Tunnels and Friends

We dug. That was our job. We dug tunnels that went under our enemies walls. Then others would fill those tunnels with straw and burn it, causing the tunnel and the wall to collapse. But it was not unheard of that the tunnel would collapse just from the weight of the wall. There were deaths, lots of deaths. It was a dangerous job. Many lost their lives every war, and yet they are not mentioned at all in the success of the battle. Why? Because they are gone, and no one cares about them anyway. You see, most of us are slaves, captives of other cities that have been forced to do this job, so why would anyone care for us. Our live consist of this; one: trying to stay alive while doing such a dangerous job, and two: caring for the other slaves because if we don't no one else will.
I had friends, acquaintances, and people I loved. They all were fellow slaves that I often dug with. Two of them were taken from the same city as me and had been my friends since we lived freely. Their names were Anna and Jared. We often talked together while we dug, usually of memories, memories of our free childhood days. Of how we were always getting into trouble with the guards, bakers, and other craft masters. Always we talked while we tunneled under the 30ft thick walls, trying to take our minds off of what we were doing. Those days were gone though, never to happen again.
We were the selected tunnelers for one of the biggest wars in the history of Okamikado. We didn't ask for it to happen, but when you're a slave, you can't argue with the slavers. They told us what we were to do then loaded us onto a covered cart and headed out. It was dark in the cart and we were all scared. We were on that cart for at least 3 days, it was hard to tell when it was day or night because of how dark it was. Both me and Anna were huddled against Jared, who was hugging us and telling us that it would be okay. None of us thought that one would die.
When the doors finally opened, we climbed out and looked around. Immediately we knew this battle would be different. Already there were many wounded and thousands of dead. At the gates of the defending city, hundreds of soldiers held onto a huge battering ram, hopelessly trying to break the doors open. "See those soldiers over there?" one slaver said. "They been trying to break down that door for a day and a half. Them gates are too strong and the archers above only add to the killed and wounded. You guys are gonna go 'round to the back and tunnel under the walls over there. Once the walls are down, your all going back into the cart and back to the fields."
We grabbed a whole bunch of straw sacks and some shovels and headed to one of the side walls, where we could walk along and be unseen by guards above. After reaching the back wall successfully, we put the bags of straw down and began digging. It was a long boring process. Shovelful by shovelful, we slowly made our way under the wall. After two days we were half way done with the tunnel and had made it big enough for us to stand in. After three days all we had to do was dig up wards. It was this day when everything went wrong. No one had told the soldiers that we were digging under the wall, so one soldier was told to blow up the section of wall that we were under. The only thing that explosion did was damage our tunnel, which meant it would collapse under the weight of the wall.
All around us, stones from the ceiling of the tunnel began falling. We stood there looking around for a way to shield ourselves from the rocks that came tumbling down. After finding nothing to protect us, Jared grabbed my hand and pulled me along, back to the entrance of the unfinished tunnel. He turned to look back and yelled to Anna: "Run Anna! The tunnel's collapsing!"
I held tight to Jared's hand as he pulled me along. Looking back, I could see the shadowy figure of Anna starting to fall behind. "ANNA! FASTER! RUN FASTER!"
"I'm going as fast as I can!" she yelled back, her voice filled with fear. Behind us, we could hear the tunnel give way and fall. Jared ran faster and I stumbled after him, still clutching his hand. We exited the tunnel just as the wall collapsed in a huge cloud of dust. I stopped, pulled my hand away from Jared's and ran back to the wreckage.
"ANNA!" I screamed. "ANNA WHERE ARE YOU!?" My call was unanswered.
"Elizabeth!" Jared came up behind me. "Elizabeth, you won't find her." He put his hand on my shoulder.
"NO!" I cried. "She can't be gone! She can't be!" I sank to my knees and hung my head in my hands. "She can't be dead," I sobbed.
Jared kneeled down in front of me. "Elizabeth...." he whispered. "She is gone. There's nothing you can do."

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