Chapter 76

We had been walking for a while now, it seemed like a never ending journey. I was quite parched and famished but since our hands were tied up together, I could not reach for my jar of water. I was extremely tired and wanted to rest even for a little while but that was impossible. Our steps were slowing down already, we were practically drawing the other ones along, and it hurts badly on our wrists. I could feel blood slowly trickling down my wrist.

When the guards noticed our slow pace, they kept shouting and commanding that we move faster and held out whips to frighten us, but despite the fear of the whips our strength were worn out and we could no longer continue, it did not take long before we started falling down one after the other, even those that were struggling to continue, could not again because the weight of the weak ones kept dragging them down till they succumbed.

The guard Master had no choice but to ask them to stop and let us have a breather for a while, we were seated along side the paths, those with water jars brought them out and gulped it down greedily, those without begged for drops of water to be placed in their mouths but because we were trying to ration it out, giving it out means we may not have anything to drink at the next stop whenever we are awarded the opportunity and since we do not know how long it will take us to arrive at our destination, despite how it pained me not being able to help, I had to refuse them.

The guards went a bit further away to sit under a tree and rested there, we watched them share food amongst themselves and drank together. We all gazed at them hungrily, at this point I would settle for the crumbs with how hungry I was. We kept waiting for them to provide food for Us but it was pointless. When they were done eating, they quickly stood up and dragged on the chain for us to do the same. We groaned as we stood up, our body ached badly but we could not complain or say anything out loud out of fear.

We continued on, I glanced back to see if I could find Itoh but she was not in my sights, I hoped she was hanging in there. It was getting dark a bit and it made me happy as this meant we could rest longer and probably be free from the chain for a while. In other not to think about my current situation, I drifted away in my mind, I was not worried since we were all connected together, they would surely pull me along with them. I tried to think of my mother, her face was fading away as I could not picture her clearly, I wondered how she fared alone over there, does she think of me sometimes?