Nothing

    I was a bad kid. I got in trouble. One night, three men dragged me out of my bed and threw me in a van. After an endless drive through the dark that ended miles from paved roads, I was informed that I'd been sent to a camp. A camp for bad kids.
    They'd set up nice and cozy in an old wash. A demented child's version of Tent City. Right away we ran into problems with the dirt, which was like broken pottery that our boots shattered into puffs of dust. Everything was coated in that dust, and another layer of sand on top of that. We dug did manual labor and drills in the baking sun, with the dust continuously choking us and the sand grinding away at our skin. All of us sported varying degrees of a kind of road rash on our palms from the friction on the handles of our shovels and spades.
    The desert brutalized us. The sun beat down on us as soon as it rose but the heat was fickle, and at night we shivered in our bags, arms wrapped around us in a futile attempt to stave off the bitter cold. Cacti stabbed at our heels and every scrubby plant was guaranteed to have a coating of thorns. One unfortunate boy was the recipient of home surgery in the hour before bed when he discovered a thorn had become lodged in his perineum after a fall. We sliced open an aloe and applied it to the wound and hoped for the best.
    And oh, how much we hated them. Our abductors kept watch from the shade, stepping out only long enough to haul whichever one of us had fallen to their feet and shove the handle of the shovel back into their hands. Showers were a luxury rarely earned. Food was never a given, and many of us took to slicing our belts in half to make them fit. Every day was the same, and the time was measured in scabs and the issue and eventual disintegration of our uniforms.
    And then one of us went missing. A very small, quiet boy who blended in perfectly with the sand and parched dirt. We looked for him for days, the counselors barking over our shoulders into the smothering heat- but we found no trace of him. Survival was not possible. We watched for vultures as we dug up succulents and replanted them away from camp but the desert was quiet.
    I didn't know the girl who woke up screaming but I recognized her as she fled, her bright red hair like a flame against the pitch of the night. A counselor took off after her and her tent was inspected. Someone else was inside. An unrecognizable, filthy creature that shivered, unprotected against the cold, beside her bag. He was removed and taken to the nurse, supported on both sides by reluctant hands, while the rest of us were ordered back into our tents.
    He was reintroduced into the general population again once he had been cleaned and checked but there was something wrong with him, some kind of smell that was repugnant to the point of being unbearable. His eyes had developed a strange twitch, and they bounced constantly without ever settling. His hair was thin and the bones of his spine jutted from his heavy striped shirt. He refused to eat, as if the food didn't interest him. At night he whimpered and screamed despite the heavy sedatives. Rumors of other inmates observing him plucking off and eating the thorns and spines of cacti circulated. A close look at his gums confirmed the story. He was put on constant observation but this didn't deter him. He was quiet to the point of invisibility, and losing track of him was inevitable. He grew thinner and thinner. His skeleton jutted painfully outward, pulling the skin tight. The massive eyes rolled and slid from place to place and even the counselors began to be frightened of him. No one spoke to or approached him. He was not instructed to work. He simply stood at the edge of the city, staring out into the desert with those ghoulish eyes, while wind-blown sand pooled in the hollows of his collarbones. His corneas clouded with infection, scarred by the dirt and sand. Strange growths appeared all over him, hard, yellowish protrusions that broke through the skin and bled when nicked with a scalpel. The nurse refused to touch him after this and he was left alone to stand and stare blindly into the desert, his eyes milky but still twitching, sliding from point to point.
    Something brushed against the side of my tent one night. It snagged the material, rasping across it just above my head. I peered out into the darkness and could make out the figure of the boy about two tent lengths away. He was moving toward the edge of the city.
    The growths had grown, completely taking over the surface of his skin. They were sharp, pointed, and they tore cruelly at his skin as they emerged. Mesmerized, I moved closer. He heard me and turned, his useless eyes fixed on my face in a rare moment of stillness.
    What's out there? I heard myself ask.
    It was difficult for him to speak- the growths were inside him too- but I made out what he croaked from around the growths:
    Nothing.
    He turned and continued to make his way. This time, he didn't pause as he reached the edge of camp. The darkness was think and oily and he sank into it until there was nothing left of him. I waited for him in front of my tent until sunrise but he didn't come back. I waited every night until the camp was raided and we were returned to our homes with the promise of future justice.
    We didn't talk about him. It didn't need to be discussed. It was best to leave it unsaid.