Fear

• Victoria Wilson, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2014

Joan screamed. She screamed because she was scared and she was scared because she feared death.


2 months ago, Joan had a house. 2 months ago, she had enough food. 2 months ago, she had a garden. In a dream, Joan could imagine it was all there. But that was a dream. A place where anything is possible. Waking up and realising that it was all gone, never coming back.

Walking through the streets of Hannover, Joan sighed. Seeing the piles of bodies in the streets is just as distressing as knowing that you could be killed at any moment, by anything. Joan felt like she was one of the lucky few in Germany. In Hannover, the soldiers aren't as menacing as they are in Berlin and the Fuehrer never showed his face outside of Berlin.

Suddenly, a car, sporting the Nazi flags, drove up the road. Cars were banned from use by everyone. Everyone except Nazi officers and soldiers. But only one man could afford a car like that. A man with a moustache like a dead caterpillar. A man that never left Berlin. This was an evil man. A man that despised the Jews. This man was the Fuehrer. The wicked man in command of the Third Reich. This was bad news for Joan, for she was a Jew.

Hiding inside a nearby building, Joan shivered. The shivering was not due to the cold, crisp air, but the fact that on the other side of a thin wall, death was lurking. Joan didn't want to die. Well, at least not like this. The Fuehrer ordered the men to search every buildings for Jews. Joan tensed, hoping they would skip this building. However hard Joan wished, the soldiers kept to their orders. Pushing open the creaking door, they entered, looking in every spot, every room. The men stiffened, sensing the presence of an unknown person. Joan was paralysed with fear. The sound of approaching feet was one of the scariest things Joan had ever heard. Suddenly the table, which Joan had been hiding behind, was shoved violently to the side. Joan screamed.

Months later in a Nazi prison camp.......

Joan woke to the cold, damp walls of the bunk room. She quickly got up and ate the cold mash that had been left on the floor. The door to the bunk room opened abruptly and the cruel face of a Nazi soldier peered in and ordered everyone to leave the room. Joan, along with 30 others,maws marched to a gas chamber. Here, in this place that smelt of gas and death, Joan screamed for a final time as the gas flooded the chamber. For the last time, she took a breath of poisoned air.