Ivan Braginski: Light my Heart

The young boy shivered in the frozen tundra, his breath fanning out before him in visible wisps. His hands were severely frostbitten as he had no gloves. What a piteous state I'm in was the thought that came to his mind. He had the yoke of the Tatars on him. He knew life was hard now, but he also knew somehow that someday, he was going to be a big nation. So for now, he would struggle to live on and wait for the day to fulfill his dream that had not yet been realized.

As he matured, he grew more rebellious. He began to question the Tatars' authority. He slacked off when the Tatars gave him work to do. When he was questioned why he was slacking, he replied that he was tired. The Tatars did not tolerate this, of course, and they placed him in a dark cell in solitude. A burly man came into the cell every day and gave the boy a dozen lashings with a cruel-looking whip. This left the boy in a horrible state both mentally and physically- he had a thousand scars on his mind and body.

The burly man came in as usual one day when the boy had been in jail for three years. He pulled out the bloodstained whip and raised it, preparing to give the boy another bout of lashings, when the boy turned around. The man took one look at the expression on the child's face and dropped his whip in fright. It was an expression that would give anyone nightmares, an expression that a child should never have on their face. The eyes- a cold mercilessness that reflected the eternal winter of the kid's homeland. The mouth- a pleasant smile. The boy picked the whip up off the floor. The man found himself pleading, clasping the boy's feet. But the boy paid him no heed, just raised the whip like the man had done so many times before, and whipped the man until he gasped his last.

The kid looked at the blood on the floor. He bent down, stuck a finger in, and licked the blood off of it. He grinned. This was the taste of freedom. No one could stop him now.

Finally, he left his cell, which had practically become his home. And he ran. He ran with no sense of where he was going, just a sense that he was going. His path led him to a farm which appeared to be deserted. He sat down on a hay bale to take a rest before continuing his journey.

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