Chapter 3: I can hear them screaming

Akitri's Point of view

I was sitting on a rock overlooking the river. The events of this morning reeling in my mind. Why is my dad always so hard on me but not everyone else? The other kids of the clan get to live happily, it seems my father just wallows in his own self-pity and takes his anger out on me. He never treats my younger brother So'ni like that, or As'wang, or Kantu. Heh… Kantu, his prodigy son. The one he really cares about. The only other one of my siblings who gets treated nearly as worse as me is my other older brother Sa'walle but then again he is a drunken bastard after all. My father calls him a disgrace. Sometimes I think I hate him. I thought these things as I felt my eyelids become heavy. I fell asleep, without even fighting to stay awake. I don't know why I went to sleep, I know what dream awaits me, the one I don't want to have the most.

"Hey Akitri, why are you staring off into space like that?" My friend Ra'Sheiiks older brother Ri'Saad asked me. I was five at the time, but my eyes twinkled with intelligence beyond my age.

"I don't know Ri'Saad. I just don't know." I said absently.

"Hey Ri'Saad, do you think that ma Sanok will let me get an extra slice of yerik?" I asked him.

"I don't know what your mother is going to do Akitri, but Elan is a very nice woman she has always been kind to me. I think she will." He said to me reassuringly. Little did any of us know that day would go so wrong and my life would change forever. We were at Kelutral , well one of them at Kathros, each tree was called a Kelutral, or great home tree, since there were several in that immediate area was called a Kel in kathardic that means home, to the tawtute it would basically be a city. We were at the base of the kelutral we called our home. The kels were connect by rope suspension bridges and vines, and platforms. I used to feel so safe there. In Kathara, or the Mother Crade, the Fatherland.

All of the sudden there was a loud explosion that rocked the ground to the core it seemed. And there was a column of smoke rising from kelutral.

"What the hell was that screamed Ri'Saad as he turned in horror to see what was going on.

"Akitri run! We're under attack!" He shouted. I saw warriors brandishing the Althing's sacred emblem, the emblem of the high council, an Ikran resting on a sun. they were peacekeepers, and military police. All I could hear was screaming, and the cries of terrified children, and heavy fighting going on in the immediate area. I saw Ri'Saad's mother slain, my uncle Ortis was killed. I screamed but no sound came out. Then I saw Ri'Saad get cut down.

"…Akitri! Akitri!" I heard a female voice screaming.

"Aaaaagh!" I screamed and made an arcing swing with my arm. Then I noticed who it was. Ashara the most beautiful girl I have ever met. She is from the same Kel as me. She was there the day of the devastation. The day our people made our exodus. The day we sha'll never forget.

"Akitri, why are you crying? Did you have that dream again?" she asked me.

"No." I said flatly. I didn't want to burden her with my problems. She looked taken aback by my response. Ok so it did sound a little harsh, she was only trying to help.

She looked offended. "Well excuse me. I was only trying to see if you were okay. Skxawng!" she added at the end of her shouting.

My gaze softened immediately. "Ashara I'm sorry." I said as I peered into her mesmerizing blue eyes. That's another major difference between most Katharan Na'Vi and regular Na'vi besides our red skin, we have blue, or geen, or sometimes even brown eyes. Haxion has Purple eyes. He's one of my best friends like the brother I never had, but always wanted to have. But he is a Sangonian Katharan. But that's a whole different group of classification.

I pulled ashara into an embrace without warning and I began to sob on her shoulder. She embraced me back. "What's wrong Akitri?" she asked her voice full of worry.

"Ashara… I can hear them screaming." I said between sobs.

"What do you mean Akitri?" She asked me confused as to where all this was coming from.

"The children, the women, even the men. I still remember what happened to our home in clear detail. Everytime I close my eyes, I see the faces, the pain and our home burning. I can't forget, I can never forget." I sobbed into her arms.
"Akitri we can't change the past, we can't even control the present. But we can change the future. Akitri I know you are destined for great things. Everything happens for a reason everything has a purpose. We have made a good life here with the Omaticaya. They have taken us in as their own. We are considered a part of their clan now Akitri. And we have to accept that. But everything will be okay." She assured me. It's funny how she can reassure me even though im about a whole year older than her.

"I love you Ashara." I said into her shoulder.

"I love you to Akitri." She said into my ear.