Beyond Agony

In 1990, Paris, during an extremely cold gloomy night, on my way back home from the first day of college, surprisingly a stranger bundled from head to toe only the tip of his nose could be seen, gave me a letter and vanished and there I read on the edge-burned cracky paper "you should be behind a yellow building at the end of this street by mid-night" I didn't really know what to do, but I decided to go unaware of what's waiting for me behind that building anyways.

I went there by mid night, unexpectedly nothing there, no one nowhere. The horror of the situation was only heightened by the solitary sound of the leaves scratching and scratching each other. It was so dark I was barely able to see where I’m going. There was only small hints of stirring bushes and the cry of the breeze. I didn't know what laid in the darkness. I decided to go back home. "MOLLY" suddenly a sound came from nowhere calling my freaking name. I looked around and saw a man blindly running towards me, I couldn't recognize his face features because of the darkness.

The man said, "please, can you take care of my cat as soon as I come back from my trip".

I replied "do I know you? And why me?"

He said "I am a student in your class. I chose you because I saw you perfectly suitable for this".

I didn't really think about it and just said, "ok, it's just a cat, what could possibly happen".

He thanked me and gave me the cat. The cat was kind of weird, it was totally black and questionably quiet. His head looks more of a squashed pumpkin than a proper feline skull with a flat square face, and large paws.

On my way, the cat jumped then suddenly started running away. I ran after it. The cat entered an old hospital. Dust, cobwebs, broken tables, peeling wallpaper, holes in the walls, broken glass on the floor, spiders and cockroaches everywhere. To me it was more similar to a surrendered jail or insane asylum rather than a once living hospital. The entryways and windows were piled up with a thick layer of dirt that appeared as though it has been untouched for a considerable length of time. The windows glanced back at me like the eyes of an unfilled soul, alongside the grand entryway at the passage that appeared to give me the impression it was a door to hell. I followed the cat in and took it. Then I tried to open the wooden door, pushing, pulling, kicking but no it was absolutely locked, and all my trials went to vain.

I felt nervous about being alone in an old seemingly haunted hospital. I started to search for an exit. After a while, I heard some kind of sound. I followed the sound and saw a long haired, bronze young lady with a black cat, we had almost the same dark toned bronzish skin which gave me a sense of belonging.

I went to her and asked "why are you here? What happened to you?" But no reply. I honestly felt creeped out a bit, but I asked again "excuse me how to get out of here?"

She uttered "I'm here since yesterday, a man told me to go to a yellow building and there he gave me a black cat then the black cat ran away and entered this hospital and I.... I followed it then the door locked then... ".

I replied "But…but how, this is exactly what just happened to me, there's something weird about this. However, I am Molly, nineteen years old".

She responded, "and I am Anne nineteen years old too".

I said "Oh what a coincidence. let's go and search for an exit"

We started to search. And I recognized her long lasting silence. After 3 hours of searching, we found nothing but creaky doors, wind scattering paper through a broken window gap, the scratch of tree branches scraping at the windows, and rats squeaking. I got tired and sat down.

When I sat down, I felt there was something under me, it was door handle leading to somewhere.

I yelled, "Anne come here".

She came running, "What's wrong Molly".

I replied, "I found a door, I think it's a basement, let's take a look."

We opened the door and entered. I gazed at each and every creak on the old warped stairs, but it didn’t shake my decision to make it to the basement. Halfway down, a shadow flickered at the corner of my vision. I froze and stood there, then caught a woody scent floating in the air. Tobacco smoke? A shiver cascaded down my backbone. After a while, we saw many women and men in a disgusting room. I thought I would finally escape, then I started talking to the women, but no one responded.

Anne whispered, "I don't feel comfortable; I think we have to go back to the hospital".

I completed asking the miserable desperate men and women. I saw men and women with dark bags under their eyes. It seemed like they've been in the here for decades. The men’s' beards were so long and dirty. Their teeth were yellow, and their clothes had hollows all over. Their faces screamed desperate. Their eyes whispered help. Their half-dead hopeless soft looks shouted escape for your life.

Anne came back crying " the door.... the door is locked"

After a moment the door smashed, and a man stepped through. The first thing that I realized was his irregular size. His shadow nearly filled the room. His thick brows, yellow teeth, wrinkled skin caused me goose pumps. The massive guy reached down to grab a case. His corded muscles rippled as he lifted it to the table. He slapped the table and pushed a lady then shouted, "Come on slaves, we’re moving".

After that, I realized this was a slave camp and we're doomed "Excuse me, I am not a slave. I got lost in the old hospital, I entered the basement and now I am here".

The man laughed "Do you want me to believe you, everyone here says the same thing".

I begged, "please, believe me, I’m still young I still want to live".

He shouted " move, enter the ship, don't even think of escaping".

Anne kept quiet.

I started to cry "Now they will treat us like slaves and our parents are going to be so worried" Anne hugged the cat and didn't say anything more.

What next? I never had a clear answer for that question. I soon heard a loud banging coming from a metal storage container. They chained us and threw us into a vehicle. We weren’t that much about 30 or so. After some time, I realized Anne wasn’t here I tried to know if there was anyone left back I tried to communicate by any means but the bodies around me were half-dead, exhausted and hopeless which added me fear and depression. I never knew what happened to that girl next.

They chained us all together. We were led outside. Then brought together with several other groups from other vehicles, all chained up like we were.

The massive man called “UNDER THE DECK, IN THE HOLD”.

They then dragged us all down below the deck, mingles the groups together and started separating us again into groups of ten or so. I sit, surrounded by people not five inches away, underneath the deck of a boat. As if their packaging us and staking us against one another. The smell is awful where Holding my breath is pointless. It smells like pipe or cigarette smoke with rusty or metallic smells and wet wood along with rat/mice feces and urine. I wonder... why I’m kept down here? I’m young compared to the rest of us. I still have a feeling that everything happening right now is just a matter of Weave fantasy or it’s me hallucinating this can’t happen to me. Everything went so quickly my mind just doesn’t have the ability to process what’s going on.

6 Cold days of starvation and depression passed.

The smell is extremely intolerable ... The smells of excretion can’t get out of my nose until it became awkward not to smell it. Regurgitation, sweat, rats, mice and everything else. The primary driver of the scent is the regurgitation and discharge, principally in light of the fact that we can't move when we have to go, so we should do it where we sit. It just builds up until the point when we aren't made a fuss over it any longer. Regurgitation is a horrendous thing and we can't stop it, because that the ocean is so unpleasant, in this way we are consistently being hurled around just aggravating the ocean affliction. I think it is a result of the ocean affliction that I have hurled 5 times as of now, during this strange and terrible voyage, to God knows where. O At the present time I have wiped out and vomit all finished me, and what I abhor is that I can't make a move. I’m praying to god. It's the only hope I have, the only thing that I can do. I think all of us are praying. I have tried to communicate but it hasn't worked so far, and I just don't have the energy to.

I will go to sleep now, that’s the only way to escape reality. Is this reality? Well I’ll have some rest. I now I won’t be able though. dreams or let’s say nightmares about this horrifying trip are chasing me.

I leave you to close my eyes right now wishing to have a good dream or simply ding is a good dream of mine right now, better than living such a misery.

But no! even having the opportunity to die isn’t a choice over here.

I woke up confused, there was shouting and crying from all around me and I didn't have a clue why. That's when I realized that some other individual is dead which is usual so I didn’t bother to have a look. But wait! WHAT! Its Anne! she was just lying there, dead still and her eyes blank and staring. Her chest wasn't moving up and down either. Then it hits me, she was dead! How could she be dead? That's when I stopped crying to think, I didn't understand how and what just happened my brain is frozen I can’t even think any more. For a moment I envy her. I wish I was the one in her place and dead. I didn't do anything when the men came and dragged her away, similar to she was an item, some package they expected to deliver, not a legitimate living human.

I can feel my nose bleeding… I gaze at the bodies-columns and lines of bodies. Some left us in light of malady, others maturity. I've turned out to be so acclimated with tears always wetting my face that it would feel odd not to cry. I cannot stop shivering and I don’t want to move. It is so frosty, and my fingers hurt from frostbite. We are mortified while at our least focuses. Our expectation and dignity vanish behind the break of a whip. The red imprints are everlasting recollections of our masters' remorselessness.

Why had this happened?

Today, I took a gander at my skin in a way I never did. It appalled me. I gazed down at my arms and legs. They were the tint of mud, recolored like soil, the shade of a moth or spoiling potatoes. It was the reason for my agony. I was angry- not only at skin, but also at myself. If it weren’t because of me agreeing to go to that building and having that freaking cat in the first place I wouldn't sit in this dull chasm, sweating from the others' body warm amidst winter. I wouldn't be nourished this dirt, utilizing a flooding pail for a restroom if accessible, or dying gradually at such a youthful age. I wouldn't have been isolated from my parents. I wouldn't be here now-anxious, desolate, and holding up to land at a destination I'm uncertain of.

Would I have been exceptional off shot by one of the men? Would I rather remain here and shrivel like a diminishing rose? At the present time, I don't know why I influence myself to bear this torment. Possibly it is more valiant to experience the affliction, yet my body can't take considerably more. All I know is some time or another I'll be free regardless of whether it is among the dead I meander, I won't be here.

The loneliness makes me miss everyone- even the people I couldn’t bare their exitance one day. I simply need to feel safe. I miss my family and friends and I cannot bear to think about how terrified they are about my disappearance. Can I scream I’m here dad come save me from this deadly prison? Or just forget my existence. I have never loved my brother more than I do now. Joseph, I pray to see you again one-day work hard and enter collage love mom and dad and never make mom cry again like you used to do. Kiss her on my behalf. Grandma, I wish with every one of my tears to be in that little cabin with you once more. All of you were my familiar object. Here I have none and everything is so overpowering. I don't know I can take it anymore. I have dreadful bad dreams and I generally wake up with sweat and tears trickling my body. In any event I had one great dream while I was here. I longed for France, and it was full of beauty! I saw everybody once more. I could never again taste blood on my tongue, nor hear the shouting and moaning of insane elders, nor touch a dead individual's cool and unbending skin on any side of my body. For the first time ever, there was grass rather than water licking a ship and hurling it around. I kissed the ground. I kissed joseph, mom, dad, and grandma. It was a perfect world. My life had gone right, and I'd overlooked these startling recollections. However, at that point, I stirred that night to see an old man biting the dust of a heart assault. His shining blue eyes turned dark.

I miss sitting all together in the living room watching a family movie with grandma’s smooth warm hot coco sharing how our day went. I miss fighting with

joseph and singing with my friends. I miss my mom’s warm hugs.  I’m sorry mom for raising my voice sometimes and ignoring your calls. I’m sorry for not spending each second beside you. I miss you dad and I miss your voice calling me meme. I miss your delicious meals grandma and your soft voice telling me and joseph boring tales. I miss having you all around me. Would I ever see you again?

What I see right now is dead or half-dead bodies all around. Chained with metals and having nothing to do but staring at one another. its somehow dark over here. I can see rats moving around, meh I got used to it. Wait My hand is shaking, now it stopped. I can’t feel my fingertips any more. I can’t feel my tongue. my feet are getting heavier. my eyes are getting wet. Wait, am I tearing? its burning over here, but for some reason my toes are freezing. I want to get up but it’s so heavy I feel a huge block over me. I want to reach my hand, but I can’t feel it. my mouth is bleeding, my eyes are tearing, my nose is running. I can’t see its getting… its getting blurry… Is this what they call… death?