My head whips around when I hear whispers behind me, trying to locate where the sound came from. I see mothers and children sitting against the wall behind me. Confused, I spin in a slow circle, taking in my surroundings. It appears that I’m confined into a small wooden looking box. It looks old and the walls are peeling everywhere. A slight crack in the wooden box pours in light from the outside. Where is my mother?
“Looks like they're still loading people in the carts,” I make out of the whispers.
“Why is she here?” a man says.
“Shhh, it’s okay, it’s just another girl,” a mother says as she hugs her child closer.
“Where am I?” I ask the mother.
“Your in a train cart dear,” the mother says, “where is your family? Are you alone? Where did you come from?”
“Stop questioning the frightened girl Marie! She just got here! Look at her!” the old man I bumped into says.
“It’s okay, I’m here alone. They took my mother. I don’t have anyone else. Where are we going?” I ask.
“Nobody knows. We’ve been here for over a week now. It’s not so bad, they give us one meal per day, and we have to use buckets to. . . . you know. But it’s not all bad, I mean, at least I don’t think so.” the mother says.
“Are you kidding me? Marie! Stop telling the child lies!” the old man yells.
“It’s okay. I’m fifteen. I can handle the truth.” I state.
The mother sighs, “It’s horrible.” She says in almost a whisper.
I cold shiver runs down my spine as I think about where my mother could be. Trapped somewhere without me? Having no one by her side?
“Has anyone seen my mother?” I wonder.
“What is her name?” Marie questioned.
“Chaya Abadi,” I reply.
“I’m sorry but I have not heard or seen anyone named Chaya.”
I sigh and go to the corner of the train, curling up into a ball wishing that this wasn’t really happening. My head shoots up when I hear a loud metal clanking coming from across the train cart. I saw a man in the corner pull out a gun from his pocket.
“What are you doing?!” I screamed at him. The mothers on board frantically grabbed at their children and pulled them closes at the sound of my scream.
“Where did you get that from?!” one yells.
“Goodbye,” and with that, he clutched the gun close to his forehead and took a shaky breath. He gasped and cried silent tears as he pulled the trigger with a sickening blast. His eyes widened and fell blank as he crumpled to the ground, lifeless. A pool of blood slowly pooled around the gunshot wound. The children screamed in terror as the blood pool gradually increased. I fell silent as I shuffled as far back as I could, not being able to escape the horrible scent of stomach-churning blood.
To be continued. . . . . .