The Constant Nightmare within a Nightmare.

Based about girl who is taken by soldiers from a holding camp in Cambodia during the terror of the Khmer Rouge Army. Her experience changes her, terrifies her, plaguing her dreams...

My days have become a routine. I wake in a cold sweat in the early morning, the shadows of dark nightmares fading with the rising sun. Breathe. Breathe. With my head down, too ashamed to look at my parents, I leave the hut without a word for the morning rations. Mouths of yellow teeth flash in the dark. This morning people are quiet as they collect wooden bowls before one of the two serving ladies fill their bowls with soppy wild rice and a sliver of salted fish. I hear whispers behind me. They have been following me around like a bad smell ever since they set eyes on me the morning of my return. Cold wind caresses my naked skin.  I shiver. The whispers float on the wind yet their secrets are only soft mumbles that reach my ears. A heat wave of anger washes through my body. They know nothing but what their imagination can create. I move away from the serving table, feeling the eyes follow. We have somehow come to a silent agreement. I don’t speak to them and they don’t speak to me.                                     They leave to my inner turmoil. My heart pounds like a drum. As I pass small groups gathered together, their voices lower and eyes are cast sideways as they try not to look at me. Red flushes my cheeks in anger. Darkness and the beasts have long been good companions.  In the early days of my return I was over whelmed with feelings of shame and sadness. Shame for what I have brought on myself and my family. I am not blind, I can see the looks of pity in the eyes of all those who look at me. Young children display looks of shock and quickly hide whenever they see me, too frightened by stories their elders have no doubt told them. My parents no longer see me as their little princess, their darling, their sweet one, all they see is a broken dirty girl.  Now the hot feeling of anger threatens to take over me every time I think of the wrongs the Angkar has brought on me, my family and my Cambodia.                                      Tears are my companion as much as fear is. After leaving the rations hut, I slowly make my way to the rice fields. As I pass some soldiers dressed in their red and black, I lower my head. Their guns hang loosely from their shoulders as they share a smoke. The metal shines in the sun. The devils all wear the same. Black for death, red for blood. The soldiers laugh at a joke and I quickly hurry on my way and catch up to my troop just as they leave.                  The sun is beating down, its heat radiating through the dark pigments of my clothes as I start to plant rice seedlings into shallow murky waters. The sting of a hand burns on my cheek. They sneer. Our overseer stands on constant watch, pacing back and forth between the rows of fields. Her beady eyes look for the tiniest faults in our work. One girl got four whip lashes not working fast enough. Her wounds became infected and she was sent to hospital and was never seen again. Hands grab my legs and I thrust my fist out. It makes contact with the beast. The hands disappear. My skin is sticky with sweat as I wipe my brow. I am glad they give us straw hats even if they are in poor condition they are better than none. There are thirty girls in my troop and all of us are working on planting the new crop before the next big rains. All of us wear the same matching black pyjamas.   I turn and run, yet a hand grabs my ankle. I scream. My back begins to ache but I ignore it because complaining is a sign of weakness to the Angkar.        The same Angkar who stripped me raw. Work finishes just as the sun begins to lower in the sky. I pick up my wooden hoe and joined the single file back to camp. Upon return, the camp is alive with activity. People had collect logs and sticks for what looks to be a bonfire at tonight’s lesson. I am pinned. A hand covers my mouth, smothering my screams. My troop is the last to return before dinner rations and we all head directly to the rations hut, the smell of rice hangs in the air. A group of women are cleaning the area around the pile of logs in preparation for tonight’s festivities. I snort. The lessons are just strategies to scare people to obey the Angkar. It works. Everyone listens to the Angkar, they don’t have a choice. A beast looms over me, watching my efforts to struggle with eyes so black. Dinner rations begin. The soldiers watch as everyone starts to line up. I collect my rations and sit on the edge of the clustered groups shovelling the food into my food with my hand. I don’t taste the food as I swallow. Those two black fires burn my soul, watching tears become waterfalls. I lean down so my hair falls over my face. I do this to observe the crowd through my hair. I see the young children, their bones protruding from the small bodies with the lack of food and the women whose eyes have started to become sunken on the verge of sickness. I don’t care about them. I need to survive myself. They have not experienced what I had experienced. They know nothing of what the precious Angkar is capable of. I know, I’ve seen it. My heart is about to break out of my chest, as the soulless beast kneels.  I hear shouting coming from within one of the huts. Looking over my shoulder I see some soldiers drag a man out onto the ground, followed by a crying woman. The man coughs, his body shaking. One of the soldiers points a gun at the man’s head.          The beast takes his chance. Pain pierces my body. One of the soldier’s voice shouts ‘This man was caught stealing food, more than his ration’s share.’ The soldier hits the man. Blood starts to drip of the man’s lips. ‘This is a crime against the Angkar and he is a traitor,’ continued the soldier. The soldier waves his hand and the man is dragged away, the man’s wife is left weeping.  Their laughter is coarse and broken. Every movement is like a piece of my soul being torn up and thrown to the wind. The crowd slowly comes back to life as hushed whispers spread and soon the attention is turn away from the weeping woman to a small, ugly woman standing on a wooden box, her voice breaking through sea of murmurs, ‘Tonight’s lesson will soon commence, everyone must be in line before the lesson begins.’                                        The beast moans and releases me. I leave my sitting position and move towards a group of girls my age. They watch as I walk over and sit down before moving away from me, not much but I now sit in a small circle, the closest girl an arm length away.              The restrains on my limbs loosen and I curl into a ball trying to make myself small, feeling used and abandoned. One of the overseers comes over and starts yelling a row of promises the Angkar have made us and what our duty is the Angkar. I sit numbly, listening to the greatness that the Angkar has given us and how we should be grateful to the Angkar. I automatically respond when they want screaming ‘Angkar’ at the top of my lungs. No one can hear my cries. When the lessons finished everyone starts to disperse and I slowly make my way back to my hut. Two women give me dirty pitiful looks but I have grown use to it, that it’s instinct that it no longer affects me. At least I don’t have to push through the crowd, the crowd moves for me.  The hut I share with my parents is surrounded by many others. I hear the shuffling of feet.  The hut is small with a palm leave roof with bamboo walls. I walk in. All I hear is silent, mama and papa aren’t back from the bonfire. I fall onto my bed and breathe. I just breathe, smelling the stale straw that is my bed. The creaking of wood and soft murmurs means my parents have arrived and I get the feeling someone is watching me. I get the feeling that somebody is watching me, trembling, scared and alone.  Finally I hear my papa lies down with mama. His soft snore the only indication they are asleep. I lift and peep. The night grows silent and my eyes grow heavy. A black fog starts to swirl in my mind as the nightmare starts to take place. Yet another pair of dark, emotionless eyes stares at me from the dark corner. Round two. The nightmare becomes clearer and clearer in my head. Breathe, I tell myself, breathe. With every loud beat of my heart, the haze lifts and I look at a pair of jet-black eyes, they are like not a spirit or soul possesses them. They are familiar. They are the Angkar.  

Author's Note

First Piece

Reviews

[Colton Patterson]

The story is more or less good, filled with emotion.

But that formatting is absolutely atrocious, whatever mood you were putting me in with your writing I was snapped out of almost immediately. I understand the need to experiment but perhaps formatting writing like that isn't very good.

I especially liked the dark perspective coming from the girl, something rare nowadays.