Never Again

• Hayley Galvin, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2018

It's day 232. I know that because I've scratched it onto the wall. Every morning, I hope it'll be different, but it's always the same. We hear the yelling of the soldiers, who we were told would protect us. When we went to work on the farms. For Jewish people. How could I have been so stupid as to believe all the lies they told us? Now all I can do is do what they say in the hope that one day, we'll be saved.
At 8:00, after the meagre breakfast, we're forced to run laps. Not to keep us fit, more as entertainment for the soldiers. As I run, I try to ignore the burning sensation in my thighs and focus on my breathing, looking like a cloud as it puffs out in the cold air. I know that after a while they'll become numb. Everything does. Almost as if on cue, the first person falls. I hear a loud bang and the shriek of the man behind me, cut off as the bullet hits its mark. After that, the trickle of people being shot becomes a flood. The soldiers believe that there's more than enough people to spare. They're bringing in more and more every day, looking to be in a worse condition each time. After what seems like an eternity, we're told to stop. My entire body starts shuddering as my sweat freezes, leeching my body heat out of me and leaving me bone cold. It's not a surprise so many people choose to die over this.
I'm in the middle of one of my trips to the truck to fetch bags of cement when I feel a sharp blow to the back of my head.
"Stupid girl!" I whip around, expecting to see another soldier, but am surprised to see a boy even younger than I, perhaps 14 or 15, with a smug smile on his stout features. He looks well fed, with a rosy pallor on his cheeks that I could only dream of having. "Don't stare at me, filthy Jew!" I realise I have been studying him for too long and lower my head. He speaks again. "You are coming with me." He starts walking in the opposite direction, towards the showers, and I trot to catch up.
The boy tells me to enter the showers, and although confused, I do so. There's a peculiar smell in the air, but I put it down to the people who have come in here previously. I head into one of the cubicles and shut the door. As I reach for the knob to turn it on, a hissing noise begins, quiet at first, then gradually becoming louder. The smell from before becomes stronger and stronger, until it's overpowering. Poison, I think as my vision starts to blur. The door creaks open as I sag to the floor and the last thing I see is a man from a past life reaching in to save me.