The Video
Yasira wakes up to a sharp pain in her head. Her legs are cold. She hears a voice. “You really want to do it again?”
Yasira remembers the attack and keeps her eyes closed.
“Not me.” Another voice. “I can’t do it again so soon. One of you. But look at this shit. She looks dead.”
Yasira’s womb is hurting. Everything feels sore. A scream creeps up her throat, but she suppresses it.
“She must be awake. Must be aware of it. Scream. Fight back.” The same voice.
Yasira doesn’t move. Her attackers have not yet realized that she has regained consciousness. How much time has passed?
“It has to be exactly like with Lena.”
Like with Lena? Yasira is lying softly but unevenly. Her feet are naked. Her legs are naked. Her loins are naked.
“The symbology is important.”
What is it her hands feel? It’s soft and damp? Moss? Forest floor?
“He’s right.” A third voice. “If she’s not screaming, if she’s lying there like dead, then it’s not strong. Then it’s just perverted.”
The men have dragged her into the forest. Her bottom is lying on cloth. She still has her coat on. Something presses painfully into her side. A rock. A large, sharp rock. A weapon.
“Play it again.” The second voice. “What can we do better? Maybe a different angle? You’re covering her up too much.”
Yasira opens her eyes. Just a little. She peers through the lids and then immediately closes them again.
What did she see? It’s night, but some kind of lamp is shining on her.
Artificial light. One man is standing near her.
Three men a little to the side. They are turned away from her, staring at something Yasira can’t see.
Perhaps a display. They are watching her video.
“Who gets to go this time?” The third voice.
“We could draw sticks.” A fourth voice. The man near her has spoken. But not in her direction. He’s facing his companions and laughing. “Although I’d rather fuck her the way she is. I actually find that quite hot. Like Sleeping Beauty.”
During these last words, the voice has gotten closer and closer. A tongue licks over her cheek.
Now or never. Yasira opens her eyes. At the same time, her hand slips under her cloak and pulls out the rock, which she smashes into her guard’s astonished face in one fluid motion, pointed end first. The man bleeds and roars.
Yasira pulls herself up by the still bent guy and rams her knee against his chin.
The man’s three accomplices run toward her.
Yasira looks around frantically and discovers a lamp and a video camera on a tripod.
Her wounded guard overcomes his shock and pulls out a gun from a holster, groaning, but Yasira smashes the tripod with the lamp against his head with all her might.
The light goes out. Only the full moon is still shining.
Yasira’s eyes need to adjust to the sudden darkness.
Nevertheless, she immediately throws herself at her guard and tries to tear the gun from him.
The other men rush over. They, too, bring their guns to bear, but do not fire—likely out of fear of hitting their own.
Yasira manages to wrest the pistol from the wounded man.
Without taking aim, she pulls the trigger.
A shot goes off and the man screams. He lets go of her.
Without even looking to see where she has hit him, Yasira fires several bullets in the direction of the other three men.
The muzzle flash glows brightly in the dark forest. The guys throw themselves to the ground.
Yasira runs off. She zigzags into the forest.
Behind her, she hears the men shouting. Shots are fired.
It must be the end of the closed season.
They no longer care about capturing Yasira alive.
Luckily it is dark and the trees catch the bullets.
But the three uninjured men have taken up the chase.
Yasira hears them. Pointed branches and roots cut into her bare feet.
Perhaps they are already bleeding. She ignores the pain.
She slips under a large, half-fallen tree and then immediately hides behind the root.
She just hopes that she has had enough of a head start for her pursuers not to have noticed her maneuver.
That’s not so unlikely, because if they had been closer on her heels, Yasira would clearly already be dead.
She does the math. How many bullets does she have left?
She shot at her guard. And then fired at most six more shots in the direction of the others.
The gun is a Glock 17, which means there are seventeen rounds in the clip as standard. So she has at least ten rounds left.
“Where is she?” one of the men shouts.
“Fucking hell!” curses another.
“Shut up!” orders the third. “I can’t hear her running. She must be hiding somewhere.”
Yasira listens to the approaching footsteps of her pursuers.
“Hello, cutie, where are you?” shouts one. “Come out and play . . .”
If Yasira is lucky, they will split up. She remains motionless.
She doesn’t want to make a sound. With her gun at the ready, she waits.
She now hears footsteps very close by. One of the men is stooping under the half-fallen tree.
Without hesitation, Yasira shoots twice.
The man is dead before he can even scream.
Eight more shots, she thinks. Then the bullets from a submachine gun slam into the root behind her.
She flinches, but the thick tree stops the bullets.
Nevertheless, shots continue to ring out at irregular intervals.
What are her last two pursuers up to? Maybe one of them wants to hold her here until the other one shoots her in the back.
Yasira has to get out of here. So she crawls, keeping the root behind her, to the next thick tree.
In doing so, she scrapes her bare legs on thorns, roots, and rocks. Doesn’t matter.
Her pursuers stop shooting. Apparently they realized that they were just wasting bullets from their current position.
They will try to go around the fallen tree in a wide arc.
At least that’s what Yasira would do. Her new best friend is a huge oak tree, behind whose thick trunk she has found shelter.
Yasira looks up. Bouldering . . . That’s a fancy word for climbing .
. . She puts the gun in her coat pocket and quietly and carefully begins to climb up the oak.
Only the full moon still provides soft light.
But darkness is also Yasira’s friend. Three meters above the ground, she sits down on a thick branch and peers out into the forest. Everything hurts and she is terribly cold.
She hears noises in the dark forest and tries to locate them.
There!
Did something move?
Yasira sharpens all her senses. Yes, it has to be one of the men. She takes aim and shoots three times in a row. A scream in pain, then she hears something heavy crash into the bushes.
Five more shots, Yasira thinks, as her oak tree comes under fire from another direction.
A bullet shreds Yasira’s left shoulder. The pain dominates her entire existence for a moment.
She can no longer hold on and falls down the tree.
The fall saves her life, as more bullets hit the wood above her.
The impact on the forest floor, however, squeezes the air out of her lungs.
Her last pursuer dashes through the undergrowth.
With her uninjured right hand, Yasira fires her remaining five bullets at him. The man screams and goes down.
Yasira listens for sounds of her enemies, but she hears nothing.
Nothing. Nothing at all. No. That’s not true.
Far in the distance, Yasira hears sirens and barking dogs.
Then the world blurs before her eyes. It’s not all fake, is her last thought before she loses consciousness again.
Real is the outrage. Real is the anger. Real is the hatred.