Schatzi

42

"Yes, they've pulled down parts of the fence and they're fighting the remaining guards out in the courtyard." He rushed back to the door to look outside where he could see it all going down. "They're putting up a fight but they're outnumbered. I think this is finally going to end."

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Eli tried to stand again, his legs shaking. He careened to the side, crashing into the side of the carriage, stumbling over and standing on several people in the process. He was beginning to think he was the only one alive.

The air was hot and stuffy with all the bodies packed into one small space, despite the fact it was only April, and it was beginning to smell like death.

No. He couldn't be the last one alive. His mum had to be here somewhere, and he at least had to know. Either the sun was beginning to rise or was just beginning to hit the train, but either way, it was starting to get a bit brighter in the carriage. Eli both thanked and cursed the light because he could now see better and that was both a good thing because it meant he could try find Rachel, and a wretched thing because it meant he could see his surroundings.

The floor was covered in bodies, sickly and emaciated. Clothes hung off mere bones and flesh, faces gaunt and haunted, many pairs of tired eyes staring lifelessly at the wooden slats above. The people varied in age, from old men with wrinkles so deep set in their face he could barely make out their features, to babies wrapped in rags in the arms of their mothers. There was one girl who couldn't have been older than seventeen who was slumped in the corner, her youthful face grubby and bruised and her long hair which looked black as the night in the semi darkness tangled and matted. In her arms was a child lying far too still and too quiet than was normal for any child, a lock of the girl's hair clutched in it's fist.

The SS must have either rounded them up from houses like they'd done with him, or taken from the Ghettos he'd been told about in Poland where many of Berlin's Jews had been sent. Either way, these were his people...and they all lay dead at his feet.

He crouched in front of the girl and closed his eyes, bowing his head and mumbling a short prayer under his breath for all the dead in the carriage with him. He reached out and placed his hand on hers, shocked for a second when he felt the warmth of her skin, her blood flowing and heart beating softly.

"Oh god," he whispered, adjusting his position with new urgency and shaking her softly. "Oh... wake up! Wake up!" He said, his throat so dry he was unable to raise his voice properly. He cupped her head and lifted her chin so it wasn't hung limply against her shoulder, tapping her cheek in an attempt to wake her.

Her eyelids twitched slightly and then she looked at him with big, doe like eyes. Eli breathed a sigh of relief, followed by a short laugh of disbelief. Someone else was alive, there was still hope for his mother.

"Hello," he said, continuing to support the girl's head as she stared at him blankly, a weak smile crossing his lips. "What's your name?"

"Marta," she croaked weakly.

"Nice to meet you, Marta. My name's Eli," he whispered back, sounding much more relaxed than he actually was. He didn't want to scare the girl, and in fact, it was comforting for him as well to just speak kindly to someone for a second and try to forget everything else that was going on around them.

Marta didn't respond, just stared at him some more. She definitely wasn't well and Eli knew that his joy at having found someone else alive was probably short lived. He didn't think she was going to last long.