Prologue

The tears blinded her eyes as she ran down the road. The sound of explosions followed her as she ran, as she tried to get away. The death of her family kept replaying over and over in her mind. The building behind her exploded and dirt fell upon her but she kept running. People screamed behind her in agony and fear. Another explosion sounded and suddenly everything lay quiet. The screaming had stopped. She looked around her as she ran trying to find someone, anyone. But the only thing she could see were the destroyed houses of her village and the bodies of people she had once known. She pushed herself to run harder, maybe; just maybe if she could reach the field, everything would be ok. She looked ahead trying to see the field in the distance. Her heart skipped a beat. Someone in a blue uniform was standing at the end of the street. She abruptly turned left and ran as hard as she could. She had to put some distance between herself and those monsters. After running for a couple of minutes she decided to turn right. Now she was going in the direction of the field again. She could just barely see the green at the end of the village, which was the field, when the house in front of her blew to pieces. With no time to move out of the way she screamed and ducked down, putting her hands over her head. The mud and rock crashed above her and around her. One hit her in the head and she fell unconscious. Blood seeped from her head as she lay motionless.

"Hey look, someone yelled, there's a little girl over here! I think she's still alive!" A man in a blue uniform ran over and helped move the rocks in the pile out of the way. There indeed was a little girl. She had tan skin, black hair, and couldn't have been more than six years old. He kneeled down beside her and felt for a pulse on her wrist and was relieved to find one, however faint it was. He stood up, trying not to show his relief, and told the soldier who had found her to immediately take her to the medical tent. Soon the little girl was on her way to recuperation. The man looked off in the other direction as his partner carried away the young girl. "That's only the second survivor we've found in three days," he thought. "I wonder what they're going to do with the two of them," he voiced aloud. He turned around and headed back toward camp. It was time to call off the search. This had been the last area to look for survivors in. He walked over to the medical tent and took a peek inside. The baby girl they had found yesterday was asleep in her wooden crib. The black-haired girl was lying on the bed, still unconscious, getting checked over by their female nurse. The nurse sighed and took off her stethoscope. "It looks like she may have some brain damage. I don't think she'll be able to remember who she is or what happened. Other then that she should be fine as long as she wakes up soon so we can get some food into her. "How's the baby?" he asked. "She's doing fine. It's a good thing she's so young, she'll probably be able to have a normal life." "How old do you think she is?" he asked. "Just about five months is my guess. She can't be any older then that, look how small she is." Oh, I see, so what's going to happen to them? Have we received any orders on what to do with survivors?" Well we had instructions on what to do with any grownup survivors. I guess they didn't expect any of the children to live through this." "Ok, well see that you find out what to do with them as soon as possible. I'm going to go call off the search. It's time to prepare to head home. We're done here." With that he turned around and left.

Outside the tent he stopped to talk one of his comrades and with that done he went to check how many search parties were still out looking. The only ones still looking were group C and F. One of them was north from camp and the other a little ways east. He headed toward the one in the east first, only to find them already on their way home. There were six of them covered in blood. There was an odd stillness in their manner and their faces were grim. "What happened?" he asked suddenly concerned. "There was a building..," one of the men stammered. "We went to go see if anyone might have stayed in there for refuge. We opened the door and there was a sickening smell of dried blood. Nonetheless we decided to check anyway. We searched for a couple of minutes and a couple of us thought we heard something in one of the rooms. But when we went to go check…" the man shuddered and couldn't continue.

"What? What happened? What did you see?"

"Children," one of the other men whispered. "Little ones. Some probably not even old enough to crawl yet. They were lying everywhere,"

"Well why didn't you bring them back with you? Where are they? How could you leave them," he asked not understanding what could have spooked his men so bad.

"They weren't alive sir," he whispered in a voice that was barely audible. "They were all dead. Like someone had put them in their and just killed them for no reason. There was blood on the walls and on the ceiling and it was flooding the floor. The smell was sickening, but we looked through it all. Hoping that there was at least one child left that was capable of still saving. We found one, a little boy. Probably not even nine years old. He was huddled under the body of a girl. When we went to pick him up he screamed... All we could see in his eyes were pain and fear, and when we lifted the body of the girl…" he shuddered.

"There was a pole going through his stomach," his soldiers continued. "The little boy whimpered. Blood was still freely flowing from his wounds. Then all of a sudden he went limp, and when we checked there wasn't a pulse. It…It was horrible. Who could've done such a thing? They were just children. Tears steamed down his face. What should we do sir?"

The general stood there for a little while and then told his men to head back to camp. It was time to go home. "Yes sir," the group answered weakly with a salute. Then they continued on their way. He stood there alone for a second before heading north. Hoping that his other group had not found something as gruesome as that. About five minuets later he neared a group of torn down buildings. This was where the last group was supposed to be searching. Everything was deathly silent and the general was about to leave, figuring that the group was already on the way back, when someone screamed out. The general turned and ran in the direction of the screamed. Ahead of him he could see one of his soldiers on the ground. He went to help him up when he noticed the blood around him. He backed up in fear and ran to the right. Where were the rest? Suddenly just ahead of him there they were, all on the ground and all dead. The general stood there in shock, and then he turned around. Standing there was a man. There was a flash of light and the general fell over next to his men dead, but not before hoping that the little girls back at the camp were ok…