Ancil“Don’t kill us!” Shouted the female. “We didn’t do nothing wrong!”
“Don’t worry; I’m not going to kill you,” I assured them. “Right now, I’m here trying to survive myself.”
Their tense shoulders seemed to relax as they heard me speak. They hadn’t dared look towards me before but now, as they heard my voice, they slowly turned and looked me in the face. Maybe it was an energy or some sort of human power, but they could have sensed my honesty, and I sensed theirs. We were all just trying to survive.
“Is it safe to come out?” The male asked.
“Well, for now,” I said while looking around to ensure that it was, in fact, safe.
The two then slowly and cautiously climbed out of the dumpster and out onto the streets. As they saw the dead bodies on the ground, they cringed.
“Oh my god!! This is much worse than I thought,” the female said while looking at the corpses.
“Who would do this?” asked the male.
The female let out a loud sigh. “I don’t know. I’m just waiting for that moment when I wake up from this nightmare.” She then turned to me. “By the way, my name is Megan, and this is my boyfriend, Rajiv,” she continued.
Megan wasn’t really a common name anymore, but I had met a few people with the name before. She had radiant light brown skin that seemed as though it was colored by the sands of Egypt and her body was well-shaped and athletic. Her eyes were brown, and her hair was silky black. She was a typical brown-skinned Afro-centric female, but there were minor signs of other races in her. I couldn’t really pinpoint the signs, but it was evident that they were there. That’s how most people are these days, especially in the Twin Republic. No one was really purebred anymore. Years of interracial breeding just led to a completely mixed-up society. In my mind, Megan was absolutely perfect and I couldn’t ask for a better distraction in a dumpster during one of the biggest massacres in my country’s history.
But, she had a boyfriend.
Rajiv was nothing shy of East Indian, but he, too, showed some signs of other races. He was primarily fair-skinned, and a bit chubby in the belly area, which told me his love for food was alive and well. But his fat was complemented greatly by the muscles most evident around his body. He wasn’t the kind of guy that I would want to take on in a fight. I had some muscles from years of football training but slender, athletic muscle, not big and bulky like Rajiv.
“And what’s your name?” Megan asked
“Most people call me Jed, but my real name is Jedakiah.”
“Nice to meet you, Jed,” Megan said before she turned around to examine the carnage around us some more.
“By the way,” Rajiv started. “How come you’re still alive?”
“I hid in my father’s van the whole time. Things are kind of safe now, but last night was different. It had a bunch of weird people dressed up in old carnival costumes.”
“Me and my girl heard the whole thing, but we didn’t see anything. The way it all happened, you are really lucky to be alive, hoss,” Rajiv said.
Hoss, I didn’t hear that word a lot anymore. It was an old Trinidadian word used to refer to a person. Kind of like Dude or Bro.
“I know,” I responded. “My father wasn’t so lucky, though.”
“Sorry to hear that,” he replied.
Every so often, I glanced over at Megan, who stood there secluded from the conversation in her own deep personal thoughts. I was trying to find something to say to get her talking again. I liked her voice.
“How did you all manage to survive?” I asked while looking at Megan, hoping that she would have responded.
“Well, we jumped into the dumpster when everything started,” Rajiv answered. “They came from all the sides of the city, even from the sky, so nobody could have escaped. It was hundreds of them. Some of them had guns, and some of them had pitchforks. From what I see, they killed all the police officers first, and they didn’t stop till everybody was dead. All me and my girl were hearing was people bawling and screaming, then after a while, the place got quiet.”
“And where are your parents?” I said, looking at Megan again.
But again, Rajiv answered, “Well, my parents are living in San Fernando and her parents….”
“Oh no!!!” Megan interrupted abruptly. “My mother and my little sister are home!” She didn’t sound very happy to say that her mother and sister were home. You could hear the panic in her voice.
“What happened?” I asked Megan, but she was too flustered to answer.
