Free The Crisis by David Poyer

Nabil doesn’t feel good about leaving where he lost his sister and brother, but there’s no food and no water and this girl’s the only person around who seems to know what she’s doing. Only a few other refugees walk the high path. They speak differently than the children are used to, but enough are willing to share water that they can keep going, although hunger gnaws at his belly like an animal.
    But the rocks concentrate the sun and there’s no wind among them at all. He moves most of the time not knowing what he’s doing, and falls often. His knees and hands are covered with scabs that bleed when the next fall tears them off again.
    At last they come out onto a plain. So many other refugees are milling around he can’t believe it. They cover it like ants, some going in the same direction as he and the girl, others headed crosswise in long lines, and when they meet there’s shouting and sometimes fighting with machetes and even guns. He plods after her, thumb in his mouth, stumbling over rocks and dragging his weak foot in the sand.
    The air vibrates. Black snakes writhe along the horizon. The girl yanks at his arm. We have to go faster, she says. We shouldn’t be out here. She carries the knife all the time now, in a fist so she can stab with it. She’s like a black tarantula, Nabil thinks. He dogs her like a shadow of her black dress, panting. He asks where there’s water. Up ahead, she snaps. You better hurry up so there’s some left when we get there.
    There’s a pulsing beat in the air, as if the hills are fluttering on a clothesline. As if the whole earth’s fluttering in the air.
    What’s that? he says.
    An air-thing. Run.
    Are we going to the city?
    Just shut up and run, she says. You’d be dead right now if it wasn’t for me. Stop crying, you little Bantu worm.
    This is so true, except he’s not a Bantu, he shuts up and tries to run a few paces, but falls down. He starts to cry, then stops himself. Ghedi wouldn’t cry.
    He’s getting up when the noise comes in the air. The girl whirls, looking into the sun. He sees her from the back, standing in front of him, arms out, head lifted. The sun all around her, so all he can see is shape and light.
    All around them the people scream.
    When the loud noises stop and the sand and rocks stop flying and the smoke blows away he sits up and looks down at himself. His head’s ringing, his whole body’s shaking. As he looks down the shaking grows.
    From head to toe he’s covered in blood and meaty pieces like crushed tomatoes. Whatever struck the girl turned her into this paste that covers him and the ground around him. There’s just a crater where she stood, and one shoe.
    He cries for a while, but the sobs ebb. Crying doesn’t help. Nothing changes when he cries. When he walks, though, things change. Anyway, he doesn’t want to be here anymore. The ridge is too skyey. What if the air-thing comes back? He sobs again and tries to brush the meat off with his hands. The blood’s sticky. He’s so hungry. He sees the knife a few paces away. It’s lying on the sand. A small dirty hand’s still holding it. Still holding it tight.
    He’s so hungry. He puts his thumb in his mouth. Then he’s licking his hands, before he even knows he’s doing it.
    Then very slowly everything goes liquid, swirling, like hot bubbling sorghum porridge in a pot, swirling round and round.
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    THEN he’s inside something blue, a weird blue with letters on it. Letters, but different from the ones in Auntie’s book. The blue moves in waves. He’s intensely hot. He’s lying on something soft.
    Then he’s not lying, but sitting with a group of other boys. He puts a hand to his head. Something used to be there that isn’t anymore.
    Someone speaks in a language he doesn’t understand. A black man with a shiny can in his hand. He turns Nabil’s head