Burning Ashes

Arc 1: Chapter 3

"You mean you don't know?" My curiosity ran into a wall. 

"Of course I don't know!" 

Ahmad Uncle finally seemed to get his bearings and he took a closer look at me. "Don't worry about it" he finally said. "He's just helped me around here once or twice. Go now, and get the meds to your father. I've popped him an antibiotic too, just in case. Ask him to take it if nothing else works." 

"Hold up, I thought you can't get over-the-top antibiotics, and I didn't bring a prescription."

"It's Pakistan, sweetheart. You can get anything from everywhere, except clean water when you most need it. Run along now, or you'll worry your father." 

I took that as my cue to leave; I muttered a thank you and stepped out from the comfort of cheap air conditioning, still wondering how my not-so-innocent brother had managed to worm his way into our conversation. How had he been "helping around?" He had never mentioned anything about working at the pharmacists, although it could explain the unexpected money I had generously received from him yesterday- and why was it so goddamn quiet? I took a good look at my surroundings. The place was close to deserted. Even the birds had decided to chirp somewhere else. I was suspicious as hell but it was hot- almost as hot as the Sahara Desert I bet- and it wouldn't have been surprising that everyone was just hiding from the heat. The sun had pushed the clouds away and even though it had stopped raining the humidity could have made even the most tolerant sweat buckets. I began my trek back home, wishing I had brought an umbrella as protection for my already rather tanned skin. I had always fantasized about having jet black hair and pale skin like Snow White, but us brown people didn't have that kind of luxury. My hair was just a few shades lighter, making it an even brown and my skin might have been fair but it was definitely far from pale. Perhaps Dirt Brown would have been a more fitting name for me. 

Still walking, I fought the urge to turn back into the safety of my childhood pharmacy. For a moment I had sworn I had heard footsteps but when I turned back there was nothing- not even a stray cat scampering about. My paranoid self was doing a darn good job of scaring me and I cursed the fact that the effect of all the horror movies I had seen had not been negated by the fact that Omar had watched them with me, even though he had promised that I wouldn't be afraid because of his presence. 

I'm afraid now, you jerk.

Footsteps again. I whipped my head around but was met with thin air. 

"Hello?" 

Not even the winds graced me with a response. Still angry at myself for being a goddamn sissy, I turned back around and screamed. A handkerchief was thrust onto my nose by a man who's face remained hidden by a checkered cloth wrapped below the nose. He held onto me tightly, pressing it tighter onto my face. Chloroform, I knew, because it was every kidnapper's favorite: fast-acting and cost-effective, plus it lasted a while. I tried to stop my breathing but I had already inhaled enough to make everything go black. 

I awoke numerous times but each time chloroform was pressed into my nose again. The only information I could salvage about my surroundings in between my slivers of consciousness was that I was in some sort of vehicle, probably the back of a van, and that we were in motion. I heard some sobbing once in a while and I assumed I wasn't the only child that was being repeatedly knocked out. The entire time a blindfold rested tightly on my eyes, leaving me to gather as much as I could by smell and sound alone. And it smelt horrible, of stool and urine and I crinkled my nose and breathed with my mouth to spare me the torture of smelling human waste for hours, because it felt as if we had been travelling for more than half a day. But that half a day seemed to stretch on forever. We finally rolled to a stop, and still blind-folded and tied up, I was lead out of the van, and into a building I suppose (because where else would we be taken?) and into a small room where I was left with some other children. There was a tiny window with bars where the last rays of sunlight were streaming in as a result of the setting sun. I tried to look outside but I couldn't spot any significant features but we must have been on the very far outskirts of the city, judging by how long the drive had felt. Here kidnapping cases almost always  resulted in human trafficking and most children were smuggled across borders to be never seen again by their parents. I desperately hoped this case would be different. 

They left us tied but removed the blindfold and I wished all the other children would be a little more helpful because all they seemed to be doing was cry and I was the only one analyzing our situation to find a way to escape. There wasn't much analyzing I could do though; the room was locked and the window was barred and all my observations lead to one conclusion: there was no way out. 

"Does anyone have a bobby pin?" Was my feeble attempt at doing something at least, but I didn't need to worry about doing anything because none of the children expected me to. (I didn't know how to pick locks either, actually.) Paying no heed to my question, they continued to sob quietly to themselves, except that one child in the corner who wailed rather obnoxiously. I was about to rudely call him out and ask him to shut up, but decided that extreme situations required extreme exceptions and I opted to stay sympathetic to him and therefore stay quiet. It was certainly hard though, I must say; they all were a fair number of years older than me. Without noticing, a few tears slipped down my own cheeks and I let myself cry because everyone else was doing it too. Sometimes it was hard to remember that I was just as much of a child as they were, even though I had practically been raised by a retired veteran and a rough older brother and all I had known my whole life was practicality and survival. 

In reality, I was just a girl. 

Watching the children cry, I felt my eyelids grow heavy and the daylight slipped into darkness along with me.