This World

1

The cart is stuffy, ridden with the body sweat of probably about a hundred people. A hundred. All being marched to their death. And then this cart will be tugged back to another town somewhere and filled up again. And again and again and again.

I feel myself being pressed against another body as the cart turns a corner. Ropes of wet black hair tickle my face. I try to tell myself that it’s wet with water, not sweat.

The woman it belongs to wriggles around and looks at me vacantly.

‘Sorry,’ I mutter. The woman blinks as if she has only just noticed where she is. I wonder if she’s going to scream like the person somewhere over to my right. I’m not sure what happened to them, but they are not here anymore. What does it matter anyway? We are all going to our deaths.

‘Where are we going?’ the woman asks. There’s a puzzling tone to her voice, as if she has woken up on a horse and cart and forgotten where she ordered the driver. It’s faintly humorous, even. Like she’s prepared to laugh quietly at herself once someone tells her. I search her face to sarcasm, but all I find is curiosity.

‘I’m not sure,’ I venture. The woman nods, seemingly satisfied, and turns back to face the wall. I can’t help wondering if there’s something wrong with her. This is not the kind of journey you are likely to forget.

Something strikes me – what if she didn’t have anyone to say goodbye to? What if, when the officer knocked on her door, she was simply herded into the cart?

I try to stop thinking about that. Instead I think of Anwyl, preparing with mother and father to board Salutem Navis. I know it should probably make me angry, that they chose her over me, but strangely all I feel is a sense of purpose. Because of me, my baby cousin will live.

Someone taps me on the shoulder.

‘You have pretty hair,’ comes a voice from behind me. I shift myself around and find myself staring into the eyes of a girl about my age. She is smiling.

‘Thank you,’ I mumble, self consciously twisting my auburn locks over my shoulder. I can imagine how my hair – unwashed and probably full of dirt from the garden – has been right in this girl’s face for the best part of an hour, and she still has the odd courtesy to complement me about it. I can feel a flush rising in my cheeks.

‘I’m Kelsa,’ the girl whispers, ‘and you?’

‘Yetta,’ I reply. The girl beams. I haven’t the heart to smile so I just nod. This girl is going to die, I think to myself, and so am I. I have a sudden urge to ask her if she knows where we are going, because surely anyone who knows our fate could not have such a genuine smile.

I feel someone shove me aside, and my eyes catch a glimpse of pearly grey uniform as an officer pushes her way through our carriage.

‘I hate them,’ I say, not making any effort to hush my voice. Kelsa shakes her head.

‘When my officer was marching me around, I had to follow him to other people’s houses. He opened the door and there was this one woman, just sitting in there cradling two babies. He looked at some records and read out three names. Denae, Estmund and Gerde. The woman just nodded at her two babies, twins I think, and closed her eyes. Then she prised one of them away from her and held it out to the man. But the officer must have felt something because he simply shut the door in her face. He was meant to collect someone from that house, you know. But he spared her baby.’

I look up and see her eyes are wider and her breathing heavier. Again I feel heat rising to my cheeks after the comment I made. Eager for a distraction, my eyes land on the officer fiddling with the catch on the cart door.

‘Kelsa,’ I whisper, ‘let’s follow her.’

Kelsa follows my eyes and frowns.

‘There’s nothing through that door,’ she explains patiently, ‘just air. It just leads onto the tracks.’

But the officer is opening it now. I grab Kelsa’s hand and push my way through the mass of people. We are just behind the woman in the pearly grey suit when she lets the door swing shut behind her. I stick out my foot.

‘See,’ Kelsa hisses, ‘Just air.’

She’s right. There’s just a metal bolt holding the two carts together, and then another door. Another door.

‘Kelsa,’ I grin, ‘there might be something behind that door. Let’s go and see.’

Kelsa shakes her head.

‘We’ll probably fall off that metal thing and die. Or worse, the officers will find us and put a bullet through our heads.’

But then she must see my expression because she nods and let’s me pull her out. I edge one foot after the other, keeping my hand gripping Kelsa’s firmly. She yells something but I can’t make it out. Gritting my teeth, I pull her further along behind me. She’s resisting, I can tell by the way she digs her heels in.

But then the cart turns a sharp corner and I lurch forward, grappling for the door handle of the next cart, just as a thump makes my ears ring. I close my eyes, deafened by something, my fingers searching wildly. I find it, and it opens easily. I have no time to wonder why the doors aren’t locked, because I am yanking Kelsa in behind me.

We lie in a panting heap on the floor. I open my eyes to find several pairs looking down at me.

‘Did you just come through that door?’ someone asks. I nod. Someone else chuckles. It takes me a minute to realise that this cart is just full of sacrifices, like the one we came from. My heart sinks, though I’m not sure what I was hoping for.

‘That was a lucky escape,’ someone points out.

‘What do you mean?’ Kelsa asks, ‘you are facing the same fate.’

She tugs her hand out of mine.

‘Look,’ a leg comes out of the crowd and kicks the door we just came through open. There is nothing attached to it – no metal bolt. No cart. What happened? Where did the cart we just came from go?

A long wail comes from Kelsa. She drops to the floor and begins to cry.

‘My brother. Marlon, oh Marlon. My brother…’

‘Did you hear the explosion?’ someone else laughs.

‘A whopper that was.’

‘They just blew it up.’

‘What? What did they blow up?’ I ask, though I think I might know all too well.

‘The cart you just came from. I guess it’s a bit easier, isn’t it? Saves space in the gas chambers.’

‘An officer just came here,’ pipes up a young voice, ‘about a second before you did. She must have just set up the bomb,’ the voice pauses, then, ‘sheesh, you were lucky!’

But I can’t think. My head is ringing and my mind is fuzzy, playing images of people being set alight again and again. That woman, the one who didn’t know where she was going. And Marlon, Kelsa’s brother. Dead. Just like that.