My flesh was abuzz with a vibrating sensation running all across my skin, overwhelming whilst still subdued enough that my senses were constantly teased. The effort it took to merely lift a finger.
While my vision was blurry, I clawed at the dirt beneath me trying to drag himself up. Through my murky vision, a heavy scent of smoke filled my nose, irritating it with each breath.
I managed to sit up, finding a thick layer of dust and ash covering me with the still warm flakes of the lingering embers floating about.
"Why…is everything burning?" My voice scratched as I spoke, breathing in another puff of choking smoke.
My gaze was brought upwards, while my hands sifted through the ash of the shallow pit below me.
The scattered flames around me gave shape to my surroundings, the center of a crater filled with the hazy rain of ash and smoke, while masked figures rummaged through the debris in search of something.
Their dark boots were powdered with their hasty march kicking up a cloud. I tried to call out to the figures, hoping to hold on to anyone that would pass nearby.
One figure approached with a sudden and deep pain in my stomach that tore what little wind I had in my stomach. With not much strength left in my body, I fell back on my face, my hearing as useless as my vision while my mind was falling into a consuming darkness.
A steely voice whipped at my senses with a force that shook me awake, though I was still in a daze. The sudden splash of cold water washed over me, bringing out a harsh scream as I shuddered, unable to move. In a panic I cried out but couldn't move.
When a dim and small light hovered in front of me, my eyes slowly focused.
Another spray of freezing water was thrown over me, now with the faint light, he could see clearly, taking notice that I was on a bare stone floor, soaking with the cold water without any clothes.
The soft light would glint against the steel chaining my limbs with rough steel cuffs. Tugging at them, the slack was quickly pulled taut towards the wall behind him.
"You're not getting out of there. So how about you sit still and stay quiet." The figure's face was hidden by the light, and his words carried no meaning that I could make sense of, but another trapped in the same cells across from me parted with an explanation of their words.
But none of that mattered. I just wanted to get away from the cold. Scrambling to the wall away from the light, another spray of water doused me in water, causing me to cry out.
I tried to call out to them, asking the stranger to stop as I shivered when they began striking the bars of the cell and screaming at me to stop crying. Covering my mouth to stifle my cries.
"Good. It looks like your ears are still working. Now I won't tell you twice. When I come back, I don't want to hear any of your whimpering. Understood!" The stranger's shadow lingered as he walked off with the light around me growing dimmer while the space beside
Leaving me, for three days unattended, how would I know, except for the blades of light that slit through the jagged and uneven walls, only watching them enter the same dark room to retrieve another struggling person from the nearby cells before they walked into the deep darkness.
Occasionally, I would wake up to find a rusty plate of something you would only give to your dog. But I was in no position to complain, I was tired and hungry and in the end, I was feeding on the barebone scraps each time.
With no real way of telling the time, I started using the meals delivery as an indication of the time passing. As long as I kept silent and spoke when I was spoken to, the stranger would leave me alone.
Easier said than done with how cold the cell was at times, I felt like if I were to die in my sleep that it would be a mercy.
However the sleep would not last, sometimes the coarse and hard stones of the floor strained my back until I woke, other times, the wails and cries coming from the nearby cells kept me from getting any rest despite how tightly I held my own ears.
After what felt like a week had passed, I slowly came to accept my situation, the routine of waking, eating, shivering, marking the passing time and listening to the nearby cries of others as helpless as me, had settled in my mind.
Something had to change, or I would rot, or at least that my death would come, it came for everyone else, why shouldn't it come for me.
My world cannot claim to have any justice, at least for the innocent. We were all innocent at one time, but none of it would survive our captors, Salu…she tried, she tried to give us children the chance at being children, to spend our days in wonder and curiosity through all the things she shared with us, all the things she taught us, but she couldn't bring it back.
In the end, none of us were children anymore, at least not in the eyes of our captors.
Salu was a teacher, or it would be more accurate to say she took on the role as a way of caring for the many orphaned children of the village. Her knowledge helped to treat the sick, educate the young, and farm against harsh summers. Her work made the time away from the factory almost feel normal for the rest of us.
The children were allowed shorter shifts in the factory to attend Salu's lessons. Our captors believed it helped to develop our skills to make us better fit for more complex work, but for us, any excuse to be away from the scalding slag sputtering from the glowing cauldrons was one we wouldn't hesitate to take.
From the ones I could remember, Merrina had a talent for understanding languages, be they written or spoken to the point of being Salu's fastest learned student, much of what I understood of our teacher's work was thanks to her.
While many found her to be rash and tempestuous, the moment she began to teach, a gentleness would overcome her, almost modeling that of Salu, perhaps she saw an example to follow in our teacher.
Hane was another, no one could bake bread as fresh or spongy as his, a welcomed staple from the scraps our captors would offer us.
But with the knowledge of our teacher, he managed to create a treat we could all enjoy. Such a small act, and yet, it succeeded in bolstering our hearts. Any meal was made worse if it was never paired with his bread. Hane's kindness gave us a gift at every meal.
But the one I was worried about was Foula. She had a heart far too big for someone so small, capable of showing anyone kindness, she was probably the most innocent of us all. Never, not even once did she ever let our captors bring her to tears. Salu once mentioned how her father's last words to her was to never let them know her pain and that she hasn't shed a tear since then.
Foula was the one that brought me to our teacher, she was the one I considered my family. Clumsy and airheaded as she could be, it didn't really matter with me looking out for her, they were all innocent, but now…they were taken away.
And every night they were gone, I had to hear their cries and every morning I would hear their whispered prayers, wishing that they wouldn't suffer again. Every day I could do nothing but listen, close enough to wish that I could die if it meant I wouldn't feel this helpless anymore…but my world has no justice, and our gods do not hear our prayers
Our captors were cruel but never savage. Salu wasn't around but I could figure that out myself. I hadn't seen her since they attacked the factory, I don't even remember how long ago it happened, only that in an instant the world was blackened with choking smoke and burning steel.
I remember how they dragged us out of the flames, shouting all sorts of commands at us, nothing I could understand, and it seemed like they couldn't understand us either, though the confusion was quickly dismissed at the end of their barrels, any tears or pleas were immediately silent.
Those that weren't dragged out of the flames were left among the rubble, joining the rest of the burning complex. They brought the rest of us into the holds of the carriageways, bound for an unknown destination. The roadway train that sped off with us left little view of what we were leaving behind. My home since I could remember was ashes, and I didn't even understand why.
Many of us would fall on the way to wherever we were going, succumbing to their wounds from the attack, they would beg for their mothers or beg for a swift against their heart, but every so often they would be silenced, not with a threat this time, they knew what they wanted, and the dead couldn't give it to them, so to them, they felt nothing it riding themselves of the ailing passengers.
Three nights were spent on a constant drive before we arrived. We had left at night and arrived at night, all throughout the journey, more and more of us fell. Some taken by our captor's brutality, their closest friends and family heard how other's wished for the same quick end, but they wouldn't have their prayers answered yet.
"The gods don't hear our prayers because they are not the ones that need them" One of the youngest among us heard the weeping mothers comforting her child after the guards took her and a few others to their private quarters only returning them at the dawn of each day. They were always the ones beaten the most, but never the face, that was what they liked.
And where I was during the entirety of the trip, well we didn't know it then but they had something specific in mind for some of us once we arrived.
So they kept us separated from everyone else, with our train car sitting between their private quarters and the rest of our people. Sadly it meant having to endure the cries and pleas for them to stop hurting them, behind a wall of metal I could do nothing behind except listen.
After the first night, we stopped trying to plead with them, they didn't see us as people, they would like to know what 'things' had to say about how they could be used, about their feelings or reservations.
And the second night, some of us deafened themselves, with whatever they could grab, by the third night, the deaf has died and the rest of us remained amongst corpses and the cries and it was here that we found something:
"The hounds of war feast, but they will find only ash" The text was marred in filth and bloodstains, but was nevertheless all too familiar. It was her, I don't remember when she was with the rest of us, maybe our time spent on the train had been a lot longer than any of us understood. But at that moment, seeing that phrase, time felt like it was crawling slow.
It didn't matter how many times I saw the moon cycling above in the skies through the metal grates that offered the only source of fresh air from the stale poison that filled the train cart each day, as far as I was concerned I was dead.
Eventually, the time that passed was determined by the number of senses I felt fell away. The heat from being in that rotting cart, the persistent rumble of the metal plates beneath me, and the darkness that would only be broken up with the blades of light that would cut through the metal walls.
The hunger and the thirst was persistent but my teacher's education rang in my head, the history and wisdom she shared to remind us all that we were not tools of war, beneath the oil of war machines and the smoke of artillery fire, we were all just people.
"Salu hated poetic students, she preferred sensible and practical students instead. I am tired but I must remain vigilant, I'm hungry but should never resort to cannibalism, thirst should never drive me to consume anything that isn't prepared sources of water" Her teachings helped keep us out of trouble, perhaps she meant for them to be something more.
Bang. Bang. Bang. The metal grates finally stopped their rumbling before it was taken over by the constant beating of the road-trains's wall panels, a task that succeeded in waking them.
A silence followed the rushing footsteps that surrounded the train cars before low voices began yelling. The words were a jumble of clicks and hisses but those he caught and hung onto were familiar from the night of the attack.
"The dead smell coming from this cart would probably have them think that there is nothing but corpses in here…" I tried to press my cheek against the metal walls to try and hear more of the outside events.
The way my body took to the brand new stimulus from the constant agony that had been playing on repeat like an ice cold glass of water. I forgot about the slick of waste covering my hands, the sound of crushed viscera and bone between my toes, the release of gas from the bloated corpses almost stopped existing the moment the vehicle had stopped.
I leaned against the walls of the cart for what felt like an hour perhaps before the brightest flash of yellow and orange and white filled my gaze.
Throwing me back, the walls of the cart fold open allowing the armored figures to rush onto it, dragging anyone who wasn't dead to the floor, joining the rest of the frightened crowd.
Once they were all gathered, the armed figures stood at attention, like they were waiting on someone.
While we were beaten and swore at each time we were caught staring anywhere but forward, from your peripheral it was easy to see what they were up to.
They had been moving in different groups with one wearing thick masks and detailed uniforms standing at the door of the building in front of us, with some of them standing in front of the cars that were not connected to the road-train.
Another group caught the most attention, dragging the crying and pleading young woman into the building in front of us, while the last group shoveled and scraped the road-train's carts clean.
The sound of whirling fans and the scent of flowing oil soon followed the flames that roared behind us.
There was an attempt to cover the young ones from both the smell and sound of charring flesh, while they used all their strength to hold back their involuntary need to empty their stomachs. Those that failed, were soon stomped into silence by the armed figures nearby.
The armed figure's assault only stopped once the doors of the guarded cars were opened. Allowing a thin gloved hand to slip out of the vehicle until the armed ones helped them out. Dressed head to whiter robes I had ever seen, that it almost hurt to look at.
While another followed dressed in gray clothes that were so fine I wondered what kind of machine was able to make them, certainly nothing or old captors had us using was capable of work so impressive, looking at them approaching us, it felt as though they came from a world that was completely different from the one we were familiar with.
While they both wore coverings that hid their expressions, their oppressive gaze shudders down my back. They walked past us a few times as if they were searching for something we had, but they would not speak to us, instead choosing to point at a few among us.
"Discard!" A shrewd figure, one dressed in a surprising amount of jewelry and adornments but only on fine black robes that resembled the uniform of the others rather than the attire of the other two. While he spoke in their foreign tongue, his command echoed with some sense as it was spoken.
Once the armed ones heard his orders, a few of us were dragged away from the crowd. Perhaps the journey here had weakened us or maybe it was how helpless we felt kneeling in front of them, but none resisted as they were dragged away, no one protested.
Everyone tried to keep their head down and avoid their selection but I wasn't so lucky, and just like the rest before me, I heard that same command: "Discard" before the firm and heavy grip of an armored hand pulled me up from my knees dragging me away.
I knew that this was the end, I didn't need to understand their words, this feeling I felt was the same each time I felt the presence of death draw near. I had bathed in this sensation so deeply that I couldn't ignore it.
Yet, somehow, it was not fear I felt, what I feared was already true. To die, only meant I would see everyone I had already lost, that I would be free from this world and its cruelty,
"The hounds of war feast, but they will find only ash" Why am I thinking of that right now? Are they the hounds, or will they be the ash?
Why does it matter if all that will be left is ash…I don't care about any of it anymore, I just want it to end…no before any of that, I want them to suffer…all of them, the ones that imprisoned us before and now them, I want them to beg for someone to save and then leave them with nothing but ash…that is what I want.
An anger I didn't think was possible raged within me, but it did not lash out, instead coursing through, churning and searing me from deep inside, driving me to do something, anything to stop it, to stop from dying with this unending hatred.
My mind found a quietness in the storm of hatred and rage, this wasn't the first time it had happened. It was why Salu had taken me as a student, she said that she saw a mind that was worth saving in us, that it would be the last thing to survive once the tyrants had finally ended their war.
In this quiet, that moment stretched out, further and further. Salu spoke of this, of how the mind and body responds to moments of extreme agitation, how the senses elongate the idea of time, and how actions and sensations are heightened beyond what was normal.
In that moment, her teachings filled the boy, and did awareness grow to encompass it all. The roughness in the texture of the hands that bound him, the volume of the cries of his people, and the strangeness of the words the gilded figure spoke in.
The strangeness…I thought about it, as I was placed in a line among the others who were discarded, away from the vehicles but still close enough to the rest of the group to hear them speak.
The words of the foreign language were largely uninterpretable but some of them echoed with meaning.
Much like "Discard", he found two that were unmistakable to him, "Stop" and "No", the words that rationalized after hearing the pleas of the young girls that were taken against their will every night in the neighboring train cart.
From the armed figure's command for them to stop resisting to them begging to be freed, the constant chorus embedded itself into my mind.
And in an instant before the armed ones could raise their torches at us, I yelled with all my strength.
"Stop…no Discard!" I yelled and yelled, even as they approached me and told me to stop, beating me into the dirt.
I continued to yell…I yelled until the last thing I saw was the streaming flames of their torches washing over me.