Free Heartfelt Sounds by C.M. Estopare

cries out into the night.
    They're dead—they're all dead.
    Akane tried to save me.
    I could still feel her hands wrapping around my throat. Choking me with pretty fingers. Silky skin snakes around my neck. Fingers tighten.
    White hot pain explodes from the center of my back as a heel prods me.
    “Keep up with the others, runt.” A hard voice. Steel. “Next time, it won't be my boot. Go on.”
    I turn to try and catch a glimpse of his face but I trip into the snow. Sharp crystals bite into my hands when I catch myself and as steel slides from its scabbard, I'm on my feet and running towards the shuffling group up ahead.
    Where are they taking us?
    The question is murmured over and over—it's screamed, and the screamer howls in pain when he's cuffed. We are together in this darkness—this fear as the wind howls a chilling swansong that pecks at our ears and quickens the beating of our hearts.
    They're all dead.
    Why can't I go with them?
    I don't—I don't want to be here.
    But if I run…
    Bodies fan out around me—there's barely any room to place one foot in front of the other. Soldiers snake around the outer edges of the group to catch runners. To catch the slow ones and make them keep up. An eerie white blankets all, covering the large slanting roofs of buildings with black windows. Where the ghosts of old families still prowl, their spirits left behind when they fled in fear of this army. When they fled in fear of invaders.
    We should have ran. We should have left.
    Why didn't we leave?
    Did it matter?
    Did it matter to think of such things?
    They're gone. They're gone now.
    And nothing matters. Not anymore.

13. Bitter Winds
    I do not stop my tears. I cannot—and they freeze upon my face as the wind bites brutally. Shrieking past my ears as I tuck my chin and hug myself tightly. As a shivering body slams into me from behind—pushing me into the next man who ambles forward. Loses his balance and rights himself before it's too late.
    In this march, too many have been trampled.
    In these miles we have walked, too many have fallen out. They are taken by the unforgiving hands of winter—freezing by the roadside come the dawn.
    But the sun hasn't risen yet and the night carries on as we move towards an unknown destination.
    I am not even sure if we are in Felicity anymore. The buildings have petered out. A high wall of wood stands strong on the horizon and I think— this must be the border— as the man in front of me moans. Falls. I move to help him, but I'm pushed forward from behind. Forced to keep going.
    To step on him.
    He doesn't even bother to scream when I walk on him. When his wrist snaps beneath my meager weight. When the group moves on, stomping him into quiet dust.
    I bite my tongue to keep from crying—but the tears come anyway. The salt stinging my face as the wind bites and blows and howls.
    When the sun begins to peek over the horizon, silver clouds roll in. Swallowing the sky as we pass beneath a monstrous wooden archway, going through Felicity's border and onto a dirt road that's cut into a field of yellow grass. Dead grass.
    This is when the rain comes.
    The water hardening into drops of icy sleet.
    A crack ripples through the group, the sound coming from my right and I think of Chima. Her head crumbling in on itself. The bones snapping—crackling as Akane rams her heel into the poor girl's skull. Again, and again, and again—
    Acidic bile burns my throat as it rushes up. I think to keel over and vomit—but then I remember the hundreds who have fallen out of formation only to be trampled. To be left on the roadside to die.
    I hold it in. Swallow it.
    I've—I've grown sick of myself.
    My fear—my cowardice.
    I should have gone with them.
    I should have died in that room!
    But these men took that away from you—it was they who killed Akane—these people brought this on you. These people—
    I feel something warm, now. Something grows deep inside my chest and it strengthens me.
    Makes me