FALLING FOR MY ENEMY

Weak people are nothing but ballast, their place is in the ground. The strong rule this world.” The first time Father whispered those words to me was the day we buried mom. It was cold and dark and the rain fell endlessly. He'd told me the skies mourned her loss too but then he pulled me to him and told me those exact words — “Слабые лишь балласт, их место в земле. Сильные правят этим миром,” which translates to “Weak people are nothing but ballast, their place is in the ground. The strong rule this world.” I didn't understand what he meant by that until we landed in a sugar workers settlement in the Bateyes. The Bateyes, especially in the sugar workers’ settlement in the Dominican Republic, weren't your typical suburbs in America or London. They were a prison with no bars. Just a mile of rotting cane, blistering sun, and a silence that screamed. From the moment I stepped out of the truck, I felt like the land itself was holding its breath, like hope had once tried to live here and died. The houses looked like they'd been abandoned by God, leaning on each other for balance, patched with rusted tin and old tarps that flapped like tired flags in the wind. Children played barefoot in the dust but there was something hollow in their laughter, like even joy had a time limit here. “What are we doing here, father?” I'd sign to father as he stepped out beside me. “You'll see,” he tucked his hat closer and moved ahead. “Come on.” I gulped nervously and followed after him while leaving our bodyguards to keep watch. As we walked, I couldn't help but stare at the roads. They looked like scars: deep, dry, cracks that mirrored the skin of the workers. Workers who were men, women and children my age walked like they carried the weight of the world on their backs. None of them looked up. None of them spoke unless they had to. It wasn't just poverty. This was a despair that had become a routine. This wasn't just a neighbourhood. It was a cage dressed like a village. “Julien!” Father called after me and I hurried along. He gestured to a broken building where a barrel-chested man dressed in a red T-shirt and khaki pants stood. I nodded and followed beside him. They exchanged a few words. I couldn't understand what they were saying. At first I thought my hearing aid wasn't working until I realised it wasn't English. Neither was it Russian. “This way,” Winnie the Pooh said. I called the Dominican man Winnie because I don't know his name and because looked like Winnie, the Pooh, only uglier. As we entered the building, I held my hands to my nose. Father shot me a glare and I peeled off my hands. It wasn't just the broken building that terrified me or the smell of fermenting cane, it was their eyes. The way the people looked at me like they'd already died inside and were waiting for their bodies to catch up. One of them, a little girl my age, stared at the Winnie the Pooh in my hand and I held it close to my chest, scared that she might reach out and snatch it from me. I couldn't lose Winnie. He was the only thing that reminded me of mom. “We're here.” Ugly Winnie said, pointing at a rusty metallic door. “Open it.” Father said. Ugly Winnie's eyes dropped to mine and he grimaced. “You sure you want the boy to look?” Why doesn't he want me to look? What's inside? “I don't pay you to ask questions. Open the f*****g door.” Father said in his calm voice. He'd only use that voice when he was pissed. Piss is not only used to describe urine but also anger. Wei explained that to me yesterday over dinner. Ugly Winnie grabbed the doorknob and squeezed. The door let out a weak groan as he pushed it in. When the door fully opened, my lunch rose to my throat and I hurled right there on the floor. “Ease up, boy!” Father smacked me on the back and I dry heaved. The air was impossible to breathe in. It smelled of rot, blood, and death. I'd recognize that smell any day. I perceived them coming from my father's underground bunker sometimes. Megan and Wei had gotten used to the smell but I could never. Not when the corpse used to be human like us. “Here,” Ugly Winnie passed me a bottle of water and I grabbed it. Father swatted it from my hand and grabbed my wrist. “Sir!” The man outside called out but father silenced him with a glare. “What do you see, Julien?” Father asked, resting one cold hand on my shoulder. “D - death..” I said immediately, my voice trembling. “Wrong!” Father smacked me at the back of my neck. The pain throbbed but I dare not wince. I've learned not to. “What. Do. You. See. Boy?!” He growled, enunciating every word. This time I looked. I stopped trembling and scrutinized my surroundings. At first, all I saw were bodies. Limp, shredded things scattered like garbage, soaked in blood, their limbs twisted in ways nobody could be. The air was thick with rot and silence, the kind that followed screams too loud for the wall to hold. I thought they were meat. Just corpses. Gone. But then I looked closer, at the town fingernails, the bloodied chains, the frozen eyes open with defiance even in death. They had… fought. Бог, they had fought. Бог, they had fought for their freedom. And they had lost. Because they were weak. Father's hold on my shoulder tightened. “What do you see, Julien?” My hands curled into fists and I turned around to face him. “Yes?” His icy-blue eyes stared into mine as he awaited the answer he'd long wanted to hear. I lifted my hands and signed carefully, with purpose, with rage. “I see weaklings.” Father's eyes lit up. “Excellent, Julien. In this world, the weak don't die with honour, Кровь моя. They die nameless, faceless, and alone.” He turned to Ugly Winnie and nodded. Ugly Winnie stepped forward as though leading the way to another door. There's more? He stopped right at the door and looked down at me as if to say ‘get ready for another vomiting’. I don't return his gaze. My eyes are on the door, on what could possibly be lurking behind that door. This time father opened the door himself. And Слава Богу, it didn't smell like death. Instead, it reeked of that familiar metallic tang. Blood. It was nothing new. The stench of sweat and blood, broken windows, the ripped carpets like someone had clawed at it with their bare hands. I'd seen rooms like this before. Rooms where pain lived and where silence screamed. But then I heard it. Drip. Drip. Drip. Blood. Falling from the ceiling. I looked up and a silent gasp left my lips. Two girls. No older than seven, my age, or maybe younger, hung from the ceiling over wooden chairs that looked like they'd tip over beneath them. They weren't dead.