Sugar Dark:Volume 1 Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Below his feet, he could feel the moist soil. His ears could hear the rustling of the leaves, the chirping of the birds.

In spite of the blindfold, he immediately realized he was close to a forest. After the long time in the paddy wagon, where the air had smelled like old cow leather due to the tarp, the fresh air in his lungs felt like a sweet delicacy. Even going back to before his imprisonment, he couldn't recall when last he had breathed such pure air.

But when he wanted to take another, deep breath, he was kicked in the back.

"Get moving, prisoner No. 5722."

His name was called, and he followed. Due to his distinctly above average height and his sturdy physique, his shadow looked like the one of a man. His mouth and evenly tanned skin, as well as the lack of body hair, revealed that he was still just a boy.

(Where am I? No, rather where are they taking me?)

The boy mumbled with a dry voice.

After his eyes had been blindfolded in the camp, he had spent several hours in the paddy wagon. Nobody had told him where he would be taken. And he intentionally didn't ask. Because he knew, if he asked, he would either simply be ignored or hit on the head.

Walking without seeing one bit was difficult, but the path was unexpectedly even. Since he couldn't rely on his eyes, his other senses tried to compensate by gathering all the more information from his environment. Directly in front of him walked the prison guard, who pulled along the rope which was tied to his handcuffs. Except for the guard and himself, there was no trace of another human. On his skin, he could feel the gentle sunlight of early summer, while his nose enjoyed the still pleasant, fresh air. From time to time he stepped on roots, but he never tripped. Apparently it was no unexploited path.

However... something was odd.

(What kind of place is this?)

He had a bad premonition.

He didn't find any fitting words, but this place seemed to be different from any place he had ever been to in the 16 years of his life.

In front of his inner eye bygone sceneries rolled by. ---His home, the forest of Buna. Renga and the paved<-?-> city. The snow covered through road without a name. The wastelands, in which he, as a simple soldier, had expanded the trenches. The endless tracks of tanks. The stench of oil, coal and sand. The tire tracks caused by the carriages of the logistic corps. The stench of the horse shit right next to them. The traces of the explosion which had annihilated the position. The smoke and, and, furthermore... the reek of the burning corpses.

A droplet of sweat fell onto his choker which is supposed to prevent his escape. Since he could neither remove his handcuffs nor the choker, he had to resist the intense urge to scratch his neck. And before he knew what was happening, even his footsteps had become so heavy, he could hardly raise his legs anymore, although his feet weren't shackled.

(...I don't want to go any further.)

In the darkness behind his blindfold, he was suddenly overcome with such an incentive. The ground he tread on with his lace-less shoes didn't seem like roots as sparse as his beard anymore.

(It's like it's ... I am treading on.)

The rope on his cuffs stretched. He heard how the guard stopped and clicked his tongue. In anticipation of another beating he strained his body. But no pain followed... instead, the blindfold was removed roughly. But now, the early summer's sun rays violated his eyes which had gotten used to the darkness. He squirmed as if he was getting a beating after all and covered his face. The guard laughed silently.

"Look up, snip."

While blinking, the boy did as he was told.

His vision was overwhelmed by whiteness. And what slowly replaced the whiteness was, as expected, the long face of the about thirty-year-old, scraggy prison guard. The moist soil. The flourishing green of leaves - as well as... a gravestone.

One gravestone here, one gravestone over there, a whole bunch of gravestones. Beyond the edge of the forest stretching out before him, there were countless rows of gravestones, the monuments of death. The size and shape of each and every gravestone differed, and the distance between them were oddly irregular. From gravestones only 10 steps apart to gravestones way further apart. Gravestones in the forest. Gravestones out of new granite, gravestones where you could hardly decipher the inscription because they were that corroded by the rain. They were set up without any kind of order.

"Could it be..."

He asked the guard with slight surprise in his voice.

"Could it be that you just wanted to save yourself the trouble of carrying my dead body over here?"

The man laughed and asked in return,

"If so?"

"That would be another tragedy due to false accusations, I guess."

The guard kicked the boy in the pit of his stomach.

While his body winced forward painfully, the boy wore a smile of almost invariant anguish. Since he had been told he had received life sentence, he had been sure that he wouldn't be killed here.

(Well, that guy would also get away unscathed if he arbitrarily killed me right here, right now.)

"Whatever. This is the place you were to be taken to."

The guard pointed his bony index finger in the direction they were going. In a corner at the edge between forest and graveyard the wall of a white mansion could be seen, concealed by the green of leaves. That was the only place in his line of sight where people might be living.

When he slowly drew closer, pulled along by the rope, he noticed that the white wall wasn't painted, but out of newly quarried stone. He also noticed that the building wasn't very large. Around the house was enclosed by a black iron fence on which not a single stain of rust could be seen. The top ends of the fence posts were sharpened, so they looked like an army of spears. and finally the gate, hardly distinguishable from the fence, was locked tightly. Unsurprisingly, there was no one to greet them, either.

The boy even wondered whether someone lived in the estate at all. It looked lifeless to that degree. The inner yard between the fence and the building was clear of weeds, but clear of anything else as well. No fountain, no sculptures, not even a rope to dry clothes was visible.

But instead of those things ther was next to the iron gate a mechanical bell and telephone receiver. And such things couldn't belong to lower-class people. Especially if they are next to the entrance.