The Fox and the Pigeon hole Chapter 5

5. Capture

The forest is filled with vibrant rays of the brightest sunshine, it is almost unnatural, every tree, every particle of dust seems to glow with some hidden power. The girl walks through the shining forest, looking around nervously, she is tall and dark skinned, her sweeping black hair comes over her shoulder in a long plait. As the girl walks birds fly overhead singing sweet tunes that sooth her mind, she has stopped walking now and is just looking around, taking in the beauty of the forest. She could stay here forever, she thinks, sitting down and listening to the sounds of the wildlife around her, the smell of the fragrant ferns and flowers that grow in abundance near her, and then the sun becomes blindingly bright and she holds up her arms to shield herself, and then the sun has engulfed her in its fiery depths and all is white.

Lance snaps awake, cold and stiff, he seems to have lost all sense of feeling in his legs and Rafiel is still crammed next to him, asleep, breathing deeply. He is trying to recall his dream; it has given him a strange feeling, a feeling of lightness and freedom. Then Lance realises that it is very quiet outside, the bright sun shines through holes between the rocks which form a kind of dome over them, Rafiel stirs, his bleary eyes open and he sits up slowly. After stretching and yawning he says “see, I told you the storm would pass” and then he smiles and starts to edge his way towards the small opening in the rocks, that they had hastily squeezed through yesterday evening. When the tail of Rafiel’s jacket has disappeared through the small hole, Lance continues to strain his memory for any recollection of his dream, but after a few minutes he sighs, gives up and follows Rafiel out into the bright sunlight.

Rafiel is standing on the damp, grassy riverbank; watching the river, which is still strong and dangerously high. Lance stands next to him yawning and wrapping his coat around him, “so, we’re here to get some Bol-”
“-Balsa trees” Says Rafiel finishing Lances sentence, “their branches are long and very bendy, excellent to use as rope”
“Oh” Says Lance watching the path of a stray twig in the river, the cool morning breeze penetrating his thick clothing. Rafiel sighs looking across the river at the opposite bank where there is a small pebbly beach before the dense forest continues, “we’d better get go-“
Before Rafiel can finish they hear loud raucous laughter from the opposite bank, Lance is being pushed down and behind a large boulder by Rafiel before he can say anything. The laughter continues, it is not one person but a group of people, who they could be, Lance thinks, while Rafiel, lying down to hide his bulky figure, peeks around the edge of the rock and Lance hears his breath quicken. “What is it?” Lance whispers, Rafiel looks at him, his eyes ,which Lance has become accustomed to bring comfort and support, are full of fear,” Officers” He says slowly, his lips barely moving. Lance feels his heart rising into his throat, it is beating unnaturally fast against his chest and pure terror seems to creep into every part of his body until he is almost trembling with it, “What do we do “he says, his barely audible voice cracking slightly, but Rafiel just puts a finger to his lips and peeks slowly round the rock again, the men are still laughing, in terrifying, powerful voices that easily carry across the rushing river. Rafiel moves quickly back behind the rock, tense all over and even though Lance is more frightened than ever, he to looks out from the rock, catching a brief glimpse of the officers, they are standing, six or seven of them, in a circle talking and laughing, their gelled hair, polished boots and gloves catch the sunlight making them unmistakable and they all seem to have a similar build to Rafiel and the officer in Collen, perhaps all officers are like this, Lance thinks, maybe they all share their muscular bodies and superior attitudes.

Rafiel pulls Lance back slowly, so as not to frighten him and they wait, for what seems like hours in a state of pure terror the officers do not leave, they talk for a while and what sounds like a violent fight keeps them all in high spirits, setting up camp around noon they decide to make a fire. At this point Rafiel looks at Lance with a look that unmistakably says, this is our chance. Ten minutes later, the officers finally leave the beach to get firewood, and after Rafiel confirms that the coat is clear, they pelt back towards the rocks.

But just as they reach the nearest boulder they hear a loud deafening shout “Stop!” ,It’s one of the officers and before long, all of the officers are on the beach watching as Lance and Rafiel sprint past the rocks, spurred on by the fear that the man’s shout had ensued in them. They don’t stop, even when Lance feels as if he is going to throw up because just as they had left the danger of the riverbank they had heard the officers crashing into the river, they are not going to give up. They run, flat out through the forest until inevitably, they come across the cliff face, it seems to curve around so that it is much closer to the river than they had walked the previous day. They stop, their hands on the wall, we’re trapped, thinks Lance hopelessly, “No,” says Rafiel looking at Lance, “No, you have to survive” he says again, more to himself. Then after a second of hard thinking and without warning, Rafiel grabs Lance’s arms with his vice like grip, and launches him into the air. Lance, caught by surprise just reaches out his hand in time to grab onto a tree root hanging just over the top of the cliff, he is pulling himself up with all his strength, Rafiel calling “go, go!, quickly!” When he hears the officers burst out of the trees. He pulls himself up onto the cliff and looks back at the horrific site below him, the officers are laughing at Rafiel, taunting him as they close in on him, Rafiel could easily take on one, maybe two but there are seven officers.

They step closer, forcing Rafiel back against the cliff, still laughing at him, then one, who seems to be the leader of the group says, “Where’s your little friend” tilting his head to the side slightly and smiling, Rafiel leaps forward and lands a powerful punch on the man’s face, he staggers back his nose bleeding and his face full of rage. Rafiel has a moment to smirk back at the man before six gloved hands grab him and force him to the ground; they kick him in the ribs, winding him, and then force him to his feet and punch his head against the hard cliff wall, laughing all the time. Lance looks on, helplessly from the top of the cliff, tears in his eyes, why, he thinks , why do they have to do this, the officers punch again and again, turning Rafiel’s, once handsome face, into a bloody wreck. They continue to laugh and shout, celebrating their victory as they drag him away into the forest, Lance just sits on the top of the cliff , he can still hear the distant shouts of the officers, he stares into the forest, deep in sorrow for what could be hours, days, he doesn’t know. All he knows is that it is his fault if Rafiel is killed, or tortured , which he surely will be, the thought sickens Lance , him, it is all his fault, Dawn and now Rafiel, how many people will die because of him, he sits as the sun turns orange and then red as it sinks below the horizon.

The hoot of an owl wakes Lance from his semi conscious state, he looks up and seeing the full moon above him, sighs, what can he do now, he thinks hopelessly, he has nobody to guide him, no one to help, what will happen to him. Nothing will happen if he sits here for the rest of his life, he thinks, raising himself onto his stiff legs and starting to walk down the cliff, which slopes steeply downward, walking through the bitter forest Lance remembers the man that they had seen in the night, it is hard to believe that was only two days ago, he thinks, it seems that so much has happened since then. He remembers the tunnel into the cliff face and wonders where it leads, he wonders who the man was, surely he was not an officer, an officer would not have run away like a coward, another person, perhaps another escapee of a nearby village, like him and Rafiel. He walks aimlessly and without purpose , not troubling to look around, not worried about who might be lurking nearby, when he sees the last thing that he expects , a man is running through the forest crashing through the bushes, he turns and stops suddenly seeing Lance, then after a swift glance behind him he starts towards Lance at a sprint. Lance is standing still not able to move, could his luck really be this bad, but then the man is a few metres in front of him, “come on!” he shouts “hurry, there coming!”
“What?” Says Lance, suddenly on guard, but the man is jumpy and anxious and just says
“Officers!” looking around frantically “come on hurry!”
Making his mind up he looks back at the man, and seeing him take off back into the forest he follows at a sprint, he runs on his cramped legs following the man, who seems to know exactly where he is going. Once or twice he turns down a hidden path behind a rock or a large tree, and just when Lance thinks he can run no more he sees the man disappear into a well hidden cave, slowing down, he follows at a jog and as he enters the almost pitch black cave, a gloved hand grabs his face covering his mouth and then another locks around his waist, paralysing him.

Someone lights a lamp, and all Lance can do is stare, with eyes full of terror ,up at the officer holding him, he cannot move, he can hardly breath and then the lamp illuminates the rest of the small cave, four more officers glare at him in the semi darkness, sniggering, horribly. The man keeps hold of Lance while another ties rope around his wrists, his knees, his arms, they do not stop until every part of his body is paralysed, and even then they let go of him watching in fits of laughter as he wobbles and then topples over painfully onto the hard, frozen ground. They continue to laugh as one of them rolls him over with his foot and gags him tightly, Lance feels his terror mounting, a mixture of his lifelong phobia of paralysis and the terrifying faces of the officers looking down at him, he has never been so afraid in his life, he feels more alone now than he did when his father was killed.

After the initial torture, the officers leave Lance on the ground face down and sit in the cave talking and laughing, sharing gruesome stories of what they have done to fims, this is what they call anyone who is not part of the government. The school curriculum is the same for everyone, designed to give people a fear and respect for the government from a young age and at least one lesson a year is dedicated to the understanding of the word, fims, how it is short for ‘fimus’ which means dirt in Latin and why all those who do not help the governments cause are ‘fims’, basically the teachers have to tell the children that they are, dirt, It served as a reminder of the governments power over them and always made Lance angry, he thinks about it now, ready to throw any insult he could at the officers, but then he remembers that he is gagged, and tied up, and only fifteen . The officers do not do anything more to Lance which is a relief because his injuries from their short beating are aching and the bitter winds and frozen earth are not helping, he lies, unable to sleep, as the officers fall into deep slumbers, un plagued by worry.

Despite his injuries and the persistently bad weather, Lance falls into a fitful sleep, full of nightmares about being hung and beaten by officers, about dawn being killed by the laughing officer he had seen in Collen and about gloved hands strangling him, waking every time with his heart beating fast and cold sweat running down his face. After what seems like an eternity, the morning comes, the officers wake early and sit Lance up so that he can watch as they eat their food supplies in front of him and occasionally waving it in front of his face, laughing. When they are fed and watered the officers untie Lance’s legs , holding down in case he tries to run, but Lance can hardly stand, a mixture of his lack of sleep and his painfully rumbling stomach. They walk through the forest kicking Lance forward when he slows and sometimes punching him hard in the back of the head to break the silence, what will they do to him, Lance thinks desperately, will they kill him or torture him for information, information that he doesn’t have, he thinks, almost bursting into tears. It takes them about a day’s walk to get to a large grey building with hardly any windows, in the middle of a clearing, there are officers on the door and more in towers on the roof carrying rifles, they smirk as Lance passes and when he enters what could be the last building he ever sees, which is lit by lights on the floor and ceiling, everything feels so artificial, Lance thinks. As he is walked down a white corridor with officers lining the walls, one sticks out his foot making Lance trip and fall onto the white, marble floor. After being pulled up by the laughing officers, Lance is pushed into a room, the door quickly closing and locking behind him, he looks around, in the centre of the room is a white table, white, everything seems to be white in this place, thinks Lance, it gives the place a clinical look which just adds another layer of horror to Lances fantasies of what will happen to him here.

After a couple of minutes Lance sits on the cold stone floor, giving in to his need for sleep and just as he is dropping off he hears a noise and looking up sees and bed sliding out of the wall, using the last of his energy, Lance walks over to the bed and collapses onto it, falling asleep almost instantly, embracing his one free moment before what he is sure will be the most horrific, and maybe the last experience of his life.