We hurried into the forest, but it was too-thick trees so close to each other, leaving no room for us to crawl in. The moon was gone, so we hid in the pitch-black darkness. A root dug into my quickly lifting and collapsing chest while we lay on the sand between trees. My body was folded under hers. She was protecting me. The screams continued long after the shots stopped being fired.
Although I was glad to have her with me, I felt guilty we weren’t helping the rest of our family. One by one, their names ran through my mind, my cousins, their parents. “Mommy, don’t we want to help the family?” I whispered.
“Shhh. Killian, talk later—”
The flashlight shined on us, blinding me, then I saw them. There were so many of them, men dressed in black military uniforms with long guns. They looked extra scary because they were all wearing the same plain black mask. Within seconds, my arms were being yanked and I was being carried back to where they came from.
“No!” Mum screamed. “Let us go! Let. Us. Go!” She fought the man carrying her over his shoulder and managed to pull away, but as soon as her feet touched the ground, he slapped her so hard she fell.
I ran to her and turned her body over to find her nose bleeding. “Muuuummmm!” I wailed, but she wouldn’t wake.
They carried us through the bushes into the clearing while I cried for her, desperate for her to wake.
At the clearing where the fire and fairy lights still lit the trees, the scene stopped my heart and had me crying with shock. The spreading flames encircled the clearing and heated my face, almost burning it. The heat was dry. My nausea and shaking wouldn’t cease. I wish they would have knocked me out too so I wouldn’t have seen it. The ground was covered with my family’s bodies. They were all dead. All I saw was blood.
It had been a massacre.
The letter of the day is W. W is for big bad Wolf.
Thebedunderneathmewas so wide it seemed infinite. No matter how many times I turned in my sleep, I couldn’t find the end of it. Never could I have dreamed up the softness of the sheets and pillows. It was like sleeping on a cloud—so comfortable it lulled me back to sleep several times.
Once I woke and the fog cleared from my mind, I realized I was lying in a four-poster bed with green- and red-checkered fabric canopied around me. There was no view to the outside world, no way of knowing where this bed was.Maybe I’m dead, floating in space.I had never seen such a bed. In my home, I either slept on a mattress Mum rolled out on the kitchen floor, or on the sofa.
Then it all came back to me. Images of the blood bath assaulted my mind. In a trance, I saw the dead bodies aroundme, recognizing them. Happy short memories of them broke my heart, like when my older cousins would carry me on their shoulders, play with me, or tickle me.
The blood and dead bodies were the only things I could see around me, and no matter how many times I squeezed my eyes closed, they wouldn’t disappear. I stretched when I sawAintinMargie, but my fingers couldn’t reach the blood-ridden dress to turn her over. Uncle Roger lay right next to her. My throat locked.
Naaaanaaaaa!I screamed in my mind. I wanted to be with them, but I couldn’t leave Mommy alone. I heard my own breathing shaking as the cold pain spread through my chest. They killed them all. Everyone I’d ever loved and who’d loved me was dead.
The fire heated my face all over again, like it had the night before. Sweat collected into fat drops on my forehead and a thin sheet of it covered the rest of my body. I couldn’t escape the scene and stop wishing it to be part of a nightmare that never happened. Every time my memory slid back to the bodies, a new horrible detail surfaced. I needed to return to the previous minutes of peace when I awakened with brain fog and brief amnesia. I wanted to run, to get off the bed, but the sound of gunshots and screams filled the room. Shadows of men holding big guns walked around the bed. With my hand spread on my chest, I tried to calm my breathing and my heartbeat. Scared it was happening again, I dared not open the curtains.
It can’t be real.It was just a bad dream. Where’s Nana? Where did she go?It was extremely dark, so once the shots and screams stopped ringing in my ear, I sat up and parted the curtains to my left, then the merciless sun blinded me. In its rays, dust balls floated.
Using a footstool, I climbed down from the bed. The window was narrow, with stained glass like those of a cathedral, andalmost reached the ceiling which was so high I had to arch my neck all the way back to see. Hanging on the wall across from the foot of the bed was an embroidered carpet depicting a forest full of different animals. In the dark center, between the trees, stood a big black wolf. It stared right at me, its eyes the only specks of red in the entire tapestry. It drew me to search behind the carpet, but it mirrored the rest of the room, with brown wainscotting at the bottom and dark-green paint on the top. A small wooden desk and chair drew me to the right of the room, bringing my attention to a door which led to a lavish bathroom with a luxurious shower and bath.
“Mum!” I called, wondering where they’d taken her, then hurried out of the room. The long, carpeted hall matched my room, except hanging on these walls were landscape paintings with lavish gold framing. With so many doors of the same color, the place was a maze and there was no way to know which room I’d come from. At the end of the hall, I had no idea which way to go—left or right? Listening as best as I could for any noise, I heard yelling in the distance and followed it.
“You will do everything exactly as I say when I say, or I swear I’ll kill him too!”
I ran toward the man’s voice, and even though I could barely hear her sobbing, I recognized it right away.
As I got closer, her weeping became more distinct. “How could you do this to me? You’re revolting! I don’t want to be involved with you or your disgusting business. I never did. And now you’ve killed my family! How can you expect me to feel anything but hate toward you?” she yelled. There was a slapping sound.
“You’ll get over it. Time heals everything, my little oh-so-moral sister-in-law…” He laughed like a maniac. With the door slightly ajar, I could see my mother’s long, black hair, undulating in big curls, draping over the back of the chair she sat on. “We both know this is your doing, not mine—”
“What are you talking about? I’m married to your brother, Rick! Have you lost your mind?”
“You flirted with me, seduced me, drove me crazy with your smiles and that sparkle in your eye. Don’t act like you didn’t know what you were doing to me. And then… you chosehim!” The last word almost echoed, but then he whispered, “Because you couldn’t accept that I was rich?” He scoffed.
“You’re a criminal who sells people into slavery! How can you expect me to accept that, Ricard? Either way, I always loved your brother and always will.”
“Loved,mostór,” he corrected on a chuckle.
The two words shocked me, ripping everything from me. In the silence, I could only hear my heart and breaths, but the world turned way too fast. There was no way I’d heard right. I wanted to vomit, to die.Da was dead? My uncle… had killed my father?All my dreams melted into nothing but garbage, yet there was no time to lament or mourn because we were in terrible danger in the big bad wolf’s den. I had to focus on saving Mum and myself. After all, she was the only thing I had left.
“Youlovedmy brother. He’s dead, dear. I killed him too. There’s actually nothing I wouldn’t do and no one I wouldn’t kill... for you. To have you like this…” He pointed at her on the carpet and added, “All for me.”
His proud, smooth-toned admission hammered a nail into my coffin, but I had to stay strong. I had to keep quiet and gather as much information as I could so I could get us out of here somehow.
