I ran down the street, people chasing me. I turned corners as fast as a horse. I tried to lose people that are coming for me, I don't want to steal, I have to. My parents are dead, all I have is my big brother Adam. We live on the streets, just the two of us. Without our parents we were lost, we starved and were afraid. My brother took action and stole bread from a bakery man named Israel. My brother looked so funny running on his skinny, chicken legs after we both hadn't eaten for a week. Water was easy to get, we just drank from streams. I took a right turn, I'm losing them. I vanished as I turned the corner. Eli the almighty, also known as me, has outran, yet again, the fruit stand guy. I sat down in an alley, no one was in sight. I took out an apple and dug in. It was crisp and juicy.

"Now this is good!" I said licking my lips.

I got up to go to where my brother and I usually stay… in the ghetto. We have to live in a ghetto because the Nazis made us. They made it look like we'd be safe there, but me and my brother really know what's going on; they'll kill every last one of us. Just like momma… and poppa.

I hurled the goodie filled sack over the wall. My brother caught the sack on the other side and dug in. He looked in the sack looking for his favorite, I made sure to get it each time.

"Looking for this?" I asked holding a round, vivid red ball.

"Oh, that's not fair, give it to me!" Adam ordered me.

"Only if you let me get the comfy blanket tonight!" I declared.

"Fine, the rug's not that bad anyway," Adam said.

"Yes!" I said excitedly and handed Adam the gumball.

As we walked over to the place we stay I gave a starving child half a loaf of bread. I felt bad for him and didn't want him to starve. I ripped through the hard crust into the fluffy inside and tossed it to him. Too hungry to say thanks, he wolfed down the bread. Hopefully he'd have enough strength now to get food for himself. A plethora of people starve here because of the lack of food provided. That's why I steal because I like to be on a full stomach… and it's fun making people chase me screaming, "That loaf of bread was mine!" or "I wanted to shove my face full with that smoked ham!". Not really the second thing I said, but you get the point.

"Are we there yet?" I asked, my patience span is very small you know.

"Give me two seconds and we'll be right there!" Adam argued.

This time we didn't go to where I expected, we went to an unfamiliar house. My brother did a weird knock on the door.

"What are you-"

"You and I are joining these people that are building up a resistance. Let's talk about this when we get inside. Alright?" He asked.

I nodded. Still confused I thought about it. Resistance, what did that mean?

Someone opened the door but stopped me in my tracks. It was a tall, strong looking man.

"Who is this?" the tall man asked.

"This is my brother," Adam replied.

He took my sack from me and grabbed the other half of the bread I took. I was furious now. First, we don't go to the place I like to call home. Next, we are joining a resistance that could probably get us killed. And finally, this tall idiot just took my food.

"Okay! I am past my breaking point! Gimme it back tall man!" I yelled blowing off steam. I realized how loud I said that and hoped no one heard me besides those two.

"Get in here!" tall man said grabbing me by my shirt.

My neck started to hurt as the collar of my shirt yanked against it. I started to choke when he let me go.

"This bread tastes familiar, where did you get it from?" he asked.

"I got it from this bakery called, Israel's Tasty Cakes, why?" I said between coughs.

"That's my bakery, my name is Israel!" Israel claimed.

"It must be a coincidence then," I said.

Israel turned his attention away from me and talks to Adam. I checked out the house as they talked. A photo was above the fireplace, it was a family. I noticed that these people were nowhere to be seen in the ghetto, they must have been killed. It's a sad thing, the longer we stay in here the less people there are, the more people die. I could see why these people are building a resistance. To give the people in the ghetto a chance to see what their lives can become. It's not fair to be cooped up like chickens, only to be slaughtered when the day comes. I felt less pity on us and more hatred on them, the Nazis.

"Eli?" Adam asked.

"Oh, yeah what is it?" I replied.

"Well, Israel says we can have the basement for tonight," he said.

"Good, I'm beat," I said yawning.

We headed down to the basement. Israel provided us with two blankets and a pillow. We layed on the floor for about an hour, until Adam fell asleep. I was still awake though, it's very uncomfortable being in a place you usually don't stay at. All of a sudden, I heard some other people talking upstairs. It was hard to make out what they said but I heard something about needing more guns. They also said that the Nazis would pay for what they did. Finally, the weariness of the day grew onto me and I fell asleep.

The next morning was pretty chaotic. The house was lively and people were everywhere. Some men were bringing in filled sacks. I thought they might've just had food in them, but I saw the barrel of the gun sticking out of one of the sacks. Was this the guns the man was talking about last night? There was a plethora of more people than there was last night too. Had they've gotten more men this morning? All these questions were circling in my head. They're actually building a resistance, this was more serious than I had thought. Adam wasn't in the room so I expected him to be somewhere else. I walked around the house looking for him. He was eating with people upstairs, many people are around the table. His back was pressed up against the wall and he was eating an apple. I went to stand next to him.

"What are they doing?" I asked.

"Making a game plan, we should be fighting tomorrow," Adam said.

"Tomorrow?" I asked, "why tomorrow? That's so soon.

"Yeah, do you have a problem with that?" he asked.

Before I could answer a bell went off. We had to go to the courtyard. It was raining when we went outside, and the ground was muddy. Everyone lined up in a straight line. If you didn't line up perfectly they'll shoot you. They might've took a few of us, like 100. There's about that many of us per train car that have been taken. Hopefully I don't get taken because when others are taken, they get "showers". But many of us knew what they were now, gas chambers. An easy way to get rid of us. This guy had escaped from there a month back, he told how everyone in the place were dying from whatever substance that came out of the shower faucet. All of a sudden, I heard the sound of a gunshot and a blood-curdling scream.

"Whoa, someone got shot…" I mumbled stating the obvious.

I saw a nazi who was walking up and down the aisles of us Jews. Some of these people weren't even jews, they were just caught up in this mess. There are some gypsies and other people who weren't supposed to be in this… situation if you'd like to call it that. Honestly, I think that no one should have been in this mess. It's not fair we get attacked and I think others have realized this too. Another gunshot sounds and this next scream sounded like nails on a chalkboard. This was too much for me, I wanted to leave as soon as possible. A nazi was coming down my aisle. I was nervous as each step sploshed in the mud. I was drenched in the rain, and my clothes were soaked. Too bad I had nothing else to wear. I looked like a pig that rolled in mud. I noticed an elderly man who got on his knees to pick up something the nazi dropped.

"German scum…" the man whispered.

The next thing I heard was a whoosh, the man had been whipped. He howled in pain, but I couldn't watch. I turned my head away and heard the whoosh of the whip. All of a sudden the whooshing stopped. I looked back over to notice the man with the whip walking toward me. I was petrified. As the man grew close I became anxious, I needed to make a decision. It was either I get beat or I make a run for it. My brother who was a couple aisles ahead of me looked back and saw the man coming for me. He signaled his head to the end of my aisle. I knew what I had to do, but I was afraid. He was twenty feet away now, no not twenty… fifteen. Just as I was about to make a mad dash to the closest house the man was right in front of me. He knelt down to my height and was no more than two inches away from my face.

"You don't want to see that man in pain… hm?" he asked raising an eyebrow.

"No," I said under my breath still looking at the end of the aisle. I didn't want to make eye contact after what I would do next.

"We are going to whip him again and you will watch, right?" he asked taunting me.

It happened so fast I didn't even know what had just happened until I was ten blocks away. I had given that man a right cross. Not a good one, but enough for the message to come across to him. Don't mess with me. I realized the man was chasing me down a gun in his hand. I pass the house my brother and I had stayed in the night before. Israel stood in the door frame and realized my situation. I wondered why he wasn't with the rest of us in the aisles. He must've been talking with the men upstairs. I passed the door frame and Israel told me he'd take care of this. He stepped in the man's way and I booked it across the corner. I heard a loud bang of a gun. I stopped in my tracks. Had Israel just got shot? I peeked around the corner to look at the problem. I expected to see Israel's motionless body on the ground, but what I saw put me in pure utter shock. Israel put the gun back by his side, and the man in front of him fell to the ground. Israel had just shot him. I remembered the guns coming in this morning. Israel must've gotten one.

"Holy moly… can I have one?" I asked.

"Let me think about it, you may be better with something else. Those legs of yours go pretty fast," He said.

Out of the blue I heard screaming, but this screaming wasn't from being shot. It sounded like a war cry, like, "Raaaaa!". Adam came around the corner with a gun in his hand.

"Why does everyone have a pistol but me?" I asked furiously.

"Well, I got this from a dead nazi," Adam said.

A dead nazi… that's what the screaming was about. The nazis got ambushed. I thought the day was tomorrow, was now better than later? Was there a change in plans? Or had Adam lied to me?

"You lied…" I said in realization. How could he do that to me?

"It was for your protection, if you got involved you might've died!" Adam said standing his ground. He'd peek around the corner and shoot a bullet from time to time.

"I could've helped, I can handle a gun!" I argued.

"Since when, Eli… since when?" He asked.

"Eli you need to relax, I have a bowie knife you can use," Israel said.

This cheered me up and I decided to use it. It was big and shiny. The tip was really sharp and the handle was made of leather. I noticed more of us dying now. Adam knew we were getting overrun and more germans piled in the ghetto. We needed to get out some way and fast. All of a sudden, a molotov was thrown in a crowd of people. Adam, Israel, and I took off towards the sewers. We took off the large metal disc and climbed in. Adam came in last and topped the hole with the metal cover. We ran in the sewers, Adam trailing behind us, with other people.

"The nazis are coming!" screamed a woman.

The hole reopened and a circular object came flying in. I was curious as to what it would've done, but I didn't stick around to find out. The ceiling of the sewer shook and a loud boom crashed down the narrow hallways of the sewer. It must've been some type of bomb. Nazis chased us in and shot their guns at us. Bodies instantly hit the floor and it was a fight to survive. We were at the end of the sewer and I started climbing up the ladder. One nazi screamed, "Go around them and trap them!" I didn't want to know what that meant, but I would soon find out. I did find out really soon, we were surrounded by nazis. They lead us to our doom. There was no escape. We passed the ghetto and saw the countless dead bodies. We evidently lost, but it hadn't meant that no one escaped, I imagined someone running far from this place and not looking back. Then, we were piled into train cars. The windows were small and high up. I was almost squished to the bottom, but Israel lifted me up and put me on his shoulders. Now we waited for something we expected, our certain doom.

It was a long ride to the camp (our apparent destination), but we made it there. We had been so close to freedom. Israel was taken a different way than Adam and I. I hoped he would turn out fine. The nazis told us to walk into what was a small room. We waited for a few minutes. Was this some kind of jail or something? Nothing was done as we waited for five minutes. I expected something to come out of the thing on the ceiling, but nothing happened. They appeared to be sprinklers, maybe something where a substance would come out of. We sat in silence, some people murmuring of death that was soon to come. Was I going to die here? All of a sudden gunshots were fired. What was going on? More were shot and then someone messed with the door from the other side. When if finally opened, I saw a familiar friend, Israel. People charged out, while I stood in shock.

"What is happening?" I asked.

"When I heard they were going to kill everyone in here, I didn't want that to happen. So, with my gun still in my pocket I shot the man who took me to that room. I came as fast as I could and shot some of the nazis," Israel said.

"Is there more of them coming?" I asked.

"Speaking of more coming, we need to go now. The alarm was sounded," Israel told me.

"Let's go then!" Adam said rushing out the door.

And so we ran. The nazis started gunning down everyone who was trying to escape. We took an alternate route were we wouldn't get shot, but other people stuck with us and blew our cover. We hid by the side of a building that was near the fence. We needed something to cut the fence, then I realized that I had my bowie knife. Israel and Adam provided cover fire as I hacked away at the fence. The people with us, who seemed like a family, started rushing me. They said things like, "Hurry up!", and, "Do you want us to die?". I told them to quiet their voices and let me concentrate on my task or I'll let them die. I didn't mean that though, I wanted to get out of here as fast as I could. I finally cut a big chunk of the fence open, about half of my goal. As I was finishing up I heard the breaking of glass and a loud scream. It was gut-wrenching and I didn't want to look, but curiosity made me look. Israel was on fire. I yelled for Israel to come back for I had just opened the fence, and the family made a mad dash out of there. He rolled on the ground and put out the fire on him. He was severely burned. I told him to stay where he was because if he moved to where Adam and I were, he would've been as good as dead.

There was no way I could get to him though. I started crying and apologizing to Israel.

"It's okay kid," Israel said, "I can make it."

"But you might die," I said.

"It's either I die here, or I make it out alive and tell the tale," he said.

"Fine," I said, I'd given up.

"We have to hurry, they're coming!" Adam ordered.

Israel had a good ten feet to run, and with Nazis poking their guns right at him, he stood no chance. He ran as fast as he could, but it wasn't good enough. The bullet went straight through his chest. He looked at me, his face turned pale white. With a grunt, he hit the rocky ground. Adam grabbed my arm, and we ran across the street and disappeared into the woods.

Present Day: April 12, 2013

"Mr. Keyes, what happened after that?"

"I don't know, it's a blur now," I said, "as I get old I forgot more."

"Where is your brother?" he asked, "How come he couldn't come?"

"He's dead too," I said, "I'll tell you about that another day…"