A DREAM OF LIGHTS. Kerry Drewery

it in the fireplace.

      Outside, the engine stopped. I heard the doors open. Heard them slam shut. Heard voices. Deep and male.

      “I’m sorry,” I whispered. And they all stared at me. All, that was, except my grandfather.

      “You should’ve told her the truth years ago,” he said. “They’ll take her too. Think what they’ll do to her.”

      My mother turned to me, her eyes raw, tears streaming down her face. Her hand lifted to me and touched my cheek. “Go, Yoora, go quickly and hide. Anywhere you can. Keep away from these men. Don’t let them see you.”

      I stared at her, wishing she would hold me and hug me. “You have to go now,” she hissed. “Out of the back window.”

      I stumbled backwards, watching the faces of my family, the pain I had caused with a few thoughtless words in the dark, and I clambered through the back window, pushed it closed and collapsed on to the ground below.

      From under the window I heard the shouts of the men as they entered my home, heard my family’s quiet replies, but I didn’t know where to go, or what to do. Couldn’t think where I would be safe or how I could hide. They would know I was missing, come looking for me, hunt me down.

      I couldn’t go to Sook’s house, or to the school, or to a neighbour. Or to a friend, or a colleague of my father’s. Nobody would protect me. Nobody would risk their lives for me. I was the only person I could rely on.

      But I was scared. So scared. They were going to look out of the window, they were going to find me, they were going to take me away and kill me. And it was all, all, my fault.

      If only, I thought. A million if onlys.

      But something took hold of me, some survival instinct or fear, some voice in my head, and forced me to think and to act. There was a gap under the house close to me, a hole that maybe an animal had dug, and I squeezed myself into it, pulling the soft earth around me, smearing it on to my face, scooping up mud and dead leaves and branches on top of me. Surely they wouldn’t think I’d hide so close.

      I pulled off a shoe, throwing it as far as I could, hoping they’d see it, think I’d lost it when I was running, think I’d gone in that direction.

      My heart thudded and pounded in my chest and my arms and my head. Shouting came from inside the house. My grandmother’s voice pleading. My mother’s crying. Male voices barking, demanding – Where is your daughter?

      Silence. A scream. A thud. A sob.

      What have you been burning? they shouted. And there came no reply.

      I was a coward, hiding in the dirt and soil from what I had caused, while my family suffered, protecting me.

      Voices shouted about South Korea, about escape, about crimes against our Dear Leader. Threats of re-education through labour, prison camps, trials and execution. I shook with fear, tears stinging my eyes, my vision a blur.

      What have I done?

      I squeezed my eyes closed, wished I could block out what I could hear. I wanted to scream, run inside and tear them to pieces, shout and spit in their faces. There was nothing, nothing, I could do but sit and hide and listen.

      Guilt tore through me. And I hated Sook.

      With every part of my being, I hated him. With every breath I pulled, I thought of how he had betrayed me. How stupid I had been to trust him. To think he might actually care for me. I could see now how it had all been a trick, an elaborate hoax, a game.

      I despised him.

      Of course, why else would Min-Jee have let him have the food for me? She’d known all along. He had played me, and I was stupid enough to fall for it. I boiled with anger, at myself and at him. My mother’s cries sounded through the walls, and I burrowed further into the hole, wishing I could escape from what I’d caused. I hid like an animal because I was one.

      Yet they were traitors, just like the boy with the radio, and they deserved to be punished. That was what I’d been taught for a lifetime.

      But they’re not bad people, my head screamed, and I love them so much, and I know they’re guilty, punishable in the eyes of our government, but they’re my family, they just made a mistake.

      The guards shouted my name again, but no reply came. I heard the door slam, the traipsing of boots, the muttering of soldiers, heard them barge into the neighbours’ house, questions shouted, orders given.

      I felt terror. Pure, absolute terror.

      I heard voices closer, feet nearby, frosty grass crunching underneath them, smelt cigarette smoke and boot leather. I opened my eyes a crack, peering out, watching two men, certain they would spot the whites of my eyes. I drew myself back, hidden so low, so small, that surely, surely, they wouldn’t think I’d be this close.

      Their feet came towards me, and I slowed my breathing, desperate for my thumping heart not to give me away. I could see the cigarette dangling in one man’s fingers, the smoke curling outwards, drifting towards me, like it was hunting me down, pointing to where I was hidden. I felt it tickle my nose, irritate the back of my throat.

      Don’t cough, I told myself. I held my nose, cupped my hands round my mouth. My throat itched, I needed to cough. I watched the men. Watched them… watched them… waiting… waiting.

      I heard the man’s lips drag on the butt, watched his fingers flick the cigarette to the ground and saw it land in front of me. My throat burned, the cough stuck there, the cigarette smoke pointing me out. I was going to cough, I knew it, and they would hear me, and they would catch me, and we would be gone. All of us. A family stopped in time.

      A boot squashed the butt into the ground and I watched the soldier turn, my hands clasped round my mouth as I swallowed and swallowed, and I saw them reach the corner. And I coughed. But they didn’t turn. They had seen the shoe.

      They walked away and I breathed again.

      I stayed hidden for hours, my brain imagining what my ears thought they could hear – my family taken away, signs hammered into roadsides advertising tomorrow’s public trial, soldiers threatening neighbours who might be harbouring me, gossip muttered about what we had done.

      I didn’t hear Min-Jee, and I didn’t hear Sook.