SnowStruck

   I’m tired. I'm so tired. I’ve been walking for hours and hours and hours. With no sign of my home. I feel constantly as if I am being watched. By wolves and bears. Just to lie down. To have a sweet relief from this persisting cold and fear.
   Sleeping in the snow is a bad idea. A terrible idea. An enticing idea. A convincing idea.
   Just to put my head down for a second… For one second…

   I’m dying.
   The cold closes in around my stiff body and I exhale. The water droplets in my breath crystallized around me in a shower of small icicles. All I can see is the thick sheet of ice surrounding my petrified body and pressing it to the ground.
   This is where I die.
   “Aurora!” 
   The voice is muffled by the layer of ice and I want to answer but the cold is suffocating.
   “I’m here.” My voice is near nothing and a shiver rocks my body as the heat of my breath leaves my body.
   “Aurora! Aurora!” 
   Suddenly, the ice cracks around me. The sharp end of an ice pick protrudes through the hole, narrowly missing my left ear.
   The light from the outside streams in through the hole and immediately my face begins to sting.
   “Aurora. She’s here!  Everybody! She’s over here, help!”
   The world is muffled. Ice has frozen in my ears, making it impossible to hear anyone.
   “Aurora.” The voice was calm now. And faintly familiar. “Can you move your finger? Can you show us you’re alive?”
    A hand reaches through the hole in the ice and taps my arm.
   The touch sends ripples of pain through my entire body. Like small firework lighting from my bicep to my ankles but I flinch ever so slightly. 
   “She’s alive! Everyone, help me get her out here.”
   A second pick joins the first, then a third as together they pick away at the frozen cage. For a terrifying few seconds sharp blades of freezing metal pick at me from every side, one scraping a hole in my thigh. I can feel the blood coming. 
   Then they break through.
   I fall out onto the frozen ground, feel the impact of my body hitting the ground like a distant thunderclap. See a ribbon of crimson blood dripping out onto the snow.
  Then I blackout.

   I can feel myself being lifted out of reality then thrown into the tossing, turning sea of pain. Surreal, terrible pain. 
   No, no, no… 
   Pain. And then… Then I feel relieved. Wave after wave of sweet, dreamless sleep falls over me and now… and now…
     I die.

Written by: Me

A Journey for Trade

   At the dead of night my mother’s yelling awakes me. Straining my ears to hear what it was, I realize my parents were in the middle of a serious conversation.
   “Because of our finance problems, we won’t be able to purchase food!” my mother yells, “You have to find a job, Timin! Or we won’t be able to live!” 
   “Shhh… quiet down, Akilah will awake to your yelling.” my father whispers, “I’ve tried to find a job many times, all of them are taken.”
Earlier, after serious thinking before I settled to sleep, I finally decided to go along with my plan to fix my parents’s problems.
​
   The night was calm and a small breeze blew against my face, smelling of the fresh spring air. I sneak out of my window, looking back at my room and thinking about the objects I must search for along my journey. I need to travel along the Silk Road, to find products I could buy and sell for much more money. I drop down on the ground with a loud thud and curse at myself for making a loud noise. I must not let my parents know I have left. They will try to stop me,  I start to think. I set off along the Silk Road, checking my map of the Road. According to my calculations, it’ll take a week to reach Baghdad, Iraq from here, Aleppo, Syria. I have all the food for the week’s journey. After for walking for about 10 hours, I stop to take a rest near a farm. I take in my surroundings, the sky was cloudy and it was around 50 degrees fahrenheit. Fortunately, I brought a blanket for cold temperatures. The area around me was fairly 𝐃𝐑𝐘 and there were many crops around, assuming they were wheat crops. I decide I need to sleep, so I lie my head down on the flood and pull up my blanket.
   I jerk awake. “Marhaba!” (“𝕙𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕠” in Syrian), a rough voice said from behind me, “Why is such a fine young woman like you traveling on the Silk Road?” I get up off the ground smooth out my clothing and turn my head and to take a good look at the fellow. The trader was around 40 years old and wore a musty colored kaftan & head wrap.  The sky was getting bright from the rising of the sun , it was a little after the break of dawn.
   “Marhaba,” I replied, “I’m searching for things which I shall trade for.”
   The man made a sour face, “What do you have to trade?” I showed the man a bottle of baharat, a spice from home and in return, he gave me a nod with his head. “I don’t have the recipe to make that spice and I used to always have it in my food as a child,” he smiled, remembering his childhood, “Would you like to trade that for specially made loaves of bread?”
   “Sure, why not?” I replied, with a smile too. I gave him the bottle, he fetched two loaves of bread for me from his home and gave them to me. 
    I began to walk away when he enthusiastically shouts, “Wait! Please stop by on your way back to trade again!”
   “Mashy!” (“𝕠𝕜𝕒𝕪” in Syrian) I reply, then continued on my way to Baghdad. 

   After around 3 days of my travels along the Silk Road, I arrive at Al-Qa’im, a city in Iraq. I travel through the city, looking for decent items to trade for. There were large crowds around different stands, many of the people at the stands were men and I instantly felt different from everyone here. I spot a young man trading silk and diamonds and jog up to him.
  “Marhaba, sir,” I say, “May I trade for a roll of silk and two diamonds?”
   “What do you have to trade for these precious items, little girl?” the bloke asks.
   “I have a variety of bottles containing spices from Syria.” I respond.
   “Why would a girl like you be traveling along the Silk Road and wanting these items? Why don’t you have your brother or father travel for your family?” he asks, more questions needing to be answered.
   “My family needs the money and they don’t know I’m here,” I reply, clearly irritated.
   “Fine, three bottles of some spices for the items you would like,” he says. I open my bag looking at the spices I have, and grab three of my finest. I hand them to the trader, placing them in his dirty hand. In return, he gives me a roll of silk, with a sling for the shoulder on it and two clear, blingy diamonds. I said goodbye to the man and went to sit on a stone bench to rest. I should travel back to my hometown now, I already have what I need, I decided. 

   I was walking at a normal pace along the Silk Road, having just left Al-Qa’im an hour ago. Suddenly, the sound of galloping filled my ears. Knowing there were bandits along the Road, I quickly started to run, as fast as I could. The sound got louder and louder until two dun colored horses cut in front of me. Two masked men rode the horses and they both had a gleaming look in their eyes. 
   “Hand us your bag and run off,” said the man on the right, he had a cracky voice like he was going through the age of voice change. I started to run again, the man on the left got off his horse, ran and grabbed my bag.
   “No! Please don’t, my family needs those!” I cried out.
   “Aw, little girl’s gonna cry now ain’t she. Waa, waa,” the man on the left mocked, his voice was deeper, like a grown man’s. I started to run,and didn’t stop until the men were a little speck I could barely see. I begin to cry, tears streaming down my face, eyes swelling. I needed those supplies to give to my parents to sell, I shouldn’t have let them take it, no, no, no, what should I do?, I think. What should I do?

By: Jasmine Hollingsworth