The doors locked behind them once more, and we all slowly made our way to the center of the room to drink from the barrels and slowly sip the shakes. At first, I thought it would make me sick, to take in water and food that we had been deprived of for days, but after the first few hours, my body begged for more. For once we all felt replenished and relieved. The heat didn’t seem as intense, and our bodies started working to regulate our body temperatures like they were supposed to. It’s amazing what a body is capable of, or incapable of, under extreme conditions.
That night, I lay against the wall near an open hole where a stove pipe was obviously supposed to be placed in due time. The breeze wafted in lightly granting a small bit of relief, but not enough. I drifted to sleep, until I heard a noise from just outside the apartment. Someone was coming. I sat up and looked out the carved hole to see Smith walking towards the house with his hands in his pockets.
“Hey,” I whispered just loud enough for him to hear me. “Hey, Smith!” My dehydrated lips cracked when I spoke, and I felt the blood soak into the flakes of skin.
He looked around, then approached my tiny window to the world. “Yeah?” he asked.
“How’s it going out there?” I asked.
“Are you joking? Or...”
“No, I’m serious. How is it? Are you being forced to do this? I know you didn’t want to see that girl die,” I said.
He sighed, looking down at his boots, then said, “Aella, you honestly have no idea what I want. It should probably stay that way.”
“Why?” I asked.
“It’s just better that way, don’t you think?” he said. “You probably are still hoping I’m a good person right now, right? Still holding on to a time when we were friends and I said something nice? You need to let that go. It’s just going to get worse here.” I watched as he gritted his teeth and turned his face away. There was a moment of silence, then he was gone.
As he walked away from my window and out around the huts, I watched him for as long as I could, trying to figure out what he was doing. It was difficult to see through the darkness, but I saw him enter a hut for a moment, and return with a pink blanket and a small box seeming to contain pictures. No doubt they belonged to the girl that had passed away earlier in the day.
Shortly after he disappeared, I was awoken to the stark sound of a shovel digging in the earth. Strikes came swift and loud. Accompanying the upheaving sound of the dirt crashing, were the cries of a man. It was Smith. For a moment I thought he was in trouble, but then I realized, he was digging a grave. Alone. The shovel would strike the dirt, and then I could hear the muffled sounds of sniffling and cursing. Then the shovel would hit again. Whether he was ordered to do this or not, I had no idea.
Chapter Three
Unlocking the latch, we listened to the rattling, until the door swung open. Light from the sun blinded all of us sitting on the floor from the open doorway. Five men and a woman, built stout and muscular, stood there just outside the door as Smith walked in. “Get up. Time to get to work,” he said.
We were led in a single file line towards the doctor’s old hut. There, they had rounded up all of the tools from everyone’s huts—shovels, knives, axes, hoes, and saws—everything was now contained in the hut under a padlocked door. “You will check out each tool as you need it. There’ll be a guard at the tool shed at all times so that no one gets any bright ideas. He will help you check out each tool as necessary. Understand?” Smith said.
We all nodded. Not that we were happy about it, but what choice did we have? We were vastly outnumbered, even if we had weapons. Twenty-five people weren’t enough to fight off a three-hundred-person trained army.
“Jobs will be assigned daily. Today, you will all be working to collect lumber. Go ahead and grab the saws from the shed, and we’ll head down to the timber,” he said.
Two of the men from my group went into the shed and brought out about six two-person saws. The guard watched as they left the hut and padlocked the door behind them. “Let’s go,” said Smith, as he took off towards the woods.
We followed.
When we reached the woods, we began to work. As we sawed away at the purple leafed trees, sweat ran from our backs and drenched our clothes. The temperature was sweltering like we hadn’t experienced on Circadia yet, and of all days, we were experiencing the hottest day yet. The saws went back and forth, creating a loud roaring as all six worked away at the trunks of the trees. The smell of the newly cut timber was one that couldn’t be found on Earth. Although the trees here were similar, the species was completely different. Fresh cuts mocked the scent of a fresh melon, and sweet aromas filled the air.
Smith supervised as we sawed, and he spoke up over the rough sounds of the saws. “Once these first six trees are down, the rest of you will work to remove as many branches as possible and haul these back to camp. It’s gonna take a few of you since these are big trees, but I have faith in you,” he said, winking. “Greta
