Where is she? | Drabble | Trigger Warn.

Nine hours crawled by of Micah and a few other men piling the deceased onto the back of a truck that was used solely to take the departed to their final resting place. It would be one of two places, the crematories. If they were too overwhelmed with bodies, they had to take them to the trenches where they would light mass fires to dispose of them forever. Day after day they would breathe in the ashy remains of those who once stood by their side desperate to survive but fell short.

Her face didn’t escape his thoughts for a moment while each body was hoisted onto the pile. If only she could be reassigned to work beside him so he could ensure her safety but the last thing he wanted her to see was the amount of death that was displayed every single day. Micah being assigned to digging would be unlikely. The prison camp that is more like an execution camp had plenty of help over there. Luckily, the woman who caught his eye worked alongside his sister but the two never became properly acquainted so he never learned her first name.

Standing at evening roll call in perfectly straight rows among the others, he felt more fidgety than usual. Where was she? He fought away the thought of her being killed.

The guard walking up and down the rows shouted cell blocks and the last name of who they wanted to mark as present.

DELTA BLOCK! KHAL!

“Present!” Micah shouted in response.

Immediately his thoughts returned to mentally solving the puzzle of why she would be absent from afternoon roll call and chow.

ECHO BLOCK! KHAL!

He heard his sister respond in a nearby row.

A few more names were called out until one halted his thoughts.

ECHO BLOCK! AXLINE!

Nothing.

No response.

Micah looked up in the direction of the guard, careful to not be seen looking his way, noticing the pencil in his hand marking the woman absent.

Wouldn’t he know if she was excused for some reason? Wouldn’t he know if she was dead? There were thousands of them, of course, they wouldn’t.

His fists balled, squeezing tight hoping for answers.

When finally dismissed to find food or get sorted before they would be forced into their cell blocks for the night, he made his way to the chainlink fence that separated them from the medical building.

Where was she?

A couple of times, he looked to the nearby guard towers just to make sure none were looking at him suspiciously to assume he would try to do anything stupid. They seemed to be caught up in their cigarettes and conversation. He paced back and forth, not counting how long he’d been there.

He stopped his pace, faced the fence, and placed his forehead against the cold metal. Eyes closed for a moment. WHERE WAS SHE?

Thoughts of her possible death came in louder and louder by the minute.

No, she couldn’t be dead. Please no.

Oh God, keep her alive. Please, he prayed quietly to himself.

He needed to find food and get away from this fence before he would cause a commotion with the guards. The man lifted his head from the chain link and looked up….

SHE’S ALIVE.

Micah’s pace picked up, quickly making his way down the fence line to the opening that she would soon be walking through. The building she left was the medical building. His heart pumped even harder.

She was alive. Was she hurt? Sick? Did they pull her name for the experiments they were doing on the prisoners? He swallowed hard, finally making his way to her.