Time To Go

I am outside the door. They are inside. The Hamdo Faction are in there with them.

What do I do? I can't leave the children in there with them. I can hear Mary crying. And there's Ahdeb yelling at the Factions' Leader, Sorell Hamdo. Just what does he think he's doing? Does he want to get dragged off? Beaten? Handed a gun?

My throat constricts, dry like daggers of sand down my parched throat. Salty water runs down my sun beaten skin, into my cracked lips. Precious water. Too precious to waste on tears. Who knows when we'll have another taste with the Hamdo Faction patrolling the pools' bounds.

I feel a movement at my breast. Little Charlotte's hungry. My chest is heavy and nagging with the need to feed her, but I can't. Abelia is talking to Lily. She wants the baby most surely held in Lilia's arms. There's Karl now. He's trying to calm Mary. Not good. If she doesn't hush up soon, she'll surely feel the beat of Sorell's fist against her skull. He's cruel, merciless. Just like his stolen namesake.

My fist quivers, inches from the doors' handle. I must help them, save them. They are my children, Sis' children, even if they are just gathered from the deserts and the streets. I am their parent now! Sister! Mother! But Charlotte is my child, my blood. She has her fathers' blood too, a soldier of that cruel, detestable army. I don't know which. I lost count, lost track long ago.

I don't much care to remember.

Wait, that sound…Sorell has sat himself in the old corner chair, its creaking echoing in my ears. I tighten Charlotte's strap, firmly attaching her to my chest. My heat blistered hand reaches into my shirt, rough with dirt and grime. I feel the cold familiarity of metal as I wrap my hand around its handle, finger close to the trigger. I lean against the door, gun at the ready. Charlotte wails. Now!

I rush into the room.

"Go children, go! Now! Follow All of you run! Follow Abelia! Run as far as you can!"

My throat tightens, fingers firm around my neck. Dark eyes glare into mine, bloodshot from beer, a scar over his right from a friends' knife. I gasp and kick, watching over his shoulder to see the last child disappear through the door. I swing my body and kick him hard in the groin. I fall to the floor.

His gun swings at me. I pull the trigger first.

I don't see his blood, won't see it, won't allow myself to. My heart pounds in my ears with every footfall that beats against the dry earth. I need to run! Hide! But where? The cave! Go to the caves!

I bend my body to protect Charlotte as I ram through Hamdos men. Quick! I reach the entrance, run well into its depths and slide down its wall. Adrenaline beats at my ears as I finally settle to rest.

I lose the battle to my tears again and resign myself to the impending dehydration. Charlotte is still crying. Baring myself, I raise her to my sore breast and wince as she suckles. I could laugh at the absurdity.

I'm fourteen years old and have my own child. Nowhere to go, to be, to belong. I ache to go home, home to my America, but would my parents recognise me if they saw me?

My once long, blonde hair is now short, ragged, dirty. My long nails have worn down and crusted with sand and blood. No, not blood. It's just the red of this faraway lands' ruby earth. Definitely not blood. My eyes have dulled with the horrors of these lands. I couldn't even begin to feign innocence with them.

I remember home. Busy streets, a clean house scented with air freshener, food to your disposal and plentiful clean water. Sweet, delicious, cold water. Back then I was still innocent.

My hands were clean, not bloodied with another's' life. My body was entirely my own and no one else's', not yet tainted with soldier after soldiers' cruel touch. My stomach wasn't yet weighted with hunger, my throat not parched with thirst, my shoulders not yet weighted with others responsibility. My belly and vulva weren't stretched and sagging with forced life. Breasts that were once small and growing are now heavy, stretched, and scarred, full with milk.

Would they recognise me, this ruined daughter, stolen from their grasp by men in strange yellow uniforms with snakelike vehicles?

I can't go back either.

To the villagers I am nothing but a soldiers' filthy whore. And how am I to argue? That is precisely what I was. Just another breeder to continue their legacy and birth them strong soldiers. That is what I was before I killed one of them. Before I stole their clothes to escape, not caring to see the children far younger than I, wearing the very same, their own possession, matched arms in their hands and at their waists. That is what I was before the army, the nation, fell to pieces at their tyrannical kings' boundless insanity.

The soldiers' blood runs through my daughter, so we are and will always be rejected. It doesn't matter that we are not the repulsive soldiers, doesn't matter that we are not the ones who slaughtered villages, stole women for breeding and children for soldiers and canon fodder. It doesn't matter to them and never will, so there is nowhere here to go.

I belong with my child, but so long as I'm with her I will always run. I belong in America, but I am so changed, far from their free and innocent daughter. Would they accept me? How could they begin to? How could I?

I belong in this crimson land with the sun beating strong against sand and nights that freeze water. But I am tainted to them, different. So I am rejected from their communities, always ostracised from them.

What do I do? What of the children? Where do I go? I must be careful. I killed Sorell. The Hamdo faction knows me. If they catch me I'll end up feed for scavengers, a bullet between my eyes. The children won't know peace with me either. Sis left them to my care, but Abelia has them with her now so they're not alone. She's wise enough to keep them from any danger, even from me.

Charlotte separates herself and I wrap my cloth around her. I feel her nuzzle into me and fall to sleep. Good. It's time to leave. It's okay. I have a place in America. I know the way. I have friends, contacts. They will help me. Some of the old technology survived the flooding.

But Sis' children?

I wince and my heart weighs heavy as I make the decision. I will search for them, but if they aren't found before the scorpions scuttle in the morning dunes, I'm leaving without them. Abelia too.

Bile threatens to rise in my throat, but I push it back.

There's no time for that. I must flee.

Sorells' blood soaks my dress. Children or not, I must go. I haven't a choice. I take a deep breath, train my hard eyes on the red ground, and step out.

Time to go.