Puppet Master

Chapter two
Fear and fire

The next morning the lights came on and the door was bashed open cracking we all were ordered out. Instead of going to the forests we were all led to a different area where a pile of twenty men's bodies were tossed dried blood coming from the backs of their heads. We were given shovels and forced to dig a giant grave all day dug deeper than they needed for twenty bodies. It scared me the more I dug. Soldiers started kicking the bloody bodies in when we were still in the rectangular mass grave. One of the bodies hit me. I shrieked shoving the dead man off of me the soldiers above laughed at me. I sat there watching the body of the man that fell on me. I could hardly breath, after all the bodies had been tossed in we were forced out and out to the forest without stopping.

They made us stop working at the end of the day. We were given food again, I took as much and ate as much as I could. I was scared about another fight breaking out and getting caught in it. Luckily no fight came, it was the same for days turned into weeks and months. We were never given any clothes, nothing but the forest everyday.
"Boy come over here real quick." Bailiff hissed waved at me discreetly. I scanned at the soldiers they weren't paying any attention to me, I ran to his side.
"I'm thirty I'm not a child." I growled at him.
"It sounds better and I'm way older than you to me you are a boy. But that is not why I called you over here." He kept working, I helped him on his tree.
"Then what is it?" I paused for a moment.
"Look to the South at the trees." he didn't look and just kept cutting. I glanced South only seeing more trees and an empty field with dirt clods thrown around.
"So what?" I broke another limb off the tree.
"They use that field as a testing ground, rifles, artillery, you name it but not all the time there are holes in the earth made by the guns I'm getting out want to follow and join us boy?" He smiled at me.
"Not now?" I gulped.
"No idiot at night, I know why we dug the mass grave so deep. I'm one of the oldest men here, every few years they cleanse the camp of the oldest members that's why no one ever leaves the camps. They just kill you." He shuddered trying to make a memory go away. "They will kill me this time and I don't fancy that. You've probably been taught the whole world is like this. It's not, there are a few countries that are free where a man and woman can do whatever they wish, one country in particular its massive. That is where I will go where these monsters won't dare go." He chuckled as we came to the next tree.
"Where is that?" I asked excitedly.
"Across the sea I don't know its name but has fought off every invasion put to it." He smiled. "It has never known places like this. The people know nothing like this horror." He slammed his axe into the tree and the handle shadderd. We stared at the broken handle. Four soldiers ran over and saw the broken handle. "How do you expect us to work if you give us this!" Bailiff shouted at the soldiers dropping the broken handle.

The soldier to his right uppercut him hard he stumbled back and the rest joined in beating him. I pulled on one of them, he turned and hit me in the nose with the butt of his rifle. I fell to the ground holding my nose I was then chased off under threat of being shot. I didn't see Bailiff for the rest of the day which scared me. I only had him, Mark, Jack and Jacob. The day finally ended Mark sat next to me like every day. Bailiff's spot was empty. He suddenly slammed down next to me, covered in blood and gashes and soaked with water still dripping.
"What did they do?" I counted all his wounds.
"They just beat the hell out of me then decided I needed cleaning and tried to drown me in the deepest part of the river." He shrugged.
"Sorry I couldn't help you." I sighed looking away from him to my plate, he hooked his arm over my shoulders.
"You did try and you wouldn't have been able to help anyway, want me to check your nose when we get to the barracks?" He asked, tightening his arm around my neck.
"Sure." I shrugged. Bailiff had me sit on the bench in the barracks and looked over the deep bleeding gash on my nose.
"Luckily for you it's not broken, trust me I can fix broken bones but you really won't like it." He grinned as I stood up.