I'm usually not comfortable telling this story because...it's fucked, but I guess I'm anonymous so why not. Posting this in two parts, this being the escape and the second part being what happened when we were homeless.
Yes, my life is fucked.
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I was ten years old and living in Russia, I’m assuming near
Moscow, with Ben and Aiden at one of the most brutal orphanages we had ever set
foot in. We had been expelled and weren’t allowed back in a school until the
middle of February. About 10 of us slept in one room with about 5 or 6 beds. We
weren’t given blankets, so we used each other to stay warm during the cold November.
The windows were purposely left open, impossible to close, and the clothes we wore
resembled burlap sacks rather than real clothing. We didn’t have names to the
workers, we were numbers…I was number 1083. The food was meant for cows, there
were bugs in our beds, bugs everywhere to be exact, and holes in the walls. The
abuse was unbearable. I can’t even talk about it. It was like living in a
concentration camp.
Some mornings we would wake up and one of the children would
be missing. The workers would tell us that the child missing had never lived
there, they were placed in a new orphanage or they had been adopted. Of course,
that wasn’t the case. The ones with the worst clothing would be given new
clothing the mornings of the disappearances…the clothing would be stained a
muddy brown red colour and would be the same size as the person who had
disappeared. Nobody ever fought the workers or questioned them, well some did,
but we wouldn’t see them the next morning.
We were naïve, we all grew up in horrible situations, but we
never dealt with death…I guess I didn’t even realize death was a possibility, I
thought I was dead and in hell anyways.
One night curiosity got the best of Ben and I. We didn’t
tell Aiden about our plans, he was in another room for misbehaving and we were
afraid of him getting whipped if he was caught. We wanted to know where
everyone was going. I liked to believe that if we were good we would be taken
somewhere better…maybe it was a way out. I was stupid. We stayed up all night for
a week waiting for someone to come into our room so we could follow them,
taking turns sleeping and keeping watch. Finally, after a week, it happened.
I heard footsteps coming up the staircase and quickly woke
Ben up. We both pretended to sleep, I couldn’t help it, I kept one eye open.
Three male workers walked up and down the room, whispering something I couldn’t
hear. They finally stopped at the bed next to mine, a bed that two Ukrainian
sisters shared, Aneta, 14, and Mariya, 6. The eldest of the men put his hand
over Mariya’s mouth and her eyes shot open. He told her to keep shut or else. He
picked her up and left the room with the two other men. As soon as we heard
them approach the stairs we bolted out of bed. I woke Aneta up and told her
what the men said. We all carefully followed the men, not even bothering to put
our shoes on, still in our nightgowns.
The men had gone outside with Mariya. It was pitch black,
but we managed to follow them by their footsteps in the deep snow. We followed
them for about 10 minutes. The orphanage was on a massive property in the
middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees, but none of us dared to go into the
forest. Finally we reached a barn, one that we weren’t allowed in. We all put
our ears to the door, where we heard screaming. The pressure of our heads on
the door caused it to open, Aneta, being closest to the entrance peaked in…and
screamed.
Suddenly the doors burst open and Aneta was pinned down to
the snow. It all happened in slow motion for me. The men were drenched in blood;
I didn’t dare look inside of the barn. Aneta was screaming, telling us to run.
Ben and I stayed put. We couldn’t move. That was until the two other men came
running at us.
Ben and I suddenly unfroze and ran for the forest. I have
never run so fast in my life. I didn’t even notice that I was barefoot. The men
kept following us. They were faster, but we were small and could fit under
branches while they couldn’t.
We finally got away from their line of sight and I shoved
Ben to the ground. We hid under a massive root, not even taking in what just
happened. We were numb…not only from the cold. We heard the men get closer and
just held on to each other for life…literally. I watched their feet as they
walked right by us.
I guess I fell asleep, I don’t know how, and I don’t know
when, but I did. I think I passed out from fear. When I woke up it was daylight
outside and Ben was sleeping right beside me. My limbs were bright red from the
snow and I couldn’t even move my fingers.
I took in my surroundings…and realized I was free. I was
finally out of the orphanage; there was no one around to hit me. I woke Ben up
and told him, we both started screaming and celebrating, dancing barefoot in
the snow. That’s when it hit me. Aiden was still in the orphanage.
We couldn’t leave him. He was family. Who knows what the
workers at the orphanage would do to him now that we had caught them. So we
made a plan, we would wait until nighttime and run in. We didn’t even think
about how difficult it was to get out of an orphanage once you were in…we just
needed to get him out. It was stupid, I think we were both in shock.
We followed the men’s footprints back to the edge of the
forest. I realized our feet were bleeding due to the snow, so I carried a
branch and covered our tracks behind us. We knew they would be looking for us
so we climbed up a tree and waited for night.
It finally got dark and we waited for all lights to be
turned off, signaling that the workers had gone to bed. We climbed out of the
tree and crawled towards the orphanage, I don’t know what we expected crawling
to do…we were in the open.
We reached the area where Aiden’s bedroom was, but he was 3
floors up. I threw rocks at the window, and luckily enough, he was the one who
showed up at the window. I quickly told him a summary of what happened, mostly
using hand movements, and told him that we needed to leave…NOW.
He whispered that he would be one second, no questions
asked. Suddenly there were shoes and clothing flying at us. Ben and I quickly
put the shoes on, trying to protect our already raw feet. Aiden came back to
the window and told us that he wouldn’t be able to leave, but we needed to go.
Ben and I refused to leave. We told him that we wouldn’t move an inch until he
found a way out. It was as I was saying that….that the lights in the basement
turned on.
We all panicked, I could hear men screaming and running
inside the building. Aiden looked petrified, we just kept screaming at him to
jump. He shook his head, screaming that he couldn’t do it. We heard the door to
his room burst open…and he jumped.
He landed on his stomach and we heard a massive crack. Ben
and I quickly picked him up and ran as fast as we could to the forest. The
front door of the orphanage burst open, 4 men and 5 women flew out screaming at
each other to catch us.
Part 2
Part 2
