The Roar (The Roar Series Book 1)

by A. M. White

  I turned my hand over and the beams highlighted the dirt permanently ground into the lines of my palm. It reminded me of why I shouldn’t allow myself to feel happiness, even in the least. I peeled the burlap from my skin to start my day again.

  Chapter Five

  The air had become cooler when I stepped out of the shack; it almost took my breath away. I picked up my lunch pail from the stoop and started heading to the ditch. There was some comfort in knowing that once I began to work I would feel warmer. I tugged on the ends of my sleeves, trying to pull my hands inside a bit. My fingers seemed to always stay cold.

  Other footsteps joined mine as the workers moved to their stations. Some dragged their shovels, making a scraping sound on the ground. I wondered if that made them look weak to whoever had to be watching us.

  I never wanted to look weak. It made you an easy target for disappearing. The sick and weak never last too long before they disappear and are replaced with a newer, younger, healthier person.

  Suddenly, my attention snapped to the sound of footsteps approaching from behind. Before long, the steps were in sync with mine and closer than was comfortable. No one had been this close to me in years, and I couldn’t see the person that would dare. I turned my head to look like I was looking at the sun’s position. That was safe.

  It was him, the man from the day before, only one full pace behind me. His head was turned down, so I couldn’t make out his face, but the figure definitely belonged to him. The girl that accompanied him yesterday didn’t seem to be with him. I picked up speed, ready to get to the ditch, where this man would have to stay busy, and I could find places away from him to dig. I already knew I wanted to be on the end. I could stay out of the way and hopefully that man, whoever he was, would get the hint and back off. I could put my back to the other diggers and try to keep my mind from wandering in silence. That way, I would be aware of my surroundings.

  The alcove blocked the wind, but it was considerably more damp and cool. I remembered my mom telling me to not go out in the rain when I was little because I would get sick. Being damp and cold all winter could not be good for our health.

  “I won’t get sick”, I told myself, “Because I can’t”.

  I had been sick before out there. I worked, sweating from fever, weak, or even coughing into my arm to silence the hacking from others. Thank God, that hadn’t happened too often because it really tested me. There had been times I almost gave up and didn’t get out of bed in the morning, even though I knew it meant I would be gone very soon.

  With each ram of the shovel, puffs of my breath escaped and floated away. My eyes watched my breath drift from the ditch and get lost in the sky above. I wondered if that is how our soul leaves the body.

  Digging had become such a second nature to me, I became a machine. I could dig all day and not really be thinking about digging.

  Someone behind me coughed. It was a wet and gurgling noise that made me cringe. A rattling cough like that wasn’t a good sign. I didn’t turn to see where it came from. I didn’t care.

  The hours passed and my stomach began to grip at my thoughts. Food was only one of the few necessities we kept. Generally, the food was bland, dried, and small portioned. All of the workers grew lean from the diet and labor, but the food was enough to survive. Not much work could be done without supplying us food of some sort.

  As if on cue, we all stopped and began to climb the edges of the hole for lunch. It was getting more difficult to get to the top the further we dug down. I grabbed my metal pail and found a spot away from the others to settle myself. I never understood why some of the people sat closely during our ten-minute lunch allowance. No one was allowed to talk and even if they tried, out here in the open, that would be stupid.

  I pulled the cloth that wrapped my dried fruit and crackers out and placed it between my legs. The canteen, tucked in to the bottom, was what I wanted. My hands were shaking from the work and my mouth was parched. I dropped the cap beside me and guzzled the water as fast as I could.

  That was when he came and sat next to me on the black ground. I could now truly see that he was alone today. My eyes widened at the act of him sitting so close, but I did not stop drinking.

  He took out his wrapped lunch and canteen, gulping down the water the same as me. I closed my eyes and permitted myself to enjoy the feel of it briefly, before I had to decide what to do about this guy. He was beginning to make himself a little too comfortable in my presence.

  I put the lid on my canteen and slammed it on the ground between us. His eyes found mine instantly. They were different than I had ever seen before. The look on my face had been meant to be a warning, to back off, but those eyes caught me off guard. I forced myself to look down at my lap, to not stare. My breathing had picked up speed as I tried to process what I had seen. His eyes were black, I mean, the whole thing. There was no white, no color, only black. Was I finally losing my mind?

  The man turned to his meal. I could hear him chewing and swallowing the tough food. My hand instinctively brought some of my food to my mouth. I realized that I had only paid attention to his eyes. I had not made a point to look at his face. I tried to shift my eyes so that I could get a good look without turning my whole head. His hair fell in to his face as he ate, hiding much of it. If I waited till he lifted his head, I could pretend to drop a crumb of food and catch a glimpse while retrieving it.

  Before I knew it, I had nervously ingested most of the lunch. Keeping one eye on him and trying to act normal had made the meal seem even shorter than usual. I saved a small morsel for the right moment to drop it. He hadn’t lifted his head at all, staring into his lap while he ate. He rolled the empty cloth and placed it in his pail.

  A hand lifted to his eyes, head still low, but I could tell he was going to run his fingers through his pitch black hair. His hair matched his eyes.

  I dropped the crumb and quickly moved to retrieve it just at the second his hand pulled the drape of hair back from his face, on my side. His profile was distinct, with a sharp nose and squared jawline. The muscles under his skin clenched like he could feel me quickly analyzing him. I plucked the food from the ground and quickly tossed it in the bucket.

  He was younger than I had thought, only a few years older than me. I had assumed he was older because there was something about the way he moved made him seem more confident than most my age.

  In unison, our group finished lunch and found our way back down to our work areas. I couldn’t keep my mind here and now.

  Was it possible he had pulled back his hair on purpose so that I could get a better look at him? If I could hear his chewing and swallowing during lunch, he could probably hear my breathing become more rapid after looking into his eyes. Why had he shown me? What was he?

  I looked at my white knuckles clutching the end of the shovel and forced my grip to relax. As weird as this was, it wasn’t worth the blisters that would cause later.

  The mud behind me sloshed as he trudged up close from the other side of several workers. He dropped his shovel and it clattered to the ground. He bent down and upon retrieval quickly slid something into the pocket of my jumpsuit.

  He paused for a moment to lock eyes with me once more. I hadn’t imagined his eyes of obsidian. There they were right in front of me, plain as day. A puff of breath escaped me only to be quickly sucked back in with a muffled gasp.

  I listened and waited for someone to notice the exchange. I half expected to feel the Earth move under me and to meet my end. No one would ever get away with trying to communicate. I had seen people try to speak in hushed whispers as they walked to their work positions. One minute they were there, and after a roar, they were gone as if they never existed. No one left to think about them much less talk about them.

  I leaned against the side of one wall and used one hand to dig while I felt around in my pocket with the free hand. The paper was smooth between my fingers and already flattened. He must have known I wouldn’t have two hands to unravel the not
e down here.

  In one swift movement, I read the short message, “We will talk tonight”.

  I popped it into my mouth. There would be no evidence that I had anything to do with the freak beside me. I knew he saw me read and then get rid of the note. A small grin on his lips was just visible in my periphery.

  Anxiety took hold of me and time passed even slower than normal in this hell. The dark eyed man worked next to me the whole day. He never tried to communicate or get my attention again. I noticed the veins on the back of his hands and that they were considerably larger than my own, wrapped around the handle of his shovel. His breath seemed calm and slower than mine even as the day passed. I wondered what kind of work he normally did if this came so easy to him.

  The sun finally drifted out of view on the other side of the chasm. Our team had made a large dent in the Earth. The time came when everyone else stopped working and used the shovels to knock out pieces of dirt along the wall to make stairs so they were able to climb out of the depths.

  Last night’s message was clear, I was meant to stay and work throughout the night. Now that this thing was the only one left with me. I had to consider other options. If I stayed, he might kill me or worse. I might have been digging my own grave the last couple of days. If I decided to climb out and disobey orders, I would die or disappear. Disappearing wasn’t an option.

  We worked in silence for quite a while. The sun sank lower into the sky and the shadows grew longer. I imagined them swallowing me like a monster that had been waiting for a sacrifice. People shuffled by above, some grunted, a few raggedly coughed, many pulled their shovels along the ground behind them which scratched against the gravel and gritty soil.

  Finally, there was no more noise from above me. Only the sounds of the two of us alive and working echoed in the cavity. My stomach felt sick and my hands were slippery with sweat. If he was going to kill me, I just wanted it over with, quickly.

  He paused and turned his head to make sure there was no one else above us. I slowed my pace and turned to try and make out the details of him in the darkness. Only a sliver of moon provided any light. Before I could adjust my eyes, he had me pinned on the ground. His elbows ground my arms into the mud, knees pressing against my thighs, and hands covering my mouth.

  I tried to scream but the air surged from my chest only to be blocked and muffled. He had complete control over me.

  “Sshhhh, sshhhh, I’m not going to hurt you,” he repeated in a soft whisper that grazed my cheek.

  I squirmed beneath his weight. His face was so close to mine, his breath smelled like the earth. I could finally see his face in entirety. Nothing about it was scary, except the eyes. They were now inches from mine and looked like pools of ink staring through me.

  My death was certain now. I had seen television shows before the world ended about murders and what men do to women when they have them pinned to the ground. The ground crumbled under my fingers and the dampness of it soaked my back. Adrenaline poured through my body with nowhere to go.

  “I promise, I swear to you that I will not do any harm to you.” His hands did not loosen, “Do you hear me?” He looked in my eyes for some acknowledgement.

  I nodded the best I could. My teeth pierced my lips. I tasted blood.

  “Good girl, I hate this part. You people always look at me that way when I’m trying to save you. I need just a moment to explain and then I will let go. If you scream, I will be gone before they roar. They will not take me. Do you understand?” His eyes searched mine again.

  I struggled against him once more. Irritating pain and a numbing sensation crawled through my lower leg. The pressure of him hurt. He must’ve seen it in my eyes, because he eased up a bit.

  “I am here to save you,” he said.

  He stopped for a second when he saw my eyes darting around, waiting for something to come from above us.

  He grinned. “They can’t hear us whisper or see us this far down. They only put the trusted ones down this deep, because they know you obey.” He let this settle in my thoughts.

  My brain tried to register this to make connections to whether he was telling the truth. I tried to think over the sound of my heaving. Every time the roar happened, I was above standing on the ground in the open or in my shack. Maybe this was a truth. He released me and was gone before I could speak.

  Chapter Six

  I have never seen a person move the way he did. In a human body, he scaled the wall like an animal. Fear ran through my body, and I dragged myself to sit with my back pressed to the wall.

  Footsteps came and a girl peered over the ledge. Her eyes widened when she saw me with my hair and eyes wild.

  “What are you doing?” Her voice was sharp. I was sure she had experienced a roar for the instructions to come and find me. Her being mean was excused due to the pain she endured.

  I gave her the excuse that my attacker had given me. I was fine now and the kick had just taken a few minutes for me to get over.

  She huffed, but gave me the end of a shovel and pulled me out. I lay on the ground, my own shovel beside me.

  “Get up. I am supposed to walk you to your shack,” she ordered. She turned on her heels and marched away.

  I scrambled to keep up and touched my forehead a few times to make my story convincing. My shin throbbed, so I limped as I walked.

  I recognized her as a girl that worked the most northern rim of the field. She must be a trusted one, because she was made to dig deep trenches like the one I was working.

  Questions and thoughts rattled inside of me, but I knew not to talk, keep my head down, and focus on breathing normally. This girl was like me, a rule follower. When she was asked about how she found me, she would tell them exactly what she saw.

  We reached the shed. She asked, “Will you be okay to work tomorrow?”

  I gave her the most confident, “Yes”, I could and walked inside. I was glad for my long jumpsuit, there had to be marks from my attacker holding me down. They would have been obvious signs that my alibi was a lie.

  Inside, the shack seemed lonelier than ever. Processing all of this would take time. I was relieved that he hadn’t asked me to make a choice immediately.

  The world spun uncontrollably at the violence to my body. I hadn’t been touched in years. Not to mention, hearing another person talk. Tonight I heard two voices and that was overwhelming.

  I went about my normal routine of eating in my jumpsuit, stripping my outer layer, and readying for bed.

  Quickly, I looked under my shirt to see the dark bruises of the assault already formed while analyzing what the man had said.

  He said so much in such a short amount of time. Someone out there wanted me to come to them. Who could be waiting for me? To take such a chance, they must believe I would decide to leave. Memories of my family tugged at this thought but I had seen them all dead, what was left of them anyway.

  If the man had wanted to kill me or worse, he could have in the hole. I had seen how quickly he could move, and I had reminders of his strength on my skin. His prowess and capability scared me.

  Tossing over, I also weighed the fear of staying in this place over leaving. I could be taken tomorrow at the whim of whoever controlled the roar. I was theirs if I stayed, my day would come. There was no escaping an end, but I could decide how my end would come. In that thought, sleep came.

  The next morning came in the blink of an eye. My eyes felt swollen and my bruises ached. A funny thought came to me, that if I ever saw that man again I would punch him square in his face for making me feel like this. I smirked at the thought, he was my secret.

  This was a pain that didn’t leave like the one that came with the roar and I held him accountable. He had made reference to others he had helped to escape. It was quite heroic to go around saving people, but I wondered if they got the privilege of repaying him with a little pain.

  When would he come again?

  He did say, “Tomorrow,” with no details as to what hour. My
mind had better be made up in case it was sooner than later. I believed I already had my mind made up. He was a chance to not disappear, either by death or from being used more than I was already.

  What bothered me was his aggression. It made me question his intentions. In addition, I would lose what I knew to go to something unknown. There were certain things I could control here. I knew I would be fed, have shelter, and have a job I knew. Beyond our sector, if there was even a beyond, I had no idea what I would find.

  All of these thoughts irked me until I ended up at the ledge of the trench. Looking down into the darkness, I resolved to leave this place. There could be nothing as despairing and ominous as the pit that lay in front of me. I was ordered every day to dig for our masters. It was never ending. There was no explanation or rationale to this. Only that I was digging whatever and whenever they wanted.

  It was then, right before any of us began our decent to the bottom that the ground shook. Dropping my shovel away from my body, I leaned backwards hoping I would fall away from the edge.

  The pain I knew so well took a hold of me. “All will work till sun down from now on. Make sure to leave no one behind.”

  As I stirred face down, I knew the instructions had been made because of me. The excuse I had made for my absence to the shack had been given by my chaperone yesterday. The masters had decided to not let that happen again and by some grace, I was still here.

  They must have believed me. There was no reason not to. I had always done what was asked of me and never strayed from normality. I thanked the man, silently for this blessing.

  My hand went to my head in an effort to keep up the story about getting kicked. Someone had placed a ladder down in the ditch. It would be easier to get down and back up at the end of the day. My injury had been answered with a ladder. Down we went, one by one to our daytime sentence.

  The day dragged on just like any other. Every once in a while, I would stop and look around for the man. He said he would come today for my answer, but with no inclination as to what time made me jumpy. Lunch came and went, it was useless to try and eat.