Excerpt: The Day they Took Us

“Valentine! Settle it down.”

The whisper was harsh and quiet. In the darkness Valentine looked up at where the voice was coming from. One of the adults stored away in the train’s cart was shaming the sixteen-year-old girl from her humming. Her head nodded in acknowledgement of the man.

A few feet from her, Valentine could hear one of the older one’s try to comfort a smaller child. The small girl’s eyes looked up at the older boy in fear and trust. Her hair showered down in blond curls to the small shoulders supporting her head. Quietly tears seeped out of her eyes as she looked at the boy for comfort of some sort.

“It’s okay, you’ll see your mom in no time.” The boy had a fake smile put onto his face as his fingers brushed through the blond’s hair, trying to make her feel better.

“W-w-where are we going?” the girl stuttered, asking the boy.

At that question the boy’s dark eyes looked down at the two pairs of feet under him and the girl. It was as though everything was ready to explode inside his head, and that was the detonator. The curly girl looked as though more fear came pouring into her large blue eyes. Soon the boy realized he let his defenses down. “Somewhere safe.” He said quickly, returning back to them.

Somewhere safe? Valentine didn’t have anymore of a clue of where they were going. The man who was shushing her mere moment before most likely didn’t know. The only thing the teenage knew was they were all stuffed into a train, nowhere to sleep, and they had been here for more than 5 hours. The car they were in was starting to smell of feet and sweat. Fortunate for them the tank car they were in was clean of it’s last passenger before the children were all piled into it, although it did smell slightly like vinegar when Valentine was climbing into the car.

The children all piled into the tank must have been thinking the same thing. The war was consuming their lives, and this was a war that none of them understood. Why was something like this happening in the modern world? Were they not pass all this?