Friday flash -- Pirate's Bay, Part 5

 Part 5 of our flash fiction series. If you like it, let me know. If you don't, let me know that, too.

We sat in silence for more than a month. I was chained to Wicker who was chained to Carlson who was chained to Tucker. None of us knew why we'd been strung together like this, but it wasn't the first time it'd happened. It was, however, the longest we'd been kept this way. We were attached right arm to left in a long line that wrapped around on itself at least three times..

An overgrown Russian named Ivanov had been making tick marks on a wooden slat that held up the wire fence. He'd gotten to 35 when the guards came around, muttered in their gibberish that they speak to each other, and unlocked all of our cuffs.

Ivanov rubbed his wrists and grumbled something none of the four of us could understand.

The guards herded us all to the middle of the yard and we stood there for a few moments not understanding what was happening. The largest guard, the one with the tattooed designs up and down each arm and who we all assumed was the leader, came out of his room in the high tower and said something with a voice that sounded more than angry. He then turned to his guards and said something that caused them to back away from all of us by a few steps.

The leader then pulled something from his pockets. Small round balls that he tossed high in the air. We all followed their flight from his tower and into our cluster of men. The balls landed on the ground,made a screaming noise, and then exploded. We were all blown back and seven men never got up to dust themselves off.

It's been four days since, we know because of the ticks Ivanov has made on his wooden slat. The bodies are still lying in the middle of the yard. Whenever some of us try to move them to the perimeter the guards rush us screaming in their pig Latin and we all move away. It's been four days and the bodies haven't moved. It wouldn't have bothered us before. Something this time tells me that we will move those bodies, because now, four days later, things are different. For all of us.