Kinna

• Chloe Humphries, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2018

The weight of something heavy is placed on my chest, I try to shove it off but it’s too heavy for my arms to lift. I tried to steading my breathing and think, only to be stabbed in the chest by needles…no knives, a lot of them I snap my eyes open to realise it is just my ugly, two tonne cat .I’m not in a box, car boot and I haven’t been buried alive, I’m in bed.
After getting over my attack in the morning I rush to get to school, I missed the school bus so I have to walk. Walking the streets in Plucks Gutter used to be an enjoyable thing but after my father was brutally murder in a war he had did not want, I stopped enjoying everything then my mother left and I live with my grandma lee. I’ve lost all meaning in Royston Vasey it’s not safe here. Consumed in my thought I almost fall over a dead body. The sight of it makes me feel numb and cold, it’s not as though it’s an uncommon sight, her dark black hair knotted and covering her face and although her face is not visible a large dent in her skulk suggest that she may have spoken ill of our major city and one of the guards overheard.
Walking in to the school grounds, I search for my best friend, the person that makes me feel more then a broken toy that’s been put in the box and forgotten about. “Morning Miss Kinna” Jasper smiles red faced and puffed from running, I nod back “Master Jasper” “Come on, I don’t want to stand out in the cold lets go to class” First up is the worst class in history. We find out who’s life has changed for the worst and a speech about our beloved motherland, of course no one agrees but to speak out would mean death or you get sent to war. I find Jasper in the room but he is distracted and looks upset and angry. Suddenly Mr Edwin asks on Jasper. “Mr Jacklen, can you tell me why this war is something to celebrate?” it’s a question that sends chills down everyone’s spine normally you just repeat what they have drilled into our heads but not today.
“It’s not a good thing, this war is cruel and brutal but of course people that live in the city don’t understand they have everything brought to them, they don’t see death every day and they make our fathers, uncles and brothers fight for them.

A few days later I’m trying to pull myself together, after saying my last goodbye to Jasper. The war will kill him, I know it. Without thinking I grab money and clothes and set out to catch a bus to Royston Vasey the capitol of my country I know I have to help Jasper in some way, let him know that someone is going to save him.