We Are The Puppets And They Are The String

• Chloe Hillcoat, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2017

Waves come crashing down, pulling me under. Memories churn down throat, suffocating through me.
Can’t breathe.
I run, twigs snapping underfoot.
Have to escape.
They’re coming and when they come…. They’ll come like the rain, thundering down, like the wind in a storm.
Their aim, to flush us out.
To extinguish us from land, from the sea…. from the earth.
My heart skips a beat.
They’re here. They come, guns ready, alert at every moment, every breath.
I stop breathing.
They search, search for the innocent people they’ve been ordered to assassinate.
One.
They search for me, just like they searched for my parents.
Two.
They know they’ll find us; they know that eventually we’ll submit to the life that's been carved in stone for generations.
Three.
They can hear me breathing.
Four.
The life of a slave.
We are the puppets and they are the string.