Chapter 3- Hell

I trudged through the layers of icy white that covered the ground,they reminded me of clouds that had fallen from above. I followed the traces of sunlight that slipped through cracks in the sky, glinting off the snow.  I stayed close to the train tracks, hoping that maybe they'd lead me to civilization. 

The cold chipped at my body, relentless and harsh. There was no way Hell boiled with fire if cold like this was so miserable. I wondered if Hell was freezing. I wondered if I were to die today if I would go to Hell. I wondered if the two children  who fell off the train went to Hell. I wondered where in the hell I was. 

I was hungry. Famished, hunger sat in the pit of my stomach like a snake, slithering up my ribs and clenching them together. Tugging, pulling, my knotty bones into warped ribs and exposed cheekbones. My swollen veins lined my hands, gorged with blue blood that surged through my body. My skin.. paper thin, like a sheet sewn loosely over what remained of me. Knobby knees bent and straightened, carrying me forward. What remained of my coat I pulled across my torso, but it hardly made a difference. 

How was I even alive?  I questioned so many things during my trek in  the snow, but  my though  process was abruptly  interrupted when my eyes saw a trail of crimson blood dotting the ground. My first thought was there was a dead animal. Some varmin had been eaten by another organism that sat higher on the totem pole. My senses sharpened as I looked around for any twitch or movement about the snow. I saw a body. Laying in the snow was a boy, a deep gash in his right leg was crudely wrapped in rags, the blood gushed, staining the cloth. I had seen him on the train.

His skin was whitewashed and under his thin layers of clothes I saw his chest faintly rise and fall. If he had escaped around the same time I did last night it was a wonder he hadn't bled out by now. My first instinct was to leave him there, he'd surely die soon and be put out of his misery. If I picked him up and tried to take him with me he would just slow me down, and I needed to find food. As I began to walk further forward I heard a slight cough from behind. I tear of anger swelled in my eye. Anger towards the Nazis. Anger at the cold. Anger at myself for almost leaving the boy. I turned around and gently lifted the little soul into my arms, he must've been about seven or eight. A pair of somber, brown eyes fluttered open and looked at me as I crunched through the frozen earth. He opened his mouth to speak but was silenced by a harsh cough that shook his lungs. 

"Shh, we'll get you out of this cold soon enough."

He seemed to believe me, his little broken gaze staring up at me, and unspoken understanding of our situation laid between us. He closed his eyes.