Beyond The Wall by Ashley Berrett (sight word readers .TXT) 📕

Where are these images coming from? 

Finally the daylight creeps back in to my eyes. I don't know where I am or how long I have been here, but the first thing I notice is that there are tightly woven straw walls surrounding me. I could easily escape by simply punching through the straw. Above my head are thick brown roots, light seeps through small cracks between them. I sit up; I am lying on a rug in a small room. The boy is facing a way from me at my feet. He is lying on his side and I can't tell if he is asleep or not. I start to my feet, but immediately he bolts up and grips his knife. 

I step back and ease back onto the ground.

"It's okay I am not going to do anything," I say in a calming tone. He relaxes and sits back down also.

"Why did you take me here?" I ask.

"Because I didn't know what else to do, it's not like I am some savage," He replies.

"But aren't you a savage?" I ask "most everyone is by now." 

"Well unlike those vicious blood suckers, I don't torture and kill human beings," He glares at me for my comment.

"What do YOU know about those gangs!?" I snap back at him. This mere imbecile couldn’t possibly know what the gangs where like. He wouldn't know their full potential. The only people who really know are the other gang members and their victims, but the victims don't live to tell the tale.

He lifts his arm so I can see it, "This is what I know about them." 

My eyes widen, a sudden realization hits me like a bolt of lightning. It all makes sense now, the screams, the running, this boy, the gang. I ran away when they tortured this boy. I thought this boy had certainly been killed. 

"It's you! You’re the boy that my gang tortured! You got away? How?"  He rises to his feet and takes the knife out of the shaft again.

"I knew it, you are part of that gang! Your gang tortured me! They ruined me! They ruined my life!" 

"No, no you have the wrong idea," He slowly approaches me. Why did I have to say anything! I feel so stupid! "You are the reason I actually left, I ran away because of you!" I stumble over my words and hit against the wall, parts of it break and fall down the back my shirt, making me shiver. “I-I should be thanking you! Please...Please just listen!" I plead and my eyes grow blurry. I have to make a move now if I want to get out of here. I devise a plan in my mind, I will punch a hole in the wall and rip my way through as fast as I can, Then I will run. I will run faster than I have ever run before.

"Did you just thank me?" He looks at me, puzzled. He falls into sitting position and puts his head in his hands. “You don't know what they did to me do you? You don't know what they did to my sister."

I slowly sit back down, a second ago he tried to kill me, Why would he now be sitting here like a helpless animal? I ponder this question and finally get the nerve to look into his eyes and ask, "How- how did you get away?"

He looks up and I suddenly am aware his piercing green eyes, I haven't the slightest idea why, but I blush. Thankfully he looks away to adjust into a more comfortable position. 

"Should I start where I got away, or where it all began?" He looks at me with a hint of a smile.

"I guess where it all started." I reply timidly and mildly confused due to the sudden shift in mood.

"Me and my little sister, Anna, belonged to a gang, ever since we were little they took us in, fed us, clothed us, what ever we needed for survival. The gang had no heightened senses whatsoever, and to be in the gang, well, the only requirement is that you are not better than anybody else. They believed in equality, which is understandable. But then we discovered that Anna had abilities. She could scout out prey from a mile away, and her hearing-she couldn't sleep at night because the night sounds were blasting in her ears. When she did sleep her hearing sense heightened so she would wake up screaming from noises of torture miles away. That kind of thing is noticed in small gangs like that, so they found out about her senses. The gang decided they would kill us both in our sleep. Fortunately Anna over heard their plan and we escaped. We ran as far as we could, then we reached the wall. It scared us at first, but soon it became familiar. We built this place and it became our new home. She finally could sleep soundly because we built the walls two feet thick, they can block any and all noises. She refused to sleep anywhere but on that rug," he gestures to what I'm sitting on and I look down then back up at him.

"Would you like me to move? Cause I can" I try to say while not showing my hopes of breaking through the straw walls diminishing.

"Nah, it's nice to see it being used" He shoots a smile at me, this boy seems so different from the boy I met a couple of minutes ago.

"Then it all started to go wrong," he continues his story," one day we were hunting, but we weren't the only ones. The gang found us right by the wall and they dragged us back to their camp where there where more of them. Anna tried to run away several times but a man held her by the hair and he tore her back, stealing clumps of blonde hair every time. She screamed and screamed, but I couldn't get to her. I couldn't help her. I tried several times, but every time I was beaten by their strength. At one moment the man holding me loosened his grip, I took the chance and bolted up. My head nocked his chin and he fell over. I ran to Anna, knocking away as many people as I could, but there were too many men. They got angry and punished me. That’s how I got this." He holds up his arm for me to see then continues the story, “When they were finished with their artwork, they grabbed Anna, they did something unthinkable, there was a rope hanging down from over the wall. They tied her hands to the rope and flung her now frail body over the wall." The boy looks down at his hands and I watch a single tear roll down his cheek and fall into his palm.

"Did you try to find her? I ask in a hushed tone.

"Of course I tried. I still am trying. All of the trees are too far from the wall, and the wall is too high for me to get a rope over it. I have no idea how they got that other magical rope over there. I tried to go back to that rope but it was gone, it had disappeared. Presto!

I lye awake watching the stars in between some cracks in the roots above me, I wonder what happened to his sister? How did they get the rope over the wall? Why would they throw a small girl over the wall like that?

What is beyond the wall? 

The last question echoes over and over in my head. I have a sudden feeling that I have to figure this entire mystery out. Why haven't I heard about anybody being insecure and unsure about the wall? How had it even gotten there? Why would someone want to put a wall there? Was it to keep somebody out, or is someone keeping something in? 

I look up at Caleb, he had finally told me his name right before I retired to Anna's rug. He looks to be asleep, I guess I better turn in, too.

Caleb and I race through the forest, I dodge around the trees easily, but he stays in the clearing, along the stream. I duck underneath a pine branch that’s reaching towards the ground and drag my hand along the nearly black dirt for half a second. Its been a month since I met Caleb an we haven't been apart since. We are like two peas in a pod, the perfect team. My quiver of arrows bounces on my back and I hold my bow in my hand. Caleb carries two swords, ready to fight.

We probably look quite threatening, running through the forest like this, but its necessary, we have to be ready to strike. We have had good hunting all week, I can smell a hint of sharp winter on the autumn breeze, porcupine squirrels are gathering nuts and seeds like mad. If we are swift and quiet we can catch them in action.

A squirel scampers through the leaves in front of me. I freeze and caleb stops too. The squirrel stops right in my path and picks up a nut off the ground. It glances around and sees me. I swiftly raise my bow but its too late, it has all ready started up the tree. I follow the squirrel and let the string of my bow snap. The arrow spins in the air and strikes the squirrel's small body. 

"Well, that worked," Caleb smirks and walks past me towards the tree, I laugh and follow.

I eye my arrow at the very top of the tree, sticking out of the side of a porcupine squirrel. Caleb treads over to the base of the evergreen and squints up at it,

"Allright, go get it," he says in a playful tone. I smirk at him and start towards the tree. Its a huge sprawled out evergreen and it has a limited number of branches that are any where but near me. I quickly walk around the tree and find a branch closer to the ground. I stand on my tippy toes and my finger tips barely brush it. I crouch down low and then jump up to the first branch. I turn so that I have a hand on each sides of the branch, then I wrap my legs around it and twist myself so I’m right side up. finally I stand up and balance on the branch, "Well that was easy" I say to myself. I look at the next branch, It is to my left, much too far and high to grab and the only way to reach it will be to jump. I take a deep breath and leap from the branch with my arms out stretched and ready to grab the next branch. My hands hit the branch hard and I use my momentum to swing all the way around the branch and straddle it. I smile down at Caleb, while he chuckles and crosses his arms over his chest.

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