Capture

Vanya was not left alone. Though Neema could do little to move her from the large cell they had placed the teenage girls in for their “protection”, she made sure to visit Vanya every day for long periods of time. She ate at least one meal a day with her and when she could they walked around the compound so Vanya could see a different scenery, though the white walls were same in every corridor.

Neema and Vanya cherished the moments they shared together, they both had a companion who had noticeably been there at one of the darkest hours of their lives. Vanya had stood witness to the hundreds of people being whipped and if it wasn’t for Neema’s request that she take care of her siblings she was not sure she would have mentally survived and if Vanya had not been there for her siblings Neema was not sure where they would be now. Both females were tied together by that fateful day but they had begun to grow from it, their friendship becoming organic and real, almost like a sisterhood.

It had only been a week since Neema had found her but already Neema could see a difference in the young girl, her shoulders were not so sunken and her hair did not hide her pale face. Sometimes Neema swore she randomly caught a wistful smile on Vanya’s young face and it lifted Neema’s heart to unmeasurable heights.

Carson had stopped visiting Vanya a short while after Neema introduced her to Caillum, the two were well matched in their fast friendship.

Vanya was good for her family. She had formed an infinity with Caillum where they communicated in their sullen quietness. There small whispers earning giggles behind hands and behind backs. In Vanya’s company and in that tranquil room, Neema’s family were able to catch a few hours shut eye before the monsters of the night returned to torment her family. Vanya, the room and its candles of burning incense were good for Jana, they calmed her and put her in a calm state so she could thrive during the day.

Sleep evaded them during the night, Neema struggled to sleep without meeting Khan in her nightmares. He had turned her somewhat sleepless nights into restless and tedious attempts at rest, the moment her eyes closed images of his snout dripping with her blood flitted behind her lids. The memory of his abuse often left her gasping at night.

Sleep evaded not only her but Jana as well, as a family unit they were withering. Though her sister flourished in the attention given to her by Vanya and Khan, when the night came it was the same nightmare that plagued their slumber. The whipping post had affected Vanya, it had changed Caillum but it tormented Jana, the sounds so horrific it prohibited her from sleeping. It besieged her.

Neema felt as if she had failed and she knew that by default Caillum and Vanya felt the blame like a spear to their hearts as well. They had not been able to stop Jana from being there and though they had all been hurt by that fateful day; Jana was too young to understand that that day would never harm her again. But what good was understanding that when the memories had already begun too rot her young mind. The Humans punishment and their later separation had scared her sister so much so that sleep had become an evasive friend that they fiend for, craved, would die for.

Jana was restless, her anxiety turning to anger as she worked her self into a frenzy trying to battle the wave of tiredness that crashed over her body every night. The more she fought sleep the more tired she became and the more volatile she turned, turning her anger towards her skin. Her pretty gold skin. Every night Neema was forced to watch her little sister scratch at her skin as if it were a parasite that she wished to rip from her body. And sleep was that, it was a parasite that sucked off her energy with its deep promise of a fresh day, a new life.

It was no good because Jana wanted no part with it, her small lips stuttered as she threw her body from side to side like a whirlwind, bringing desolation to their life. It was hard to watch her sister tear herself apart but that was all Neema could do, all Caillum could do. They had tried every lullaby they knew every remedy that graced the planet but still there was nothing.

Sleep evaded Jana every night, her body curled in a small ball hiccupping into a pillow full of tears.

It petrified Neema, there was a feeling of uselessness that she had never felt before. There was no worse feeling than sitting by and watching your sibling tear at her skin in her fear of sleep, crying until she exhausted herself and her voice was hoarse the next morning. It had taken a toll on Neema and it had taken its toll on Caillum.

Not one person in her family got a decent night sleep and it was beginning to ruin their bodies, affecting their appearance. They had deep circles under their eyes and their skin had reverted back to the pale malnourished hue it had been when they first arrived. Though their bodies had begun to fill out with the food making them more than skin and bones, they still resembled the living dead.

Night had become their despair but the light was where they thrived, her siblings had begun to make small improvements. They had both put on a weight, though they would perhaps be a lot larger if the night traumas did not plague them. They had begun to look more alive then they ever had, though a dark mould still hung about their shoulders every morning when the sun had only begun its climb into the sky. Though she occasionally caught Caillum staring off into space, his pale eyes cold with detachment and Jana still stuttered over her words there was a clear improvement that showed only in the light of day.

Caillum’s reading skills had improved immensely and Jana was becoming more and more comprehensible to everybody else, her two sibling’s education was improving but it could never take away from the sheer exhaustion she felt, that she was sure they felt. Her family had begun spiralling downwards into a sort of dark depression that left them fearing the night. The night represented the proverbial Boogey man that chased the family from their dreams and plummeted them into real life nightmares.

Scrapping Jana’s hair into a bun she carried the tired two-year-old in her arms as she supported the sleepy Caillum down the corridor towards the playdate she had scheduled with Emmaline a few days ago. She hoped that having a one to one experience with children their own ages would begin to lift them from the gloom that suffocated the family. She also hoped that Emmaline could give her some advice on how to help Jana.

Enough was enough, Neema had to draw the line somewhere. She could not raise them alone, not when they had been scarred by experiences she had never been exposed to at their age. The best she could do for them was not enough. Jana needed help and Neema could not be the one to resolve this, nothing she tried had worked, it was time she swallowed her pride and asked for help. There was no wrong in asking for it when it would help her siblings, she would even ask Khan to help if it would work.

There was nothing she would not do for her siblings.

Neema sat outside the playground watching her brother and sister playing, from afar they looked like normal happy children but she knew they were far from it these days. She could not help but feel as though she had failed them in the worst way. They had needed a protector, and she had failed them.

She had not protected them from the terrors that was inflicted upon her and by doing so she could not protect them from the night terrors. Even allowing them to spend more time with the devil who had caused this pain had not remedied the situation. She wanted to avoid his presence so badly but he had embedded himself so deeply into her family so quickly, she feared what his absence would do to them. So she spent a few hours with Khan a day that usually occurred before her visit with Vanya, where Khan pretended to care for her siblings well being. He acted as if he genuinely loved them in the same way Neema did, his attentiveness was astonishing but it still did not remedy the problem.

Neema was beginning to feel despair.

“They will be fine in no time; they just need to adjust” came a voice over Neema’s shoulder.

Emmaline had brought her two children to play with her siblings and the slight distraction had worked, the two children were playing wild and ferociously as if they had no worries in the world and they didn’t. When the sun was up there was no fear, no anger, nothing but bliss.

“It’s just so hard sometimes, I feel like we’ll never be happy. Like we are destined to struggle all our lives. Is it wrong to want more”? Neema husked, tears trickling down her chin.

The years of holding in all her grief and pain had finally begun to unravel, the sleeplessness nights and the burden of Jana’s health had taken its toll on Neema. All her walls had crumbled under the pressure; she could barely keep herself together in front of them but when Sahina questioned how she was coping she felt as if she would disintegrate until she was a pile of rumble. She could not keep herself together anymore, it was like placing masking tape over a cracked window, it could hold it together for a while but it would soon crack. The cracks were showing and Neema was breaking beneath it.

It was too much, it had been hard for her at the age of 19 to deal with the loss of her parents, the refuge she found in their love had been abruptly ripped from her. She had been forced to shove her feelings aside so she could provide for her two younger siblings. Her and her older sister had tried their hardest but nothing was guaranteed in this world and when Lara was stolen from beneath their noses Neema had been left as the only caregiver of two little kids. Jana had barely been one and she had already lost half her family. It was too much, Neema could not cope anymore, she was tired of fighting. Her mind was unravelling and she just needed an out, they all did.

“We can’t stay. This place’s killing us. Decimating our will to live” she cried into the arms of Emmaline. They were not even friends yet but Neema needed to unload her burdens. She was detonating.

She could not be strong anymore. It was crazy that she had spent so many years being strong for her family, yet one week with wolves had made her crumble. Had made them crumble. They were weak in this compound, ghosts that scarcely resembled the old them.

She lay her head in Emmaline’s shoulder, hiccupping against her skin. What good was swathing the body in finery and luxuriousness when the mind rotting away and the heart was withering.

“I know it’s hard but you just need to persevere and maybe, maybe Khan can help.”

Neema’s mouth felt dry as she stared in disbelief at the woman before her, not too long ago she had considered asking Khan for help but that was deep within her mind. Hearing someone actually suggesting it made Neema’s stomach turn with anger, she did not want his help, she did not need it.

It was these wolves fault, they had forced young children to listen to her and countless other humans being beaten to within an inch of their lives with no remorse. They thought it was okay for an innocent child to be present at such a horrific scene, even Neema had struggled to remain stoic when other people had been whipped before her. Neema, who had for the past two and half years of her life had learnt to curb as many of her reactions as possible. How could they expect children to remain the same after this.

It was Khan’s father who had allowed the punishments to happen and by doing so, khan was by default, the root of the poison that had spread through the veins of her family. He had separated her from them when they needed her the most and now she was supposed to ask him for help.

It was too much. It was all too much for her to swallow.

“Khan? Fucking Khan who tore at my skin like it was paper.” Growled Neema as spittle flew from her mouth in her fury. Her fists clenched as she pounded down at the bench, her anger traveling through her body and striking across the inanimate object, wishing it was Khan.

“I wont ask that mutt for anything.” She flung the words carelessly towards Emmaline, and they hit their mark as if they were fists beating down on her skin, splitting her open and drawing blood.

Neema stood abruptly and marched away from the shocked Emmaline, gathering her siblings and exiting the play area.

She wasn’t going to ask Khan for a thing, she had raised her siblings without him for how many years, she did not need him to come along and try to save the day. They had been surviving for years and they would continue to do so without his help. She would get Jana help, help that did not come from Khan.

She did not need him.