Young Writers Society

An arm smacked Luke in the face, and he groaned, pulling it away. Suddenly, he heard a girl scream, and he jerked up, his eyes wide. He sat at the bottom of a dirt pit, along with hundreds of other teenagers. The small space felt crowded, and everyone stunk. Had it rained here too? Luke stood up, squinting at the moon above him. How could he get out?

The same girl screamed again, and Luke’s eyes searched for the source. A young girl sat against the wall of the pit, sobbing over a boy’s body. Luke stepped his way towards her, his vision gradually sharpening as he got closer. She was small and wore rags for clothing.

“Hey,” Luke held out his hand, “Are you okay?”

“Mi hermano se muerte,” she cried, her hands shakily touching the boy’s head.

“Do you speak English?”

“Mi hermano se muerte, mi hermano, mi hermano,” the girl wailed.

“Her brother’s dead,” another girl spoke up.

Luke looked over towards the speaker, a slightly older Asian girl who sat a few feet away. She stared at him and then looked down at her sneakers.

“Luke,” he stepped his way towards her and sat down.

“Carolyn,” she replied.

The two continued to silently watch the girl weep over her dead brother, as she trembled and screamed her incomprehensible words through her tears. Luke’s heart dropped.

“We’ve got to help her.”

“I’ve been awake for three hours while the rest of you were sleeping,” Carolyn stared.

“What?”

“One of them comes and looks down at us every once in awhile.”

“Who?”

“The people that took us,” Carolyn turned to Luke.

The boy thought back to what had happened earlier. He remembered. He remembered Amara and the man with his slicing knife. He remembered the tiger and the pain and the sweet smell of the air. Where was Amara? Was she here? Luke peered over at the group of girls on the far side of the pit. Had they been kidnapped? Thrown into a pit for some sort of human trafficking?

“Carolyn,” the wailing girl turned to her, “Estan… aqui.”

“Sientense, amiga,” Carolyn replied.

Immediately, the wailing girl collapsed on the ground, her arms sprawled over her dead brother’s body. Luke turned to Carolyn in confusion but found that she too was lying on the ground, playing dead. He heard the same unintelligible words that Amara had muttered before, and so he collapsed, closing his eyes.

“Izu cnliuqo?” a woman asked.

“Gwqo,” a boy replied.

“Guicnwekizu,” she said.

Water splashed onto Luke’s face, yet he remained as still as possible. He heard one of them jump into the pit. Luke opened one eye slowly, and he saw them. The boy wore a large, simple shirt, which hung over his thin, pale legs. The woman was nowhere to be seen, so Luke looked up and saw her peering down at him. Luke immediately shut his eyes and shortened his breathing.

“I see you,” he heard her call.

“Where?”

Luke felt a sharp pain on his back. The boy had kicked him.

“Is it this one?” he asked.

“No, the girl. The one with the black hair. I saw her move.”

Luke heard shuffling and slowly opened his eyes to see the boy struggling to carry Carolyn. She opened her eyes, silently pleading to be let go. The woman jumped down the pit and helped the boy. Together, they jumped up to the top of the pit and left.

“Ellos le llevan,” the wailing girl spoke up.

“They took her,” Luke repeated, staring at the ground.

A sharp, raspy inhale cut through the silence, and the two turned to see a boy sit up suddenly. He began to cough violently, his body doubling over in pain. The boy groaned before turning to face Luke and the wailing girl.

“Raymond!” Luke scrambled to his feet, holding out his hand.

“Luke,” Raymond winced as Luke pulled him to his feet.

“Are you okay?”

“My head,” Raymond sat down again, flinching as pain shot up his side, “Oh, it hurts. Everything hurts.”

“Did she get to you too?”

“Who?”

“Amara,” Luke replied.

“Amara? No, man, I was walking to school, and then this dude was running. We ran into each other, and I apologized, man, and he just started punching me,” Raymond rubbed the side of his head, “Like I did something wrong. But I didn’t. I’ve never met him before.”

Luke sat beside Raymond, staring at the other side of the pit. What was going on? How did everyone even get inside the pit? Did they just throw them off the edge and --

A bright blue light shot out of the bottom of the pit, and the two boys heard a heavy thud. Luke climbed over the sleeping bodies to see a girl propped up against the wall of the pit. So they must have teleported everyone here. Great. Teleportation. That’s totally sane and relevant to the current time period.

He sighed, turning back to climb over more bodies and sit next to Raymond.

“Luke, this place is crazy,” Raymond muttered, still rubbing the side of his head.

“Ramón?” the wailing girl spoke up.

Raymond turned to the girl and then back at his friend.

“Who’s she?”

Luke shrugged.

“Hola, cómo te llamas?” Raymond asked.

“Estrella.”

“Estrella. Como una estrella?”

The wailing girl giggled and nodded.

“Dude, she’s speaking Spanish?” Luke interrupted.

“Man, you took Spanish for like three years and still don’t understand her?” Raymond laughed.

“Shut up.”

“Mi amigo es loco, chica,” Raymond turned to Estrella.

“Yo puedo ver,” she smiled.

Luke scoffed, turning away from them to focus his stare on the group of girls. They were huddled together, quietly murmuring in a foreign language and quickly glancing towards him. Curious, Luke carefully moved closer towards them when their eyes were elsewhere. He still couldn’t hear them. Luke attempted to stand up, but the ground suddenly began to shake. He fell, turning back to Raymond and Estrella for help.

“Lucas! Lucas!”

Estrella had also fallen to the ground, but Raymond was nowhere to be found. She reached her arms out to Luke, and he grabbed ahold of her. The ground continue to shake violently, and Luke heard screams cut through the air. He turned to the original group of girls, and they all had fallen, sobbing into the dirt. One of them lifted her head from her wet hands and stared at Luke. She rose her pale arm, pointing to the edge of the pit.

Estrella wailed, collapsing into Luke’s arms, and he finally saw Raymond, standing forty feet higher than them. His friend, along with the various others, stood looking down at them, casting long, fearful shadows. Luke squinted and saw a thin rope tightly wrapped around Raymond’s neck. The rest of the rope was held by some unseen creature, and, suddenly, Raymond leaned over the edge of the pit, as if someone had loosened their grip. At that point, Luke saw that Raymond’s arms were also bound by the same thin rope to his sides. His friend’s hands twitched, and Luke gasped.

The ground had stopped shaking, and the entire mass of teenagers inside the pit waited, gaping at the thirty lifeless corpses glaring down at them.

A high voice pierced the silence, singing some strange hymn. Estrella stopped sobbing into Luke’s shirt, cautiously searching for the singer. The music filled the pit, launching itself into every ear, and the sleeping children of the pit awoke, yawning and stretching. Estrella left Luke’s grasp, clambering towards her smiling brother. A young girl touched Luke’s shoulder gently, and he sharply turned to face the empty sky.