Escaping the End

Chapter 19

Ashton heard screams, oddly familiar screams, of women and children, even the men let out horrid cries for help. There was a man sobbing in the corner while the woman clutched the child as if she could possibly save it from it's awful fate. There were small children being beaten in the cement cell next to him. He could see the due to the thick, oak door, but their cries of mercy and screams of pain were enough to know. The guards were cruel to anyone forced to stay within the camp walls. The children were treated worse of all because they were always executed last.

Ashton sat in his corner of the cell and looked around at the woman clutching her child and the man who was crying, who didn't want to give up. He saw the top of cell had a window and immediately began his scheming. Using the knife his father had given him and the bunk bed in the room, he began to crack the window open. By nightfall, the dead was done and in absolute silence to add to that. Ashton began to climb out when the woman tugged on his shirt and began to plead with him.

"Take her, please take my child with you. She doesn't deserve this kind of a fate, even if she dies with you, please, please just make sure her final days aren't in this forsaken place," she blubbered.

Ashton's eyes softened when he looked at the baby. He felt sorry for this woman, she was clinging on to an impossible dream, a hopeless cause, nonetheless, Ashton took the baby and jumped out the window. He had been forced to watch his parents suffer and then die a painful death, the least he could do was give this woman some semblance of hope. She needed some sort of peace for the inevitable day that she was forced into such a terrible death.

Ashton managed to sneak by all of the guards and security measures into the dark, night filled woods. Once he was there he found a soft patch dirt and began working on digging the smallest grave he had ever seen. The child had died a long time before Ashton had even been thrown into that forsaken place, no small child could endure torment like that. If Ashton had been more cold, more heartless, he might have been able to tell that poor woman that, but he couldn't bring himself to completely smash the last thing someone had to hold onto.

Ashton opened his eyes to the cracked and hole filled ceiling of the disgusting house they had found and stayed in. He blinked a couple of times to make sure what he was seeing was real, everything just seemed fake and lifeless until he turned his head to see Mila pacing back and forth across the floor. Ashton fount it was amazing she didn't fall right through all the holes that were around her feet. He also found it amazing he was having dreams of his escape and that poor child, he had never wanted to experience such awful tribulation.

Ashton sat up and held his head in his hand for a minute as the real world fell back into place. As he did that, Gabriel walked into the room and sort of glared at Mila for a brief moment. Ashton watched as Gabriel walked over and grabbed Mila's shoulders to make her stay still while he talked to her.

"Mila, you have got to calm down. Everyone here is looking to you as our unshakable leader, we will support you so don't worry," he said calmly, his green-grey eyes were full of hope, light, and seriousness.

Mila nodded and let out a sigh, "I know, I know. I just, both Klara and Tamara in one day. One!" she exclaimed.

Ashton could see the tears forming in her eyes, but he didn't want to point it out, he just let his head fall to his knee. He could understand the pain she was in, he was feeling that too. There was just a deep emptiness in his heart not because he was particularly close to either of them, not because he lost not one but two members of the group, but because he was the one that lost them. It was his fault if anything had happened to them.

Gabriel comforted Mila for a few minutes longer before heading out with Kotone and Brant to hunt for some food. It had been several days since the last time Ashton had eaten and he was feeling it. He got up and walked out of the house, but didn't go with the others he just sat in the open space of the yard. It was govergrown and dirty, but it was large and had breathable air. It was open and one could actually see the sky, being in the thick forest for so long, Ashton had actually forgotten that a blue sky existed.

"I wish we could all be free in the blue sky," he quietly murmured to himself, "But it is pointless to hope for the impossible, it always ends badly if you do."

At the time of his escape Ashton didn't really think through what he was doing, he found an opening and took it. He quickly found himself in the outside world with no help and he found that many people had lost hope of rescue. So many in fact, that people actually found it better to kill themselves before they could be forced into the extermination prisons. The sight of the slowly crumbing world was sickening. It made Ashton think about how his life had been if he was born before the first destruction, before only two or three continents, countries, had been left behind in the carnage.

Ashton sat quietly, he may have had to watch his entire family be beaten to death, but at least the his physical world was still in one piece. It was crumbling, but it was still in one piece and he was still alive. After about and hour of sitting outside, Kotone, Brant, and Gabriel all returned with a mountain of food. Ashton followed them inside the house and started to pull out knives to help dress the carcasses.

When everyone headed back outside, Ashton sat down and grabbed a rabbit when he noticed an unusual trail of blood leading into the nearby shrubbery. He carefully followed the trail and found a tall man in all back dragging away one of the small deer. Ashton called back to everyone and continued to follow the man who had seen Ashton by this point. The man tried to keep the carcass but quickly realised it was too big for him to carry and escape with and dropped it on the path. Ashton sprinted after the man, but he was much faster and easily escaped Ashton's grasp.

Ashton gave up the pursuit and helped Gabriel drag the deer back to the others so they could get it dressed. After hours of work, everything was done. The animals had been made into jerky, lunch, diner, and some was stored in a cooler they had found in the house so they could have it for breakfast. Ashton went to find a river to wash up in, staying soaked in blood was not his idea of a good time.

On his way, he found several berry bushes and gathered as many berries as he could and became exceedingly grateful that his father had forced him to learn how to identify poisonous and edible plants a few years prior. There would be more food now and it would be more healthy than just eating meat. It would also give the group something extra in case someone like the man stealing their deer happened again. Though it wouldn't be a bad situation if something like that happened again, it meant there were other people still trying to survive like them.