Page 178 of Of Sins and Sacrifice

“What’s happening?” Mine asks as we hear shuffling all around us.

The sound of heavy footsteps and gruff voices grows louder and closer. A loud thud echoes through the air, followed by another one.

Our casket suddenly starts moving, swaying back and forth as if being transported by a group of clumsy pallbearers. I cling onto Mine as we prepare to be discarded with the casket. But instead, the nails on the lid start rattling as the soldiers takethem out one by one. Suddenly, it slides open, blinding light penetrating the darkness inside.

I quickly grab onto the pin and use its energy to once more camouflage our appearances and scents.

As the soldiers take off the lid of the casket, they move around it and tip it forward with a grunt.

“Faster. It stinks!” one of them yells, clearly not pleased with their task.

Mine and I hold on to each other tightly as we suddenly come face-to-face with a steep cliff. Without warning, the soldiers give us a rough shove and we tumble out of the casket, falling over the edge of the cliff.

TWENTY-FOUR

“Fuck!”Mine curses as he shifts mid-fall, grabbing me in a tight embrace. I barely have time to realize what’s happening or to help cushion our fall before we hit the ground.

Something soft breaks our fall, and we roll together down a steep slope. His arms are around me, never once letting go even though he stands to get hurt worse than me.

“Mine,” I call out as we come to a halt. “Are you all right?” I ask hastily as I visually check his body for any sign of injury.

He lets out a harsh groan and I immediately panic.

“Are you hurt anywhere?” I pat down his body.

“What is this smell?” He curses in disgust as he brings up his hand and pinches his nose with two fingers.

So worried I was about him that I didn’t register my surroundings, or the fact that Mine is indeed right. The stench is overwhelming.

Yet it’s not surprising as I look around us.

“What the—” My words get swallowed up by shock.

Mine opens his eyes and raises himself on his elbows, his expression mirroring mine as we realize where we are.

“Jesus fucking Christ, what the fuck is this, Minnie?”

“Stop swearing so much,” I grumble, though I feel like spewing some expletives of my own.

“Well, no shit. If this isn’t swear-worthy, then I don’t know what is.”

He gazes down at his body, his face turning a tad green. He’s covered in…bodily fluids. Of the decomposition type.

The entire ditch is filled with corpses. One on top of the other, they litter the entire landfill in a grotesque display.

At the top of the slope, the corpses are fresher, perhaps only a few days old. At the bottom, it’s mostly skeletons and scraps of clothing that survived the harsh heat of the blazing suns.

Yet it’s exactly that heat that turns this environment into a noxious one, the smell from decomposition making it hard to breathe.

Even if a prisoner wasn’t dead when he was dumped in this ditch, he certainly would be shortly. I have no doubt disease lingers around too.

“We need to find a way out,” Mine says in between muffled breaths. “Fast.”

I nod in agreement, though I can’t help but glance around at the mistreated corpses and think that they were someone’s family once upon a time. And instead of releasing the bodies in the care of their loved ones for a proper funeral, they were thrown in here, disposed of as if they were worthless.

No matter the crime, no person deserves such an abhorrent treatment.

How is this allowed? Somehow I doubt that the central command would allow for such egregious behavior. Then again, there is so much bureaucracy between the regional militias and the central command that I doubt this would ever reach the ear of someone important—someone with enough say to demand change.

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