Ch.1

I was crouched, sitting with a group of my friends, when we arrived at Baronis. The name may sound exotic but we weren't on a vacation.

We had been on the train for 3 days and were glad to get off. After the 1st day on the train the crap bucket in our cabin overflowed. Since then most people just went wherever they wanted to. Me and the 3 friends I was with claimed a corner of the cabin, it was only slightly covered in feces.

I looked at my friends, Jennifer, Cheryl and Doug. They saw the disgusted look on my face. They tried not to come into contact with me because I had contracted a skin disease from having to sleep in the feces. There were about 50 people in our cabin and 20 of us had contracted the disease.

My skin was flaking and I had a bunch of open sores. I felt like a snake when it sheds it's skin. I knew that I probably wouldn't make it unless I got to a hospital, but there were no hospitals anywhere near us. That was because we were going to a concentration camp.

There had been 3 other people with us, but we had been split up when we had to get on the trains. I worried for them because they were 3 girls, 3 girls that I really cared about.

When the train lurched to a stop Cheryl flew into me and I was overwhelmed at the feel of human skin, it had been 2 days since I had had contact with another human body. I was so startled, mostly from pain, that I jumped back a little bit.

Suddenly the doors to the train opened and there was a guard standing there. We were ushered off the train and herded like cattle to where we were supposed to go. The men were being split into one camp and the woman into another. We were almost to the splitting point when my knees nearly collapsed. I leaned into Jennifer and she didn't pull away, probably because she realized that there was a slim chance that we would ever see eachother again. "Stay strong," I told her, "No matter what happens."

Then a guard pulled us apart and shoved me towards the men's camp. I looked back and took my last glimpse of Jennifer.