There was a lot of barbed wire in the fences surrounding us when we arrived at a large, vast area with several wooden shacks in the distance. There were women and girls crowded around me.Their faces were plastered with fear as the soldiers yelled things that we didn’t understand, before finally making us file in line. I carried Benny in my arms, grateful he was still asleep.

I did not know what city we were in, but multiple flags of the Red Snake were at every corner, blowing in the wind. The drive had been long and hot, and red dust clung to our clothes, skin, and hair. In the distance, I could smell smoke, and then someone screaming at the very front as a soldier stepped away from her, a hot poker in his hand. The scent of burning flesh made me nauseous as the woman clutched her face, before being pushed roughly to a different line.

The closer I moved up, the tighter I held on to Benny. The two soldiers started yelling and tried to pry him away from me. I fought and kicked, but they carried my brother off. I wanted to scream, but only a garbled sound escaped from my mouth as they burned the left side of my face, smoke rising in the air. The pain was so unbearable that when they shoved me forward, I collapsed on the ground.

* * * * *

When I came to, I was lying on the lower level of a wooden barrack, with only a yellow pillow that supported my head. Dozens of other women were sleeping around me. I couldn’t tell which village they were from because they weren’t wearing their colorful robes as I had seen before when they arrived here. Instead, they wore dirty, grey shifts that were torn and patched up.

A thin woman with a scar in the shape of a K on her face was bent over me, dipping a rag in a bowl of water. She wrung it out, drops escaping for her fingers.

I quickly sat up, wincing at the sharp pain in my face.

She gave me a sideways glance. “I see you’re awake. It’s not unusual for the new people to faint once they get branded. Nope, they just drop them off here and make me deal with them. They do that so if you escape, everyone will know who you are. Now stay still, before this gets infected.”

“Where is my brother?” I signed.

The woman narrowed her eyes in confusion, before getting up and walking off. I looked up at the ceiling, which was covered in cobwebs and thick support beams, letting some of the warm afternoon light seep in. There were heavy footsteps, and a soldier came back with the woman. He scowled.

“She deaf, Bithia?”

“Beats me. I don’t know know sign language. You deal with her; I’ve got to take care of the next person.”

I scrambled to my feet and shook my head. “I can hear you. I need to know where my brother is. Please!”

Bithia shoved a gray garment in my hands, to my dismay. I threw it on the ground, and the soldier’s hand collided against the freshly scarred side of my face. The pain was excruciating, and I plopped back down on the wooden cot, caressing my stinging cheek.

“You will not show that disrespect around here, girl,” the man said. “Since you can understand us, learn how to follow orders. Pick up that dress. Now that you’re awake, go out and join the others. Hurry.”

“She’s insane,” Bithia said, folding her arms.

With a shaky hand, I bent over and grabbed the material, trying to hold the tears back. The soldier turned around and left, and I stared after him through my blurry vision. I had failed Benny again, and he was frightened and alone in a room full of strangers and angry soldiers. I wish I knew how to write to her, but I doubted Bithia could even read.

“I need help,” I signed, but she shoved me in another small enclosed area outside to let me change.

* * * * *

The female soldiers who worked for the Red Snake shaved our heads because they told us they were worried about us getting lice. My long braids piled on the ground next to me, and I tried not to look at them to acknowledge my shame. The shift I wore smelled funny, like it had been sitting in a bucket of soapy water for too long. It hurt to open my mouth or swallow because the scar, shaped as a K, traveled down the whole left side of my face and crossed my upper lip

I was truly grateful there were no mirrors.

During the first few months there was no sign of Benny or Papa, even though I tried sneaking out to the men’s quarters to look for them. I got punched hard in the face as a result by the guards when I got caught, and my right eye was so swollen that I struggled to see properly out of it for days. I remembered that Papa was right about the civilians, that they were angry all the time.They beat anyone that couldn’t keep up with their demands, sometimes shooting them dead. They gave us pickaxes and told us to move large piles of rocks from one place to another, or made us dig in the sun for hours, usually for twelve hours a day or all throughout midnight.

If they fed us, when they remembered to at all, it was usually dry, stale bread and a cup of river water. We only got this meal every two days, so we had to learn how to make it last. Some of the women began to catch rats that crawled in our quarters at night and eat them raw, saving the organs for later. On lucky days, I would find grasshoppers and swallow them up whole, ignoring how the legs would move around in my mouth. Beetles and earthworms were even better.

I couldn’t sign to anyone, even though I tried my best to show Bithia what I meant with my hands. She had been crying a lot because her three boys were sent to a different maximum security area in another city, and she didn’t know where it was. Her pale skin was lined with dark purple bruises and angry red marks, a result of her trying to swing at the men who were dragging them towards one of the trucks.

“I don’t understand,” she sobbed, wiping her eyes. “They said they favored me and usually give me the most food. I’m their best medicine woman. I take care of whoever they bring in. What did I do?”

I grunted and pointed at a nearby guard, before making a slashing motion across my neck and shaking my head slowly. Bithia sighed and continued digging in the earth with her shovel, sweat dripping down from her face.

“If you’re trying to tell me that the civilians are natural killers or I should keep my mouth shut because they will kill me for what I’m saying, honestly, I can’t tell the difference. I really can’t.”

I wanted to give her a hug, since she wouldn’t stop shaking.Yet I knew at this point that I couldn’t stop working or else I would get blown into bits. The sound of splitting stones mixed in with the rapid gunfire that struck those who couldn’t work anymore. We began to swing our pickaxes faster as more and more shots rang out from those in the back row. Red blood dripped over the rocks and spilled on the earth, and I could only hope that Benny was able to keep up with the other children, wherever he was.

* * * * *

Several days later my bowels had declared rebellion, and my ribs were beginning to show. Dark rashes appeared on my skin, and I couldn’t stop scratching, causing them to bleed. The thought of food was constantly on my mind, and it was harder for me to catch rats because I felt so weak all the time. A lot of the women in my quarter passed away during the night, and we had to bury them when we woke up.

I forgot how to cry.

One night, I stumbled outside and fell behind some bushes, crawling on my hands and knees to get closer to the men’s quarters, just to try to get a glimpse of Benny and Papa. The Red Snakes were drinking and laughing merrily amongst themselves, even though the stench of human decay was in the air from the bodies piled on top of each other in the dirt. I had only made it a few feet when I saw a tiny, dark figure crouch down behind one of the wheelbarrows by the rocks.

I started to follow suit, and the light above partially exposed the person, the only one who I could recognize. I blinked for a while and rubbed my eyes, before furiously waving my hands. My heart skipped a beat as I threw a pebble at their back, and they spun around. A look of shock appeared on their face. He had the same scar as me, and looked very thin, but alive.

“Honda!” Benny whispered as he ran towards me. He carried something wrapped in wax paper in his left hand. I tried to get to my feet, but fell because my legs felt so weak. Yet I reached up and pulled him tightly in my arms, never wanting to let go. He began to sob.

”I missed you. I usually try to come out here to visit you, but the guards always drag me back. The ones around my quarter have been drinking, so it was easy tonight.”

“I didn’t want to leave you. I never wanted to. You have to believe me.”

Benny whimpered.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I signed. “I looked for you, I tried to find you. They took you away because they were a lot stronger than me.” I lowered my head and kissed his forehead. “I broke my promise. Again.”

“I’m scared,” he said. “I want Papa. I want to go home.”

“He isn’t here?”

Benny shook his head. “I haven’t seen him. They make the kids dig instead of working with the pickaxes. We’re separated from the adults.” His brown eyes were large with fear. “The soldiers give me nightmares, because they laugh when they shoot some of the grown ups.”

A chill ran down my spine, and I looked away, trying to hide my tears. His warm hand grabbed mine.

“Why do they shoot us, Honda?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “Papa told me that they were angry people. I don’t know why they are angry at me and you. Maybe that is the only thing they feel.” I cursed myself for letting them take him away from me. Now he had seen things that he could never unsee, and even worse, they were done to people right in front of him.

“I want to find a way to run,” Benny said, leaning his head against my shoulder. “Papa can’t be too far away from here. I think we could still find him.”

“But how?” I signed. “There are guards in every crack and corner. They will kill us before we even get far.”

“Lots of the older kids say that some of us had already gotten out and managed to stay hidden. Sometimes the runners come back for more of us. We can go with them. If we stay here, we’ll die.”

For once, I didn’t know what to say. I wanted, more than anything, to leave this place. But it was also a death trap, and I wasn’t sure if Benny understood what they would do after they caught us. He unwrapped the paper and handed me half a ham sandwich, which only had a little bit of mold on on it. He had stolen it from one of the soldiers a few days ago, but didn’t want to eat it without sharing it with me. We chewed it slowly, watching the fat moon illuminate the sky above.

Later on, I found out they shot the runners.