Free A Dream of Lights by Kerry Drewery Page B

never said, and now he would never know. My body shook and tears streamed down my face.
    I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t look away, couldn’t sit again to hide, couldn’t move. I glanced at my grandfather and he caught my eye. And I watched him very slowly and very deliberately move his head from one side to the other.
    But the words came again, and on the word ‘Fire’, the ropes at my father’s legs were broken and he fell, limp and lifeless, into the bag at his feet.
    My lungs and my chest emptied as I shouted out my anger from the top of the hill, my words, that I can’t even remember, carrying across the villagers and the soldiers and the body of my father and my grandparents until I had nothing left inside me.
    Everybody stopped and everybody turned and silence fell over all of us.
    Out of all the people in the village, my eyes fell on Sook, and I watched the leer on his face slip as he saw me. I hoped he could feel my hatred pouring out to him as we stared at each other.
    That face. That face I’d imagined in darkness so many nights, that I could recognise in bleary moonlight, that had given me dreams to wish for. How could I have been so wrong? I thought.
    Mutterings gathered, the babble of children, the bark of an order, but it was all background noise to whatever was passing between me and Sook. But then I heard it, the one voice shouting to me. “Run!”
    I turned and saw Grandfather on his feet. “Run!” he shouted again, and I shot a glance from him to the soldiers reloading their guns, to my father’s body, and back to Sook.
    And I ran.
    With fire in my belly, and fear in my heart, I ran.
    With my legs driving and pumping forward and forward, I ran. Down the back of the hill and over the grass, across the fields and towards the school. Shouting echoing behind me. My feet pounding on the dirt road, my lungs screaming at me to stop.
    I ran past the greenhouses, a shot ringing out, shattering the glass at my side as it missed me. I tried to speed up. Didn’t know where I was going apart from forward and away. Behind me I could hear the thudding of heavy boots, shouts of stop. But I carried on and on, my lungs burning, my feet stumbling on ruts and lumps in the path.
    I ran.
    I heard the bang of a gun again and I screamed, but felt no pain and knew it had missed. I was tiring, no energy in my legs of lead, no air in my lungs. I tripped and stumbled, staggered, fell to the ground. I tried to scramble away, the sound of feet closing in on me, tried to pull myself up. But something grabbed my leg and pulled me backwards, my skirt rolling up as I clung and struggled and clawed and kicked and screamed and shouted. Desperate to get away.
    He spun me over on to my back and put his boot on my chest, and I looked up at him, the rays of the sun coming out from behind his head, like a poster of our Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il. But the brightness obscured his face into shadow, and I could barely see him, and for only a fraction of a second did I see the butt of his gun lift above my head.

“Where are we?” My voice was strained, my throat sore, my lips dry and cracked. A pain throbbed in my head and lights flashed behind my closed eyelids.
    “Ssshhh, child,” my grandfather’s voice replied, and I felt the rough skin of his hand brush hair from my face. “Keep your eyes closed and rest.”
    I felt tired and confused, could feel a blanket wrapped round me, the rough fibres rubbing on my cheek, could smell exhaust fumes, sense the moving air, knew we were moving as my body jostled back and forth, and bumped up and down and an engine grumbled underneath me.
    We’re on the back of a truck , I thought.
    My body ached and groaned at me as I tried to remember what had happened, and I moved my hand up to my head, felt a lump, bruised and tender. I winced in pain.
    “It’s good to see you awake,” Grandfather whispered, taking my hand and stroking it. I curled up against him like a baby, my head lifting up and