The Old City Wall

In the days before gun powder was invented, the days where the only way to take a city was to lay siege on it with battering rams, trebuchets and giant catapults; the old city wall was built. It was in the days before limestone mortar had been invented and when various types of ceramic mud were the norm - used to built the wall with giant stones carved from quarries several weeks travel away.

This wall in the old abandoned part of the city was one of those. The city has expanded since those times, but this part of the city remains ignored, almost forgotten. Something bad happened here. Something so horrible that even the street animals avoid this area of the city and the city's underbelly only enters if they have no other choice.

The wall is thicker than three houses are long, built with so many layers of brick and different kinds of mortar that even the historians get confused as to exactly how old this wall was. It could even be the wall that was built in a time predating the founding of the city. The wall that ancient, brittle manuscripts allude to as the Flooding Wall.

The Flooding Wall is thought to have first been built to stop the two rivers surrounding the city island from flooding it during flood season. Over time, the land was built and razed and built and razed, until the ground of the island lies high above the river level even during flood season. Who knows what lays beneath the present layer of daily trodden, hard packed dirt?

The wall still bears scorch marks and melted glass from a time not recorded and nobody remembers, so far back in the city's memory that only the early bricks and stones could tell the story. Human bones protrude from some sections of the wall and all sorts of scars can be seen in the mud render that has been cracked and chipped in many places.

But it's because of the ghost stories and unexplainable things that happen in the night that makes this place relatively safe for a homeless young girl, unafraid and not at all superstitious. This part of the city whispers old secrets and stories to her and she just accepts them. The ghosts and supernatural happenings hold their breath, hiding when she passes by. They see what ordinary people cannot.

Ordinary people look and see a scarred, undersized street urchin. The ghosts see a rising warrior with growing authority. The oxymoron has the city shake its head, but the city's stones are in need of a new hero. Few are born, few answer the call and even fewer survive to achieve their potential.

Ok, I'm bored. This was a boring piece. Now I will sit back and reflect upon it and see where it went wrong. I can already see many problems with it.

Plans go awry

So I had a timetable. So I should have gone to classes. So I should have listened when they told me there were consequences, but none of that matters anymore now, does it?

Plans have a tendency to go awry.

I was originally planning to go to the once a week practice, but... stuff happens.

At first, I thought I'd just skip one week. There was a new recipe to try out and I wanted to see whether it would work. I'd ended up with 5 different pies and had trouble even giving them away. You could barely cut them with a knife, they were so hard. I guessed I wasn't cut out to be a pie baker. Give me a fruit to carve or a salad to make up any day. Baking was not my forte.

The next week, there was a garage sale that I got caught up in. Another week, I just didn't feel like going out in the rain. Then it was the washing that needed to be done, groceries that needed to be bought or the floor to be mopped. After a few months, I completely forgot about it and the people I had originally gotten along with so well. I'd stopped answering their phone calls, emails and texts. They stopped bothering me too.

Since I didn't go and couldn't be bothered about classes in case I ran into certain people, it wasn't long before I stopped leaving the house unless the cupboards and fridge were absolutely bare. It was almost painful getting changed and then crossing the threshold. Just getting out the door was a 2hour trial that left me panting and sweaty. By the time I had bought my groceries, my clothes would be soaked and I'd be exhausted with the effort of functioning in relatively normal society again.

In the house, there was nobody but me and the growing pile of bills at the door. The water stopped running. The money ran out. The electricity stopped working. I didn't care. It's not like the school cared either. Schools are like that. They talk about caring for their students, but the truth is, they only want your money. If you don't go, nobody's going to go looking for you. Why should they care? You're only one in thousands of other students who are better, smarter and more driven than you are. They only liked bright, motivated people anyway. Smart people like me who could only stand in the shadows and not talk well? We got forgotten. We didn't stand out enough.

The world is dark and silent. I'm afraid to leave the house. I never thought that those few threats could affect me this strongly, but here I am. A stinking mess. Dying of hunger, thirst and anxiety.

Maybe she'd just been joking. She'd only said it in an offhand manner, but I'd known her since we were in primary school. She'd been serious, but phrased it in such a way that all the others had thought it was just a joke. She never joked with things like that though. It had been a command. Unless maybe I was just taking it too seriously.

It wasn't my fault her sister died. It wasn't my fault her brother took his life when he couldn't take the guilt anymore. It wasn't my fault both our parents died. She thinks it is. Maybe she just needed someone to blame. I don't know. All I know is that I think I'm dying and nobody knows. Nobody cares. Nobody would even be able to get in after I'd barricaded all the doors and windows after receiving her text messages all those months ago. I didn't bother to try recharge it after it had run out of battery.

The only problem was that if I died, she won. They won. That was the problem that really ate at me. How could I go out on her terms? Their terms?

I had ignored them when they told me I shouldn't tell my parents. Ignored them when I had told her we should all go on a holiday with our families. Ignored them when I hadn't stuck to the timetable they had given me. Ignored them when I insisted on trying to join the club.

Too late now. Too late for her. Too late for my family. Too late for her family. Too late for our friendship.

Whatever I had been planning to do with my time left, I wasn't sure. I couldn't remember anymore. Didn't care. Couldn't remember how to care. Even if I called the ambulance, they wouldn't be able to get in. Even if they could and saved me, I'd have to deal with how much it all cost afterwards. And I had no money left. They'd taken it all.

I didn't want to die. I'd fought and failed with every attempt.

It's no secret that I'm a weakling and a coward. I'm easily scared.

I don't want to die, but I can see no other way out of it. Not when every step out my door brings me back to their attention. They're always out there waiting now. As if they can smell it on me. They're just waiting for it. That way, I won't be able to pass on their secrets to anyone.

Their secrets are nothing small. Only a few burglaries. A few loaded dice. A few muggings. A few drug deals. A few rapings. A few murders. Nothing small at all. The police would love to catch them all, but if they missed even a single one, she would be dead before I was. They would probably make me watch. This was the only way I could protect her and she didn't even realise it. Or maybe she did and didn't care. She hadn't been a witness. I had managed to keep her safe from it all. They'd promised she would never know.

Was it worth it? This sacrifice? I'd never taken part, but I had known and seen everything. Too scared to leave. Too much of a coward to do anything. They'd dragged me along, probably because they wanted a scapegoat in case anything went wrong and I was already under their thumb.

There was no point even picking up the phone. The line was long dead. The phone company had cut services after I couldn't pay anymore, but I tried it anyway. There wasn't even a tone. Crawling took so much effort, but I can't die without at least trying to get some revenge, right? I mean, if I was going to die, I should at least do it in style and do it for a reason.

If only her life wasn't still hanging in the balance.

Maybe I'd still make it to the police station. It was night. There was no light coming in through the cracks around the windows. They might have given up on watching my house. I could slip out the back, over the fence. Go through the neighbour's garden and emerge out a different street. If I had enough energy left.

If I didn't do anything, they might still kill her. After they'd tortured her and taken her apart. It was the sort of thing they might do, just for fun. I wish I'd never met them. Never let myself accidentally offend one and then fall into debt with them with my mounting 'offenses'. They'd set me up on purpose. I knew that now. I wish I'd realised at the time and then I wouldn't have gotten so many people killed. It was my fault. I deserved to die.

But not before the police got a hold of them.

Goodness. Where was this determination coming from? Since I had a little bit of motivation left, I hoped it would be enough for this night time journey to the cops. Maybe I'd end up in prison myself, but in all likelihood, I was unlikely to be left alive for long. Maybe that was for the best.

In any case, live or die, I was going to have to make the effort. One last ditch attempt.

There was heavy thumping on my front door.

"Police! Open up!"

Or not.

Didn't I tell you I was a coward?






This is a work of fiction, in case you haven't already worked that out. Any accidental similarities to anything or anyone in real life is truly accidental, since I'm writing this while half asleep when I was supposed to have been finishing my assignment.

That's right. I went back to uni. Eight years later, after saying that I'd probably never go back, I have. It is better and worse than I remember it and how am I going to submit this assignment on time if I'm still procrastinating?

Working to live, studying and doing research all at the same time is not good for a person that's already burnt out and feels like they've had enough of everything. A note of wisdom for future researchers out there. Do not go into research if you're already burnt out and emotionally unstable. It is a baaaad idea. I wish someone had told me that earlier.