Chapter 4
I squeeze my eyes shut and press my hands over my ears, but no matter what I do I can't shut out the rattling of the window and the loud creaking of the roof that I fear may give way any second.
"Lilli!" my eyes snap open and I realize that Helen is shaking my shoulder. "What do we do?!" her teeth are chattering like mad and her pale lavender eyes are ablaze with fear.
"I don't know!" I shout over the deafening wind that can be heard whistling through the loosening seams of the planks of wood that comprise the walls. "Zhis building is getting weaker by zhe second!"
I let out a small shriek and recover my ears as the light hanging from the ceiling is flung off its chain and flies into the wall, shattering to bits.
"Lilli, I am cut!" Helen shouts and I turn my head to see that, indeed, she is now attempting to pick tiny shards of glass from her cheek and forehead.
"Move your hands!" I insist, pulling them away from her face and prying the jagged bits out of her now bleeding flesh.
"Am I bleeding?"
"Ja, a little!" I can barely hear my own voice over the wailing of the wind. I search the floor of the shed for some sort of rag to soak up the blood. I end up settling and tearing the sleeve off of the outermost layer of my many long sleeve shirts and press it to her face. Her wounds have since stopped bleeding and the red liquid on her face has dried, though her tears of terror make it easy to wipe her face clean.
"Lilli…"
"Ja?"
"…I'm sorry." she hiccups. "We should not have stayed."
"It is not your fault." I reply, followed by an exceptionally loud creak as the rafters supporting the already breaking roof are beginning to bend at an alarming angle. Helen lets out a terrified whimper and crawls toward the corner of the room, burying her face in her knees and covering her head with her pale and most likely freezing hands and rocking back and forth.
I hear a loud, explosive shatter and cover my face with my double-gloved hands to prevent it from suffering the same fate as the now trembling Helen's. My hair whips around my face from the wind that is flowing in from the now gaping hole that once held a rattling window.
My heart is pounding so fast and hard that I can feel it beating in my throat and I fear it will stop any second due to overexertion. If I wasn't having a panic attack before, I am now.
I cover my eyes once more to avoid the stones, twigs and other debris that are now being hurled in through the window hole and crawl towards the corner. I rest a hand on Helen's shoulder. She must have been really out of it, because the second I touch her she nearly jumps out of her skin.
"The window broke?" she asks me through the chattering of her teeth that is now increasing in speed and violence from the radical temperature drop brought on by the arctic wind that is now seeping into the room.
"Yep" I reply bluntly. "Good thing all zhe snow is being blown to zhat side of zhe room." I point to the wall of the shed opposite that of the window that is now accumulating a considerably-sized pile of snow.
"What if it fills the room?!" she sobs
"Vell zhen ve are screwed." She sobs louder and leans her head on my shoulder.
"I…" she hiccups through her tears. "I wish they would have noticed and…*hic*….come to get us. Why….." she takes in a sharp inhale of blistering air that I assume feels like it is freezing her lungs from the inside-out. "….Why did they forget about us?"
I cannot respond. I don't know what to say, for I do not have an answer. I never did and now I feel I never will. I am completely in the dark, and I have been since the first time my bruders forgot to tell me "guten morgen", the moment they began to stop noticing me. And, for the first time since WW2, I let out a single tear of true emotion. It cascades down my face like a raindrop on a glass window so clear that one would not notice it was there except for the long, wet streams descending upon its surface, and I feel I am the window.
"Lilli…?" Helen whispers so quietly that I can barely make out her words. "W-will you sing to me?" I must search through every corner of my brain for something I might be able to sing to calm her down. I've never been too fond of singing so I find it kind of challenging to think of something, but I still try. After all, I cannot count all those times back in WW2 that Helen sang me Russian lullabies when I would wake from my nightmares.
I open my mouth to attempt to improvise a song but instead let out a terrified scream as the television that once served as our only connection to the outside world is lifted off the cold, wooden floor and hurled through the thin wall, leaving a gaping hole.
Another deafening creak interrupts Helen's terrified heaving, only this time it is followed by the deafening crack of the rafter breaking and what I can only assume is the roof on the other side of the shed caving in.
I am now suffocated by Helen's scrawny but strong arms constricting my chest as she hold onto me for dear life.
"I want to go home!" she screams out, her chest heaving violently. I sit there silently, letting her warm tears soak the sleeve on my shoulder. I want to go home too. We may be hurt by and furious with the people we share our homes with, but at least we would be safe there.
"Ja, I vant to go home too." I swear if we make it through this, I am going straight home and giving my bruders a piece of my mind. IF we make it through this.
"Lilli..." Helen whispers, now half-asleep. "I'm afraid we may not make it through this...but if we do...will you be my sister?"I squeeze my shut eyes tighter to prevent more tears from falling.
"Ja...ja I vill."
I rest my eyes exhaustedly and lean my head sideways so that it is resting on top of Helen's, completely ignoring her sunflower hairclip pressing deep into my cheek.
At this point there is nothing left to do but try to sleep and pray silently that we do not die in our sleep.
If the roof of a shed collapses in the woods and nobody is around to hear it, do the girls inside still get buried in snow?...Yes, yes they do.
…And all that's left is my heavy breathing.