by Winfred Wong
“Can you?” she prompted.
As the whining engine sounds grew louder, I shook my head and massaged my temples with my thumbs. “Yes, sure. I can do that. What about you?”
“Don't worry about me. I will hide. Just walk.”
With my heart beating hard against my chest, I pushed myself to act just the way she had asked. I wasn't even sure if the tanks were sent to capture us, but I felt safer without any one of them around me because if the tanks were here solely for the freedom-pursuers, I should be able to walk away without troubles, and this thought alone bolstered up my bruised confidence.
So I walked. I tiptoed with a casual pace, trying my best to imitate the local's gait in an inept way, and never looked back. Then as the first few tanks finished climbing up the steep road and moved in our direction, I saw two fully armed soldiers climbing out from the hatch on the turret of the leading tank, which was slowing down. And I went on walking calmly even when they were then sprinting toward Frederick and Ciara intimidatingly, which in some ways resembled the officers' chasing behind the headband man at the airport. And I continued to walk even when they punched him right in his face twice without saying anything beforehand and dragged him all the way back to their tank by gripping his frivolous hair with one hand. I walked even when I saw Ciara attempted to stop them but was kicked and shoved to the ground thrice, contusing her limbs. I walked even when I saw Ciara struggled to get up but still somehow managed to limp forward lamely and stand defiantly right in front of the tank after they had shut the hatch close, literally blocking its way with human flesh, with her arms stretched outward firmly and her chin jutted out with determination, glaring at the view point of the tank, her shoulder length hair tangled beyond repair but was dancing in the wind, setting her feet parallel to her shoulders.
Never before had I witnessed such a grand exhibition of heroic valor, which looked like a fine reproduction of the scene captured in the framed photo at my home and nothing else. But of course, witnessing it in real person was so much different from just looking at a photo. And she looked so entrancing that I just couldn't take my eyes off her, not until the effect of mesmerization dwindled after some moments, nor before I gathered my mind and resumed walking.
But soon as it occurred to me that it wouldn't end well for her, I decided to shield my eyes with my hands because the trepidation about what was going to happen had easily preponderated over the perturbation brought by the darkness of shielding my eyes. Then I prayed for God's mercy when the rolling engine sounds were petering out, though I knew it was just a matter of time before they would reignite the engines. I was right. Shortly after taking a couple steps forward, vrooming sounds reverberated across the gloaming sky again. I bet Ciara was still standing at the same place, but I didn't have the courage to confirm, or I just didn't want to confirm at all, I am not sure.
And as the track of the leading tank happened to pulverize a pebble while moving, making a muted exploding sound that stuck out from the whining rumble, I urged my legs to go faster so as to avoid hearing the most stomach-churning thing that was just around the corner, I supposed so, possible. But I was too late.
An extremely repulsive prolonged bang, which sounded like what you would hear while violently flattening and grinding minced meat into dust-like smaller pieces with a super hefty steel rod that could only be wielded by the God himself and was like a dozen of gigantic bulls was stamping on that same crushed minced meat incessantly at that same time, waltzed into my ears. And it gave me goose pimples that I felt like I could never get rid of. Then, after a vain attempt to cover my ears with my hands to mitigate the overwhelming impact on me, I rocked backward and forward and inevitably ended up retching up a stream of vomit at the roadside when I reached out fumbling around for something that could support my weight.
The traumatizing upheaval of emotions significantly disrupted my rhythm of breathing. And I was completely transfixed and was unaware of the surroundings when I was disgorging, mostly mixture of stomach acid and thread of saliva. After unwittingly emptying my entire stomach, I staggered forward like a drunken man, with my upper torso inclining forward, as though I were depressed and somewhat suicidal. My head was empty, my soul as well; they were well drained.
Then I wondered if God would spare a minute to save someone as contemptible as me like someone had once told me he would, and I pleaded him I would be genuinely glad to be a believer if he showed up. But I bet handling other matters had already occupied every white spaces on his schedule and that's why there was no faith in me. So I thought I was asking too much. Seeking solace was too much, or I simply didn't deserve it. So, dropped my knees to the ground and sat back on my heels, I instead prayed for his mercy to undo what had happened, with my fingers interlocked and my head craned skyward, soliloquizing aloud, until someone shoved me to the ground from behind angrily, almost breaking my nose, tiny shards of rock on the street scraping my forehead.
I was resentful. No one should interrupt my praying, especially when my faith in the prayer was about to be heard. And I got to my feet quickly and spun around like I was trying to lash out when a stream of fresh blood was trickling down on my face.
“Are you out of your mind!?” I barked before I was able to identify who it was.
Kriss seemed startled; my fury outweighed hers, I thought. “What!? Didn't I tell you to remain a low profile?”
“You did! But where were you when...they...when they...” I stuttered.
“What?” she said. “I was hiding in an alley behind House Heaven. I can't let them see my face.”
“Hiding? They took him away! God knows what will happen to him now. And she – ” I choked back a wave of nausea.
I tried to continue, but every time when I was ready to emit a syllable, the same queasy feeling would catch me.
And she had blinked twice rapidly like she didn't know what I was talking about before she blurted out. “She? Ciara? Where is she? And Frederick? What happened to them? Where are they? Huh?”
Informing others about this tragedy was the hardest part as there was a warm and sticky feeling that clogged up my air passageway bubbling up from my chest through my throat to my eyes, thwarting me from uttering a word.
“They were...She was...”
“What!? Say it clearly! You are stuttering!” Kriss prompted and strode toward me, shortening the distance between us to a point that I could feel the warmth exuding from her body.
“They took him.” I finally managed to let out a terse sentence.
“What do you mean they took him!? What happened!?” she asked, her eyes started out of her skull.
“They took him! They punched him and dragged him all the way back to their tank! And – and she, Ciara dashed out and tried to stop the tanks from going, standing right in front of the muzzle of the barrel! And – ”
“And what!? What happened to her?”
But I then burst into tears spontaneously when I found them suddenly prickling my eyes. And I covered my face with my hands and knelt down before her like I was sinful.
“Sorry. I am sorry. I am so sorry,” I wept repeatedly.
She then had remained silent for quite a while that seemed ages, probably imagining what could've happened that made me feel so guilty, before I heard her stomping away swiftly, and I reckoned that she might have guessed what had happened by the time she acted, though I have never directly confirmed this with her even we are getting married now. I guess we just don't think it's necessary to bring it up. That being said, I think we have once hinted at this tragedy when we were talking about Ciara by the pond side, and I can still remember that amazed look on Kaylen – he seemed to be amazed by the fact that Ciara has become The Tank Woman now – when he finally realized what we were alluding to.
Then, as Kriss was far away from me, “Hey,” Ryson's voice said, his voice emotionless and unenthused.
I was slightly surprised that I didn't hear him approaching me at all, maybe I had confused his footstep
s with hers, and he patted me. I unveiled my face and found him trying to help me up by grabbing my left arm, which I found uncomfortable. So I politely rejected him, stood up, turned away from him and everyone, and expressed my gratitude, with remnants of tears evaporating on my cheeks.
Standing steadily, I tried my best to avoid catching a good glimpse of the remains of Ciara by keeping my head down like there was anything interesting on the street. And I didn't dare to imagine what it was like, but even so, just the thought of it was already dreadful enough to make me shudder and cringe.
“Are you hurt?” Ryson asked.
Wiping the trails on my face, “Nope. I'm fine. I'm fine,” I said.
“Great. Because we have to get going now,” Kriss said loudly and firmly at somewhere behind me, in a way that made me think she had already accepted what had happened to her in such a quick time and had never had any strong emotions, her voice growing louder as she was walking toward me. “I am afraid they will return when they find out there are more of us.”
And I was slightly frustrated by the firm serenity she demonstrated in her voice and found it unbelievable that someone as moody as her could actually be this normal after knowing what had happened. But when she floundered past me, I instantly felt relieved at that particular moment when I saw her dampened cheeks, because that proved she was just pretending to be completely unaffected so that we were less prone to indulge in sadness and that proved she was a human.
So, with a strangely mournful atmosphere that had seemingly frozen the air solid around us, we resumed proceeding along the street and descended on the other end back to the boulevard. But this time I never tried to catch up with her pace again and intentionally kept a short distance from behind them as I wanted to seclude myself for a moment.
The park was just right across the street at where the slope ended. From there, nothing was obstructing our sight at the park, except the overgrown box hedges encircling it like ramparts. And the fountain that added charm to this place was located in the center of this small local leisure park with a broken swing, a slide and a dry pond, and just by the desolate look of it, I could tell it was abandoned for a long time.
Then we crossed the road and entered the park by pushing open a rusted tall gate with spikes of iron along its top. We did it quick so as to avoid attracting too much interests from the pedestrians then concealed ourselves behind the hedges immediately and waited for any minimal interests aroused to fade. By the time Kriss thought it was all right to move, I happened to set eyes on the prominent fountain, which I had always wanted to take a closer look, with two tiers, and it was like a giant rock sculpture designed by Mother Nature herself; the ground-basin junction was seamless like it was a natural extension from the ground, and was undecorated. The burbling jets of water were being pumped up high into the air, so high that when water plummeted back down, few drops of it would splash out of the basin, dampening the pebbled ground nearby. And the splashing and burbling sounds of it did somehow make me feel less gloomy.
“Where is the tunnel?” I asked when Kriss was leading us straightly toward the fountain.
She pointed forward. “Just right behind that thing.”
After we walked past the fountain from the right side, a small rectangular-shaped box of house, which looked like one of those at a toll gate, covered with layers of dust became visible right next to the edge of the pebbled ground. There was a window on the door of it, but no light could pass through as though it was a one-way mirror.
“This is where the park-keeper used to work at,” Kriss explained.
“So, where is it?”
“Down there,” she said, as she reached out for the doorknob and heaved open the thin timber door.
And I peeped into the house, half expecting to see something that would blow my mind away. But there was nothing inside, nothing noteworthy at all, only a pitch-black carpet placed on its wooden floor. I was a little bit disappointed, but as Kriss went on and squatted down, I got an inkling about where it was. And she proved me right when she pulled the carpet away, revealing a dark hole, which was wide enough for two men to fit through at the same time easily and was utterly lightless.
“This is it,” she said, and flipped over the carpet, showing us a dozen of traditional handheld flashlights glued to the back of the carpet, and took one of them seemingly randomly. “Pick one, and we will start crawling.”
Then I squinted at the hole, which was too dark for anyone to perceive anything, so I went on to scoop up one of the electric torches, switched it on and pointed it at the hole, trying to drive the darkness away. But, remarkably and creepily, not a single ray of light was reflected back, as though it was a condensed black hole sucking in everything. And I wondered apprehensively if there were rats inside or not.
“Where does this tunnel lead?” I asked suspiciously.
“You know the answer,” Kriss replied, waiting by the hole.
“Yeah, border areas, but where exactly?”
Then she suddenly glared at me disdainfully when the others were ready to go and were waiting for her to say something and said, “You know what. I am becoming somewhat doubtful about helping you out.”
“Doubtful?”
“Looking at you, I honestly don't understand why Kaylen wants us to do this. He kept saying that we must get you out of this country safely at all costs and something like that. I really don't understand why you are so important in his eyes that he doesn't even care about risking our lives. We have all been fighting side by side with him for like a decade. We're like a big family, but I have never seen him like this. He always told us – ”
“Hey, Kriss,” Ryson interrupted and winked at her.
And I thought she was going to cry again, but I was wrong. She was just giving vent to her fury, which had always been there the whole time.
Then, as I was about to say something to defend myself, she exhaled a gust of exhaustion, head down, and pulled out a faint smile with pale lips. “Sorry guys. But just one more thing, Ashton.” She paused until she had my full attention. “Don't talk to me no more. The next time you piss me off again is the last time you'll be able to talk again.” Then she frowned, thumbed the switch of the torch angrily, bent down and vanished into the black hole.
I knew she was emotional, but I just didn't feel right when she attributed every fragments of her unpleasant feelings to me because I had never asked them to do anything for me. Kaylen came to me first. And the way Ryson winked at her like he was her friend was strange. I felt like there was some kind of an unfathomable connection between them. And for a second, a thought of leaving without them did streak through my mind. But, ultimately, I banished that thought, knowing the chance of escaping on my own was close to zero, and sluggishly, I then crawled into the hole following the heels of Ryson.
And inside the tunnel, at first, I felt like I was sliding straight down to the core of this planet, then as the tunnel twisted up and turned flat, it became wider than before. I could almost crouch if not for the tapering icicle-like structure hanging from the roof of the tunnel, like stalactites. The muggy feeling that came along with some muddy puddles, which I would occasionally put my elbow into and withdraw instantly, was the only thing I found unacceptable inside, but overall, it was better than I'd imagined, though the crawling part was a bit too much for someone who rarely exercised like me.
With constant eel-like wiggling motions, we glided blindly – all the flashlights ran out of power very soon except Kriss's, so we were literally gliding blindly – forward for what I felt like an hour until the tunnel twisted up again. I believed we were all badly covered in dirt by that time, but no one whined a word, and we never rested and just kept dragging ourselves up – I'd love to know how far did we still have to go actually but just didn't feel like speaking after what I'd been told.
“Almost there.” Kriss broke the long-sedated silence, her voice echoing through the tunnel in a way that if I didn't know she was ahead of me in the first p
lace, I wouldn't be able to tell where she was. “I can smell a scent of roses from outside.”
And I could smell it too. It was reminiscent of something very popular back in the Port, something like a lavender sachet but was more intense and sweeter. My memory was hazy. But I did find this scent particularly refreshing.
CHAPTER TEN
* * *
As Ryson's feet left my eyesight, I knew I had already reached the end of the tunnel. I felt like I was in a bear cave when I was trying to stick my weary hands out of the tunnel dumbly and when the view of the somber sky caught my eyes. The sky seemed to be so much smaller when you looked at it from inside a cave, so small that you had to use your imagination in order to picture what the rest of the universe was like, and that's what pushed my imagination to its limit in a way that I'd never experienced back at the Port despite living in such a city with a great renown for the night sky view it had. Perhaps I had somehow developed a tendency to pay no attention to things I could enjoy at any moment. “Free sky,” I said to myself, and questioned myself if I'd for once really appreciated anything before. The answer to it does later become a source of shame that I have never disclosed to anyone, but at that time, I came to a conclusion that maybe that's why people said the grass is always greener on the other side.
“Give me your hand.” Kriss's voice broke my thought.
And when my hands were finally out of the cave, I felt a warm and strong hand grabbing my wrist pulling me up.
And after I pulled myself out of the tunnel, when I got to my feet on solid ground, “This way,” she said coldly and walked off at once.
We were in the middle of some bushes. There were no sight of modern buildings, nor hubbub of human activities, just some screeches from wild cicadas around us and some fragile red blossoms right besides my left foot. I felt like we were suddenly transported from the modern world back to the Stone Age. And the surroundings was so dingy that I wasn't able to look clearly. But then, I heard a vague sound of waves hitting boulders along the shore from a particular direction, and that's how I figured out where to go.