Yoheily Baez, “The Fight”

Artwork by Yoheily Baez

THE FIGHT

Yoheily Baez

In a dark broken world, where there is no peace, where everything is quiet because everyone is too scared to get out of hiding, afraid they will get caught—until someone just can’t take it anymore and gets out of their hiding place, inside of an abandoned, broken-down house. They get caught by the robots, and they take them to this sort of prison world where they are being tortured. It’s crazy how everything can go from happy and fun, to everything just dark and quiet, and it all started with this: Everything is normal, everyone is minding their business, people are having fun, laughing and talking with each other, when, suddenly, people start hearing these loud weird noises. Everyone is just standing there looking around everywhere trying to figure out what the noises are coming from and what they are. Then out of nowhere, huge robots with these sharp hands like claws, start coming into the city, destroying everything in their sight: the houses, the building, the trees. Everyone is just running and running, people falling and stepping on each other trying to get away and find someplace to hide. Everything is just absolute chaos. Days and days after that, everything is quiet. People in hiding don’t make a sound because they’re scared to get caught, people live in fear from the robots and are scared of what they might do if they even see them. Weeks have passed and still no movement coming from nobody except the robots, which we have now learned have this sort of prison that they send people who they catch to, to toture them. I have been feeling so much fear that I have never felt in my life. I am terrified. I’ve stayed with my best friend Nicole in this abandoned building. I’ve been trying to think that maybe just maybe that this will all be over soon and I’ll be able to see my family again. During the attack, there were so many people that I lost my parents. Nicole and I have been trying to figure out

some ways to take down these robots. Nicole lost her parents because of the robots. But how did it happen? Everyone was just running and running, people falling and stepping on each other trying to get away and find someplace to hide. Everything is just absolute chaos. I was able to find Nicole but when we had stopped and heard her mothers screams for help. we saw that the robots had her by the neck and had this hand that was like a knife. Suddenly the robot shoved his hand into her stomach right in front of us. Nicole was just in shock and couldn’t move while I was screaming and crying so hard that I could taste my tears. Nicole’s mother had been like my second mother, she was always there for me when my parents couldn’t be there and now she’s just gone. I stopped screaming and looked at Nicole and the look on her face with so much pain and distraught, I didn’t even know what to do except run. Back to the present, Nicole had just as much wanted revenge as me because not only did she lose her mom, she lost the only parent she had left. All we wanted was peace for once in our lives, but of course nothing can ever stay the way it is. Although Nicole was so distraught by the death of her mother, she knew that she had to get revenge and avenge her death. We have been training and also trying to create a weapon that was powerful enough to destroy the robots. Luckily for us, not to brag or anything, but we are pretty smart. For the past few weeks we have been trying to find things that we can use, while also being careful not to get caught by the robots. Today we are trying to make our final trip to get the rest of the supplies that we need to make the weapon. While we are getting out of the abandoned, crusty house, we start hearing some things like voices. I look at Nicole and say in a whisper voice, “What was that?” “They sound like voices, do you think people are nearby?” “But that’s impossible, we’ve done searches and searches and never seen anyone.”

“Do you think it’s the robots?” I say in a shaky voice. “I doubt it, but do you want to check Layla?” “Yeah, maybe we should check.” We start walking and looking for the source of the sounds. We start getting close and it seems to be coming from this broken down black house. We open the door with different sized holes in them. Once we enter we immediately smell this stench of blood, and we start to get scared and nervous because not only does it smell like blood it smells new. Once we made it into the middle of the abandoned building, the noise just stopped. We start to look around and when we do we spot a figure in the dark. “Hello?” I try to keep my voice steady but fail. The figure turns around and takes a step forward and says, “Well hello there princess.” The figure takes one more step forward where light shines in. We are finally able to see what this figure looks like. It looks like a boy around our age with brown hair and a handsome face that seems to have no emotion. He looks nice so I start to go and introduce myself but before I can, Nicole steps forward and says, “Who exactly are you and what are you doing here?” The boy seems surprised at her bluntness, but quickly gets rid of it and shows a deadly glare, but before he can say something I take a step forward and ask, “Why do you, um, have blood on your hands.” “Well princess, that’s not your business, is it?” he says as he clenches his jaw. I gulp as he says that, no wonder it smelled like blood in here. I try not to sound too afraid but I still ask “D-do you need help c-cleaning your hands?” as I gesture his bloody hands. He looks at them and says, “No princess,” and then looks back at us. “But I do have a question for you two.” Nicole speaks up. “What’s your question? We don’t have all day,”

she says harshly. “What are you two doing here? I thought no one would be around he–” he gets cut off by Nicole. “Well, whoever you are, that’s not your business is it?” she says, mocking what he said to me earlier. The boy chuckles. “Feisty, you have a nice friend there princess,” he says as he turns to me. Nicole speaks and he turns his attention back to her. “Well we have to get going, we don’t have time to chit chat,” she says as she grabs my hand and we start walking back until his voice stops us. “We’ll see each other soon don’t you worry,” he promises us and just as we turn back he’s gone. We start walking back to where we are staying and make sure everything is still there. Once everything is still there we just call it a day since we spent so much time trying to find out what that noise was and talking to that mysterious and scary boy. The next day, we are on a mission to find the last of what we need to make the weapon. We have a plan when looking around for supplies, first we split up, but we divide what we are looking for and search for that certain thing and then we use our walkie talkies to communicate when we are done then meet back up. We’re looking for this type of wiring and something to spark it to finally start up the weapon, so we start to split up and I start walking to the same place where we saw that mysterious guy. While we were there I was able to look around and see if there was anything that could help and there looked to be something like wires or maybe a blow torch, not entirely sure. As I walk in, I’m yet again met with the stench of blood. I hesitantly walk in and try my best not to make any noise, but once I see the body I take a step back but fall and it makes a loud noise. I started to get scared so I backed up but then I instantly regretted it when I felt something hard hit my back. I slowly turn around and am met with two long legs that definitely don’t look like Nicole’s legs, so then I start to get even more scared

and look up, but when I look up instead of getting scared I feel a sense of relief as I look at the boy that we met yesterday. I know I’m not supposed to trust a stranger but hey something tells me I can trust him, so I start to get up and say, “Oh, thank god it’s you. I thought it was someone else.” He looks like he wants to say something, but before he could I start speaking. “Did you see that body over there,” I say as I point to where the body was, but instead of seeing the body I don’t see anything. When I turn back around he looks confused, but maybe I was seeing things so I just say, “Uh never mind.” He takes a step forward and says, “Where’s that friend of yours, princess? I don’t think you should be alone, especially with what’s going on.” Something tells me that he’s also referring to my height and my innocent face, but I don’t say anything. “By any chance have you seen any wires or a blowtorch?” I ask as I take a step forward. “I haven’t seen anything, no,” he says as he looks at me with no emotion once again. “Okay thanks,” I say as I leave the building. Once I leave I try looking elsewhere for the items needed. It’s getting dark soon, so I have to find something before the day ends. After hours of looking from building to building, I have finally found what we need, so I start making my way to our spot. When I get there I see Nicole there with some stuff as well. “Hey Nicole, did you find everything you needed?” I say as I approach her. She nods and says, “Yeah, thank God I did because we are already a day behind schedule.” When we first settled down and found someplace to stay. We made a plan to make a weapon, and not take too long so no more people will suffer, and to also get revenge. We planned on taking only three weeks considering some of what we needed was already there. Once we get back to the building, we quickly start on making the big weapon. We are planning on making different weapons

with whatever is left just as back up. We start to connect the wires together and make sure that they spark to know that it’s working. Then we use the electric motor and attach the wires to it, after we add this metal base from a car door that we shape and cut into a rectangular curved piece. Once we get that done we finally have one more piece to add, and that is the blowtorch that Nicole has found. Once we finally finish we start working on extra weapons with the extras we have. Today is the day. Today is the day we take down robots. Today is the day we get revenge. Today is the day Nicole avenges her mothers death. Today is the day I get to see my family. As of right now, we are currently hidden behind a barely standing building watching the robots. While we’re watching, we hear footsteps running towards us. We look back and see nothing, but once we turn around we see that mysterious boy that we met in that abandoned building. “Aaahhh!” We both scream, as we’re scared out of nowhere by his appearance. “Now, why are we screaming? I’m only here to help,” he says as he ducks down to where we are. We both look at each other, confused by why and how he even knew where we were so we obviously ask, “Why and how are you here?” “I came to help you destroy the robots,” he says in a duh tone. “Okay, but how did you get here?” Nicole says, as she was confused on how he even got here. “I followed you guys, and I heard you talking about destroying the robots so I followed you guys her–” he says as he gets cut off by Nicole. They start to argue all about how he shouldn’t be here and how he shouldn’t have been following us, while I make sure the robots didn’t hear anything considering they are really loud. As I’m looking at the robots, new robots show up with a person in their hands that looks like a woman with a bag on her head. They take the bag off her face but I can’t see her face but as they

turn her around, I freeze. That woman is Nicole’s mother. I’m in shock, but I know I need to tell Nicole. I turn around and call Nicole, but she doesn’t respond as she is too busy arguing with Noah, whose name we learned as he was arguing with Nicole. “Nicole!” I say as I yell to finally get their attention. “What?” she says as she looks at me, but soon focuses her attention over my shoulder. Her face turns pale and is in shock as she drops to her knees. I go up to her and hug her so tight and whisper sweet things in her ears while she is panicking. “We have to continue this mission, Nicole, but I promise you we will get her back. We will get everyone back,” I say confidently. “You’re right, let’s go get everyone back,” she says. We load up our weapons and make sure that everything is good. Once everything is good, all three of us start walking up to them carefully. We end up bringing Noah after he explains how he wants revenge as well. Once we’re close in range we start to shoot all of the robots. All of them are aware that they are under attack as more robots approach us. Once we get close enough to their ship we hop on and start shooting the robots there and also try to look for where they keep the civilians. After a real struggle from fighting the robots we find a jail for the civilians. Hundreds and hundreds of people locked up, but only one caught my eye and that was my mother. Once I see her, I immediately run to her and shoot the lock and get her out, but what I don’t realize is that there’s only my mom but not my father. “Mom! OMG are you okay? Where’s father? OMG,” I say, throwing all of these questions at her. “I-I-I don’t k-know they took him just before y-you came,” she says as she shakes from her sobs. “Shhh, it’s okay mom. I got you. We are going to get everyone out.” After I get her okay, I lead her outside with the others as they run away as fast as they can. We start to get each and everyone of them out, and then we start to search for my father, but I

soon realize Noah isn’t with us. As soon as I realize that we hear things and get ready to shoot, but then that’s when I see Noah holding the gun to my father’s head. He betrayed us, I think, looking at him with teary eyes. I can’t help but ask, “Why?” “There can never be peace, so what’s the point?” he says harshly. “But there is, you just don’t have hope. Yes, nothing will ever be the same, but that’s how life is.” “We can try and make it as normal as possible, but that won’t do anything. Don’t you get it? Everything is over.” “No it’s not, just–” I say, but I was cut off by Noah. “No, you don’t understand. How can I have all of this hope when my parents are dead? How can I have all this hope when my sister is dead? How can I have all this hope when everyone I loved is dead and is never coming back?” I stand there in shock at his confession. I step forward, but as I do he moves the gun to me. “Don’t come any closer or I’ll shoot him,” he says as he points the gun back at my father. “Please, just don’t. Please, I beg you, just don’t hurt him,” I say as I take another step forward to try and get his gun, but I stop as soon as I hear the sound of the gunshot. I look at him in shock and do the only thing that I can do, and that is to shoot him back and watch as his body falls. I run to my father and scream so loud I start to shake. “No, no, no. Please, Dad, wake up! Please, I can’t do this without you” I sob so hard my head starts to hurt, but I couldn’t care less. All I can think is how my father, the one who gave me piggy back rides, played dress up with me, and treated me like the princess that he said I deserved to be treated as. My heart completely breaks as I remember I will have to tell my mother how the love of her life is dead, and it’s all my fault. I stop crying and for once in my life, I don’t feel anything. I feel numb. Maybe Noah was right after all, but I was just too blinded by trying to have the peace back to see it. Hearing my

mom’s sobs as we told her he’s dead, my heart breaks all over again. Although it will take time to get everything back in check, nothing will ever be the same. Even though I know that, it still doesn’t hurt any less. Despite the fact that Noah is the reason for my pain and my mother’s, I can’t help but think about all of the things Noah said. How can someone have hope after their loved one is dead? Maybe I will learn to have hope a few years from now or maybe not, but as of right now I can’t help but feel nothing and have no type of hope. This is the end of my story, or is it?