Cairo

What exactly was the Gulag? A question I've heard far too much. A question most didn't even know existed. A question that made me remember some of the worst times in my life.

As I sat there with Rina, who was crying more and more the longer I talked, I came to realize why I hated it so much. It wasn't the pain and suffering I went through. Nor was it the number of lives lost inside the prison walls. It's what it stole from me. Things I don't think I'll ever be able to find again.

I told Rina everything, and it started with the first day I was thrown in.

…

I was only around ten years old at the time. I was a soft-spoken, lonely boy. My mother had just passed, but I kept that story locked up for another day.

After my town was ransacked and massacred, the king's soldiers took any kids left alive as hostages. Or so, that's what I thought at the time. Instead, they used us to satisfy their urge for entertainment and stupid games that only led to more pain and anguish.

I was thrown inside a small cell in the deep layers beneath the king's castle. Floors were made of dry cement, and the walls were made of purely forged steel. A bucket was given for our bathroom needs, and we would get one bowl of strange brown liquid with dirt-smeared water as our daily nutrition. It wasn't the worst thing-... No, it was by far the worst thing imaginable. If death had a taste, this tasted worse.

Cells were placed next to each other, and I made some friends along the way to my right and left sides. Every month the cells would switch, and I'd make more friends, calling out to my previous ones on the other side of the lightless hall between us. We'd play games we came up with to pass the time, and we soon began making fun of the wardens patrolling us.

However, all fun and games came to an end when the Gulag was introduced. Everyone in the cell's called it the devil's lair. I personally didn't care for what it was called, as for me it was where nightmares were made, and fear itself wasn't enough to give this place a proper name.

The Gulag was a circular chamber-like room. Walls were made of pure concrete, layered with barbed wire and dry blood scattered from left to right. The ceiling was too high to even think of reaching, but I could always see the second, third, and even higher floors looking down on us. I couldn't see the people watching, but I always assumed it was just more wardens or men who paid to see the special underground arena.

Every week, two random prisoners were chosen to be placed inside the Gulag. The goal was simple: The last one remaining gets to stay alive.

So, prisoners started killing each other without a single thought telling them otherwise. The warden's watched and laughed, while the ones in the cells just prayed they wouldn't be put in next. Competitors were chosen randomly, that is, until the first time I stepped inside the Gulag.

I was facing a friend I'd made on the first day, his name was Clouse, and he too had lost his family in the War. I remember the look me and Clouse had as our eyes danced across our surroundings. I remember the smell of blood and sweat filling the air like fog on a humid day. It was treacherous.

I remember my hands trembling with fear as I began to cry in front of anyone who was watching, "I-I d-don't want to f-fight." My voice was broken, shattered like a piece of glass.

Clouse however, didn't even hesitate to pick up a small rock off the cold Gulag floor. So much for a friend I thought I had. Luckily, seeing me crying stopped him from attacking, and a warden made his presence around us.

He was a tall, skinny looking man with no signs of feeling pity. He wore a strange uniform I don't remember too well, and his hair remained hidden underneath some sort of general's hat.

He looked down on me, hitting me with a stale wooden paddle, and talking to me like a pile of trash. "If you don't fight. No food or water for five days. Then you die of starvation in your cell." His voice was merciless.

I grasped onto his leg, crying onto the soft leather of his buckled boots, "P-please! Anything but fighting!" I sniffled and sobbed.

The man drew a smile, then kicked me off into the barbed wire on the walls. "No food or water for five days it is then."

The pain that struck my back didn't even faze me, and I thanked him with all my life. Or at least the life I had remaining inside me.

The first day without food or water was surprisingly quite easy, and I slept for most of the day. The second day became a little harder, and I started feeling aches and pain my stomach kept throwing at me. The third day I couldn't sleep, and the hunger finally started to kick in. By the fourth day, I began to lick the walls in hopes of finding a small bug that might have lost its place. The fifth day…. I don't even want to talk about the pain I felt. There wasn't a single thing worse than the dryness in my mouth, and the emptiness inside my body. My eyes were dead, my body wouldn't move, and my lips felt as if they would fall right off with a single touch.

Somehow, I managed to wake on the sixth day to a bowl of brown liquid and dirt-smeared water. I looked at it for almost an hour or so before I managed to gather the strength to even reach for it.

When it entered my mouth, most of it spilled on the ground, as my jaw wouldn't move to close the food inside. However, once that first taste of dirt entered my stomach, my body rejected it. I puked up whatever entered, and I reached for the water after. It was terrible, but it was well worth the stomach cramps I'd experience for the next couple of days.

Every other week I was chosen to fight, and every time I would decline my participation. I was so fatigued and dismayed that I didn't even realize my friends disappearing beside me.

Three years it took. Three years it took for me to get adapted to the food and the realization of what was truly going on. I also heard a rumor that the war had ended in my first month inside the Gulag, meaning the last three years we've been held captive outside the public's eye. That's when the final layer of ice I'd been standing on finally snapped.

I remember the anger that flowed through me that day. The blood boiling through my veins. The anger that awakened inside me. It overpowered me.

When I called upon the warden, the paddle he hit me with didn't even inflict any pain upon my body. It's as if my skin was made of stone, and the paddle was a piece of glass that broke upon it.

The warden's face twisted into confusion, and he quickly called for the other guards to circle me. I took this time to look for the first warden I ever met; the one with the general's hat. But I never saw him.

I don't really remember what happened after that, as my mind was empty and my body acted on its own. All I remember is walking out of the Gulag unscathed, covered in blood, and a trail of dead guards behind me.

I ran and ran through endless halls and deadends in every direction. Any guard that got in my way was dead by the time I even took another breath.

However, once I finally reached the second floor, my mind went back to its pitiful self like before. The hatred in my eyes vanished, and blood in my heart burned with fear and nerves like never before.

I saw another hallway of cells. Cells that were filled with prisoners, prisoners I didn't even want to look at. I noticed an exit at the end of the hall, a window with paper-thin glass. It was my first chance to get out. My first ever sight of an escape from this horrid place.

However, the cries I heard inside the cells stopped me dead in my tracks. They were cries of those more desperate than me. Cries that haunt my dreams every day.

I looked around, seeing a giant lever planted on the side of one of the walls. It looked too difficult to pull, and I already started running for the window, but something pulled me back like an unknown force. I don't know whether it was fear or pity that directed my steps at that moment. Either way, I found myself pulling hard against the lever with my blood-soaked hands gripping the smooth edges of the steel. It took all the strength I had remaining to pull it down, but the joy I felt when I saw all the cells burst open didn't last longer than a mere second.

A sharp pain entered my throat like a bolt of lightning. I felt blood pouring out of my neck like a broken fountain in a lively garden. I became dizzy, and my body began to melt onto the cold floor.

Just as my mind fell unconscious, I saw a knife escape my throat, and the face of the man who the knife belonged to; the very first warden, towering over me with the general's hat safely planted on his head.

He looked down on me the same way as when I cried atop his leather boot. Smiling and feeling nothing but pleasure. I saw the other guards rush past him, chasing after the escapees, and my eyes fell into the darkness.

…

A slight feeling of raindrops on my shoulder broke me from my story. I turned my head, seeing Rina's face buried with tears inside my cloak. Her sobs almost made me follow, but crying was something I didn't know how to do anymore.

She sniffled, wiping her tears against my cloak. "I-I was in…. those cells…" She wept, her voice slightly muffled.

"Perhaps my regret ended up saving at least one life," I muttered. "But one life saved isn't enough for how many lives I've taken."

Rina's cries suddenly turned into another direction. Although tears kept their route down her cheeks, her lips curled into the most beautiful smile I've ever seen.

"You didn't save just mine…." She wrapped her arms around me, "That lever you pulled - it connected all the c-cells." She continued her silent sobs around me.

It connected all of them? I thought for a moment, trying to make sense of the situation. "What do you mean it connected all of them?"

"There were over 400 remaining prisoners…" She wept even louder, smiling. "Every one of them was able to escape because of you… All of us are alive because of what you did…��

I kept my gaze locked onto the candle, seeing it pass the halfway point before completely dying out. Maybe my regret meant more than what I thought... How could over 400 prisoners escape through all the remaining guards?

I remained silent for a moment, thinking steadily like a stone on a cliffside. I thought about stopping my story there, but Rina turned out to have more answers than I originally thought. So I braced myself, and continued.