Authors notes: I can't believe that it's been two years now that I've been working on this story. It both feels so much longer than that and just a few months at the same time. Thank all of you that stuck with me this far in my little writing journey. I started this project to test and see if I had what it takes to be an author. I've learned a lot about what I can do and what I still need to learn (so much more to learn, so much... T-T).
I promised that there was going to be some hidden things in the past brought to light in this story. It took my rambling ass two whole years to get around to it lol. This was actually a really hard chapter to write but I can't sit on it forever. Here is a little change of pace for the two year anniversary of Lightning and Truth, and for that we head back to the past...
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1989 Liberia
A small blond headed boy of around six years of age hit the ground hard enough to expel all the air from his lungs. The child had been thrown into the metal pen without ceremony but not without a small amount of malicious glee from his captors. The rough looking men in army fatigues took a moment to chuckle at the way he choked on the dirt from landing face first before moving on to throw the others in. Seeing what was coming, the boy scrambled out of the way before the older and larger boys could land on him.
The child wedged himself into the nearest corner of the pen and looked around at his surroundings with wide fearful eyes.
The pen that he now found himself was sat off to the side in a vast dusty compound with high razor tipped fences and numerous soldiers. The men patrolled about restlessly, nearly all of them wearing angry or grim expressions on their faces. Many of the men walking about had lean sharp eyed dogs at their sides. Several of the canines strained at their leashes in the direction of the pens, excited from the commotion and desperate to sink their teeth into something.
The blond child immediately pulled back from sitting flush against the bars. It may have kept him out of the way of the several other children being thrown in along with him, but it put him in easy reaching distance by what lurked beyond the pin. The enclosure of the cage was a cold comfort one who was already terrified beyond words.
His attention was pulled away from the dogs and back to his immediate surroundings by a stream of profanity from the last boy to hit the ground before the metal door was shut tight with an ominous metallic clang.
Still dusty from being roughly thrown to the ground, a tall boy of around thirteen sprung up in a rage and immediately tried to yank open the closed door. It was locked and the effort was wasted but it still did not stop the angry teen from pulling on it with all of his might before resorting to several futile kicks against the unyielding metal.
Instead of threatening the feisty child for his attempts to escape and defy them, the men on the outside seemed rather amused by the spectacle
"Good catch on that one. Spirited." The taller of the two men said with a pat to the other's shoulder.
"This should make the boss happy." The well pleased man declared before giving a hard thump to the side of the green camo covered van that the boys had been transported in. As the vehicle pulled away the men left as well, leaving the children locked in the cage without a hint of remorse or even a look back.
"You want spirited? I'll give you spirited! Get back here and open the door and I'll show you how spirited I can be!" The angry boy raged as he tried again and again to get the door to budge. For all his fury the boy didn't even manage to rattle the sturdy metal cage.
"Don't Tamba." One of the other occupants of the cage protested in a fearful whisper. The child that had spoken was curled up on the ground cradling one foot protectively. Tear tracks had cut numerous trails through the dirt clinging to his dark skin. "What if you make them angry? They might come back."
"I hope they do come back." Tamba darkly muttered even as he immediately yielded in his efforts and came to crouch by the younger similar looking child. "They hurt you. I'll make them pay for it. I promise Musa."
"You say he's hurt?" Piped up the second oldest boy that was in their small cage of five prisoners. The concerned boy had a strange sort of accent that the blond child had never encountered before and was fair skinned as well.
"Yeah. What of it?" Tamba puffed up, immediately on the defensive as he stood protectively in front of the sitting child.
"My mamma and papà have been teaching me some first aid." The foreign kid said flicking his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes and holding up his hands in a placating manner. "If you want me to come look at him I can see what I can do. It won't be much but better than nothing, yes?"
Musa and the eldest boy looked at each other briefly before nodding. The amateur medic scooted across the dusty floor of the cage until he was right beside of the injured child who then presented his ankle that he had been tearfully guarding.
From his position not quite in the corner, the blond boy could not quite see what all was wrong with the limb, but he did see that the outer part of the ankle was scrapped and bleeding. Seeing that the blood still beaded up and oozed, Tamba pulled off his shirt without hesitation and begun tearing it into strips to use as a bandage.
"My name is Tamba and this is my little brother Musa." Tamba proudly said, watching the exam, and the one performing it like a hawk. "You are not from around here. Who are you and how did you end up stuck in that van too?"
"I'm Arturo." The pale boy said as he gently rotated the sandaled foot checking for deeper injury than the scraped up skin on the ankle before wrapping it. "I'm here in the country on a humati… hummanata… a people helping mission with my parents. I was off doing errands for my ma around the village when they," Arturo gestured viciously towards the uniformed men,"pulled up beside of me in a car and I was grabbed and thrown in the back. My parents are going to be so worried…"
After the task of tending to the injury was finished the foreign boy retreated back against the bars before pulling out a crucifix that hung around his neck and rubbing a thumb along the metal.
"What about you?" Tamba suddenly turned towards the child in the corner and startling him. "You not from around here either. Who are you? What's your name?"
"I...umm…" The shy child could hardly get his terrified mind to form words much less force them out of his mouth. It was one thing to silently observe, it was another to participate. When bad dreams came all you had to do was wait and they would change. Interacting with the others somehow felt like it would make all of this more real. "I'm not supposed to give my name to strangers…" The deflecting words spoken from trembling lips were hardly more than a whisper.
"What?" Tamba pressed with growing irritation. "You with his group or not?" Defeated, the shy child just silently shook his head in the negative.
Instead of facing the intimidating stare of the taller boy and speaking, the silent child instead turned to rotating the plastic beads of his bracelet around over and over. It was far better to think about happy things than to pay attention to the nightmare around him. He chose to instead think about good things. 'Here you go my sweetheart.' His mother had told him as she gifted him the bracelet that he never took off. 'I thought of you when I saw it. The beads are as blue as your eyes.'
"No. I've not seen blondie before." Arturo said giving him a puzzled frown, which was promptly ignored. "Not part of our group. Must be from somewhere else. How did the two of you get captured? I was already in the van with the quiet kid but I didn't get to see what happened."
"We were out with the other kids when the men pulled up near us." Musa said tearfully, curling back in on himself. "They looked like trouble and we scattered. All of the other kids got away. We coulda gotten away too if I hadn't fell."
"Its not your fault." Tamba bit out, aggressively protective against the other boys perceived shortcomings. He knelt down and gave his younger brother a brief hug. "Besides, everything will be ok. Once father hears about this there will be hell to pay. The other kids must have already reached the village by now. They are probably coming for us even as we speak."
The other pale boy, Arturo, exchanged a look with the shy boy who had looked up from playing with the beads. It was a look that was full of doubt and fear. Like he knew help wasn't coming but he wasn't going to say so to Tamba lest all that fear and nervous energy be taken out on him.
It was not a look that was reassuring in the slightest.
To distract from that unspoken 'no one is coming' fear that had settled over them, Arturo turned to face the boy in the corner.
"So Blondie...If you won't tell us who you are can you at least tell us how you were snagged by those bastards too? You were already caught when they managed to grab me. You were the first in that van after all."
The boy cast his eyes to the ground at the question, uncomfortable at being reminded of how badly he had messed up.
Everyone was being boring that day. Father was off working as he always did and was not to be disturbed until later in the evening. All the older children were out working and the younger ones were out playing in the jungle and having fun. He had desperately wanted to join them but for some reason he had not been allowed to roam as freely of late.
'Not today sweetheart' his mother would tell him when he expressed wanting to go join the others. Or 'stay close by in the village. Listen to your mother and I' his father would gently but firmly remind him when he brought his youthful protestations up to him repeatedly.
The problem that day was that the village was unbearably boring.
Mother and all the other grownups were upset with something and kept talking amongst themselves in hushed whispered tones. At first he had been overjoyed that his lessons were to be put off for the day. That joy turned to tedium as he was still not allowed to join the other children in play but had to stay around everyone with their quiet conversations and tense moods.
"I've heard rumors but I didn't think that they have moved this far east." His mother chewed on a thumbnail as she conversed with the wizened older women of the village. Lacking her full attention, he of course had been tugging at her sleeve and repeatedly tried to get her attention. "Not now sweetheart." Was her reply to his repeated callings of 'Mom'.
"Oh yes. And I've heard something more than this." One of the women whispered with a fearful glance about, causing the others to lean in for this piece of information. "A fellow passing through just yesterday said that they are settling down not too far from here."
"Can't be. We all would have surely noticed at least some hints of all this occurring...Not now honey." His mother denied his attempts for attention yet again, to the child's increasing frustration.
"My son has heard rumors of this as well." One of the other women added in, wringing her hands anxiously. "They have heard of a foreigner getting involved…"
"Moooom." The long loud petulant whine was enough to finally draw his mother's attention away from the boring adult talk. She finally turned and knelt by him.
"Honey, why don't you go play for a while." She said with a kiss on his forehead before turning back to the others. "Why would a foreigner get involved in this conflict…"
He didn't stick around to hear the rest of the boring chatter. He was told to go play and he was not about to let an opportunity pass him by. Deep down he knew that his mother had meant nearby and certainly not with the other children on the outskirts of town. Deciding to play ignorant about his interpretation of her instructions, the boy had wandered off amidst the trees and endless green to go find his playmates.
They had a large head start so he rushed throughout all the hangouts in an attempt to find them. Coming across one of the many roads he had nearly ran across without paying it any mind but saw the van approaching just in time. Waiting patiently by the side of the road for the truck to pass, he took the moment to catch his breath from all his running about.
Unfortunately that was the second mistake he had made that day.
Instead of passing by the vehicle had stopped and soldier men with scary faces had stepped out. He had always been taught to be polite and respect his elders but those men frightened him and he refrained from greeting them and instead began to retreat back into the ferns. When they started to move towards him he did the only thing he could think of in that moment: run away.
He had nearly been quick enough to lose them amidst all the well known paths of the greenery and trees.
Nearly.
"I wasn't...fast enough…" The six year old, newly nicknamed Blondie, answered haltingly. "I was trying to find the other children but they found me first..."
"And what about you?" Musa kindly asked, turning to the fifth and final boy in their small cage baking in the sun. "What's your name?"
The last boy, who apparently was not fearful of the guards and their dogs, was hunched over with his face buried in his knees and wedged in the corner as tightly as he could fit himself. He didn't even twitch in recognition at being addressed. Musa shared a concerned look with his brother, Blondie, and Arturo.
"You're not hurt too, are you?" The amateur medic scooted over to gently shake the boy. "Hey...you ok? What's your name?"
"...Alexander." The name was spat out in a half choked out sob. It didn't seem possible to curl up any tighter than he already was but somehow the child in the corner managed it. No blood was visible on the small frame but the boy did not look well either.
Alexander had been the last to be thrown in the van, dropped off by other soldiers in another vehicle. He had been tightly balled in up on himself then too, silently suffering against some unseen pain.
"Hi Alexander. I'm Arturo. Are you hurt? If you're hurt I can call the guards over if we need to and…"
"No!"
The other four boys in the cage were taken aback by the ferocity that single syllable was shouted. A few of the men milling about the barren compound looked towards the cage in mild curiosity before turning back to what they were doing. Arturo backed off instantly.
"Sorry. I didn't meant to upset you."
"They're all gone. All of them. They killed them." Alexander whispered before burying his head in his knees once again. After that no one else had the heart to try and get anything more out of him.
After those ominous and heavy words none of their small group had felt up to much talking. The hours passed in the unforgiving sun. The light scorched at the shy boy's pale skin and on the other side of the pen Arturo was suffering under the lack of shade as well. All there was to do about it was keep one's eyes closed and dream of the cool enveloping darkness of the jungle, or better yet, the shade and comfort of home.
There was no food brought to them nor water. Out of necessity, it was silently agreed that one corner of the cage be devoted to relieving themselves from. Their captors, aside from a few curious soldiers coming by to inspect them with unsettling leers, largely ignored the caged children. When Tamba's temper got the best of him and he began rattling against the locked door and throwing out threats, the guards were amused yet approving. When Arturo began pleading to anyone that passed closely by for any sort of information, they would grace him with a sneer and ignore his pleas.
None of the others tried to get the attention of the men. Musa and Blondie were terrified of drawing any more notice to themselves. Alexander sat like a stone, uncaring either way. Eventually the stagnant atmosphere full of dread and waiting was finally broken towards evening. It was not the answer to the prayers that they all had in the back of their minds, to be able to go home, but it was an answer to one that hat only grew in intensity by the hour: water.
A bored looking soldier, a young man that looked to still be in his teens, approached the pen with his arms full of plastic bottles. The bottles were worn and dirty looking and the water inside was silty but still the captive boys scrambled for the items like animals as they were thrown into the cage. Even Alexander was shaken from his numbness long enough to claim a bottle that rolled near him. The solder sneered at the pathetic display and marched off leaving them alone once more.
As the hours passed the shy blond boy played with the beads on his bracelet endlessly. He pretended that each of the small pieces of plastic were stars and made a wish on each one to go home. Eventually the real stars came out and the heat thankfully passed. Musa and Tamba curled together for warmth and no one infringed on their brotherly bonds. Arturo was restless, always shifting about, watching the guards, and drifting off just to jerk awake once more.
For lack of any other options, and the chill of the night seeping into small bones, Blondie slowly scooted over to sit beside Alexander.
"You don't mind...do you?" He whispered just in case other child had already fallen asleep. The deep sigh that came from the huddled form indicated that Alexander was indeed awake, but like earlier, was not going to respond to them. Blondie thought to back off and leave him be but the cold was growing to be worse than any silence.
Tentatively he closed the remaining distance and curled up against the other boy's side. When there was no protest, he settled in and took what solace he could from a strangers warmth that long first night.
It was not the morning light that woke the small group, it was the sounds of screaming and fighting that jarred them from fitful sleep. The five watched silently as one as another group of boys was thrown kicking and screaming into the pen next to theirs. After the threats and tears had faded somewhat, the new boy's tales were remarkably similar to their own: snatched by men in weathered uniforms grabbing them and throwing them into a vehicle to be brought here to this dusty place of concrete and metal fences.
The arrival of newcomers was an event that was repeated twice that day. The boys new to the compound chatted amongst themselves all day, but for the five in their small cage all the conversation had already been bled out of them from the sun and desperation for food and more water.
The soldiers seemed mightily pleased with themselves over their catches. It was hard to hear what they were talking amongst themselves over but every now and again the caged boys would hear them mention about how a man they called Boss would be happy about all the captives.
The sun was beginning to dip low on the horizon and another night cold and hungry seemed imminent before the atmosphere of the compound suddenly changed.
There had been no alarms or shouts that would indicate trouble but passing from one group to the next some information was exchanged that had the men on alert. They went from milling about to standing at their posts at attention. The dogs picked up on the change in atmosphere and began barking excitedly even as their handlers did their best to bring them to heel.
"Now what's going on here?" Tamba asked, sitting up slightly from where he had been slumped against the bars to peer out over the dusty fenced in compound.
"Nothing good I would wager." Arturo muttered grimly.
Before the children had a chance to think over the possibilities for this sudden flurry of action, several guards approached their pen and finally the steel door was swung wide open. Tamba in his fiery temper immediately tried to attack the first man that entered the pen. He was on his back in the dust, bleeding generously from his nose before any of the others really had a chance to see what had happened.
"Anyone else feel like fighting?" The gruff guard with a scar running along one cheek asked, glaring at them all in turn.
None of the boys did.
Their hands were bound and they were led out one by one. Musa and Tamba were attached to one with a short length of rope, the limping boy ensuring that the more feisty one could not get very far. The men quickly grew irate with Alexander's lack of willingness to walk but Arturo took it upon himself to drag the other boy along so as to not invoke the ire of the already edgy men. Blondie complied immediately without resistance.
The child watched with trembling fear renewed at the flurry of activity as the other three cages were emptied of their captives just as they had been. Under the watchful eyes of the serious looking soldiers with their guns, barrels jabbing into the backs of those not walking quickly enough, they were herded along. Leaving the pens, the boys were taken to one of the large buildings of cinder block and steel and forcibly lined up against the wall.
And then they waited.
And waited.
Shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the next, Blondie wondered what they were waiting for. He tried to reach his bracelet to glean a little bit of comfort from the trinket but his hands were bound in such a way that it was inaccessible. It was a comfort that he sorely missed as the tension in the air was becoming nearly unbearable.
The soldiers stood stiffly waiting. Blondie had thought it was bad before when they would walk around the pens observing the boys with cold empty eyes or stare at them with creepy expressions that made him want to hide. Now they stood there with nothing written on their faces at all. Other than a few walking quickly here and there, none of them even moved. They stood still like toy soldiers with empty doll eyes.
With little else to do, he looked to the other boys he was with for any clue as to what was going on.
Tamba stood tall and brave on his left. Blood had covered his chin and bare chest. He still sullenly sniffled against the sluggish flow. Bound to him and at his brothers side, Musa wept silently. Tears coated the younger brothers face just as blood coated his brothers. Blondie turned to his right to see how the other two fared.
Alexander stared straight ahead unseeing. His sobbed out words of yesterday of everyone dying gave some clue as to what he was truly seeing playing out over and over from within. Arturo stood trembling even more fiercely than Blondie himself was. The eldest boy seemed to know more than he was telling and was absolutely terrified by that knowledge.
The sound of several vehicles approaching broke the heavy anticipation that had hung over the compound. The gates of the heavy metal fence were opened and allowed three vehicles through. There was a ripple of tension through the line up of boys as the path to freedom was literally opened right before them. Not a soul made that mad dash however as the hope of actually evading the men with their dogs and bullets was nonexistent.
The vehicles pulled to a stop and from the back of the lead car a solitary man stepped out.
There were whispers amongst the boys at the man who was clearly the leader of these men. Rather than the dark skin and hair that made up the majority of the people in the compound, the man was as pale and fare haired as the child who watched with trepidation at his arrival.
After briefly conversing with several other soldiers who then stepped back, the man looked to the multitude of children and began to approach them. This leader walked with undeniable authority and he knew it. The fabric of his uniform was cleaner, the lines sharper than the average soldier standing even straighter at attention in the man's wake.
The shy blond child was not exactly well versed in military matters but every picture he's seen of such men they were usually decorated liberally in shiny medals. This man had none, but from the way he commanded everyone's respect, it seemed as if he didn't need any.
The blond man walked slowly up and down the line of children, coolly appraising them. He walked with all the languid grace of a leopard inspecting a herd of prey for weakness. Judging from the unimpressed look on his face, this leader was clearly none too impressed by the selection of youths before him.
Pausing mid step in his slow pacing the man paused and looked down curiously at the blond youth, standing out starkly against his tanned and dark skinned counter parts. The boy began to tremble under the contemplative gaze of those intense blue eyes but refused to look away. The man considered him for several long heartbeats before he quirked a ghost of a smile and continued his circuit and addressing them with a willful voice that demanded attention.
"Despite what you may think or feel about your current situation, it is my pleasure to enlighten you all to the fact of how lucky you truly are."
A low murmur rippled through the line up, sparking some of the guards to glare and intimidate the boys that dared interrupt back into silence. The proud man continued on as if there never had been an interruption.
"Most people in this world are born as nothing. They live lives of forgettable mediocrity and make nothing of themselves. They die as nothing. The average individual is utterly unimportant and useless in the grand scheme of things. You all, in time, will come to consider yourselves fortunate as I have saved you from this fate."
The man gave the children a smile that in any other type of environment might have been considered charming. But in this dusty compound with empty stomachs and bound hands the children found the expression on the man's face not charming but wicked. He clasped his hands behind his back as he slowly paced and confidently continued his speech.
"I can empathize with you all that you certainly may not feel lucky. I see many frightened and angry faces right now, but remember, growing pains are natural after all. If greatness was easily achieved then anybody could do it. But that is simply not how the world works. If you want something more out of life than mere mundanity then it must be purchased through pain and sheer force of will. Fortunately for you all, I have that will. You...will have to provide the pain."
The proud man dropped the facade of friendliness and settled into an expression carved from stone. Some of the boys shrunk back against the wall under the weight of his expression and words. Some of them seethed against that grim promise, only holding their tongues for fear of the soldiers ready to strike should any of them dare interrupt their leader. The blond boy, along with most of the rest, could only watch on in mute horror. The full implications of the man's words were eluding young minds but the feeling of dread that was evoked by the speech was no less potent for their naivety.
"I make this promise to you all that I will mold you into something more than what your fates had originally determined for you. You will become something more than a soul trapped in the shadow of those that had come before you. It does not matter how you come into this life, what matters is what you do with it." The man said quietly contemplatively, almost as if those words were for him and him alone.
"The world is changing. Your world is changing and you must change with it in order to survive. Now...I am sure that you have heard talk amongst your elders, parents, and neighbors. There is a civil war tearing through your homeland. And for the few outsiders amongst our ranks, the land that you now find yourself a part of. You may have heard this war spoken of fearfully. Negatively. That all of the fighting and bloodshed is a bad affair and needs to be resolved. These are the words of the weak! Of those content with being nothing! To those that would be more...this is in fact an opportunity." The man unfolded his hands from behind his back and gestured grandly to the compound all around them.
This leader seemed immensely pleased with the place and all the stiffly standing soldiers, but to the boy it looked like a dusty nightmare wrapped in barbed wire.
"This war is to be a testing ground. It is not just a civil war, but a flame to be reborn by. To be melted down and reforged into something new. It will be a harsh transformation. And while I may be able to provide the guidance I cannot guarantee that all of you will have what it takes to come out on the other side. But such is the way of life, of nature. It filters out the weak and the strong prevail. It will be up to each of you to decide if you are up to the challenge, or if you will be yet another soul fated to fade into nothingness."
With those final words hanging heavily in the air, the man eyed them all one last time then sharply turned and headed beyond the building deeper into the compound. His entourage who had stood a respectful distance back during his chilling speech quickly rushed to follow in his wake.
After those men had left the solder with the scar over his face, the one who had taken Tamba down so easily took the leaders abandoned position in front of the collection of children and began barking out instructions to them.
His tone was harsh, full of barely contained cruelty. He began telling them where they will be staying, when they would eat, when they would sleep and rise. He rapidly listed off rule after rule, the essence of each of these commands simply boiled down to obey or face severe consequences.
The spirit in Blondie's refusal to look away from the heavy stare of the leader soon crumpled under all the weight of these rules, instructions, and threats. Casting his gaze to the sun baked ground, he began to silently cry as he zoned out under the overwhelming weight of it all. He wanted to go home. He wanted his parents. He wanted to somehow run away from the nightmare that he found himself trapped in, only this time to actually be fast enough to get away.
He was still crying and wishing to run even as all the children were herded into the barracks that with time and twisted familiarity would soon be considered home.
Their new pen, the barracks, was a small concrete building with rows of low cots and windows that were covered in thick bars. Even as their bonds were loosened, no one dared to test the strength of those bars as two guards stood by the only exit, large guns hanging loosely at their sides to be used should the situation arise.
"Hey. Over here." A familiar voice called out. It took Blondie several moments to realize that amidst all the chatter and whispers going on that this particular call was directed towards him. It was Musa who waved and beckoned him forth with shaking hands. The injured boy was already sat upon on one of the cots to take the weight off of his foot. Sitting beside of him, staring at the concrete floor, was the quiet stunned boy Alexander.
"I know we don't know each other all that well but at least us five can stick together." The other young boy said in kindly tones, his smile weak and watery.
"Yes…" The blond child hesitantly agreed before uncertainly settling on a cot himself opposite of the two.
Musa's older brother was in a fiercely whispered conversation with a cluster of the other teen boys. They were enraged by the situation, if the tense set of their shoulders and thunderous faces were any indication. They repeatedly snuck looks over to the guards while trying not to seem like they were doing so. Every now and then one of them would raise their voice a little too loud, allowing the others hear snippets of wild ideas of escape.
The guards were giving the group the side eye hard but despite their fury and their tough words, none of the children seemed inclined to take their chances with the armed men.
Having gravitated to the small familiar group settled on the cots, Arturo remained nearby but paced rapidly in a near hysterical manner. He kept wringing his hands and muttering to himself in a language that none of the others were familiar with. Whatever was being said in this conversation with himself, it seemed intense as the older boy was completely deaf to Musa's repeated attempts to get him to come join them and rest.
"Arturo...are you ok?" The shy child decided to be brave for once and ask about the well being of the other boy. Arturo looked to be at least four years older but he seemed to be in a far worse state than the three seated younger children.
"No! No I am not alright. I've heard about stuff like this. Friends of my family, they warned us about trouble in the region but my parents did not listen. They thought they should help the people here in the name of the Lord. I never thought that this would happen to me. Why did they have to bring me with them…" The near hysterical boy reverted back to his mother tongue and migrated away from the seated trio in his pacing.
"What is he talking about?" Blondie finally turned to ask Musa, who's grim expression told that he knew exactly what the older boy was rambling about.
"He's talking about the war." The child whispered conspiratorially, voice so low that it was hard to hear over the din of the barracks. "I've heard of it too but its never happened to anybody in our village. Well...not until Tamba and I were caught. People are taken, forced to fight in the war. Its usually adults though. We all were caught and now it's our turn to fight."
"But I don't want to fight!" The blond boy protested. He didn't want to hurt anybody. He just wanted to go home and be with his family. To listen to the stories of the village elders. Learn all about the animals. He didn't want this.
"Those that don't fight are killed." Musa said grimly as he scrubbed away a tear. "That's what I've been told anyway. I guess we'll find out."
The three young children sat in stillness and silence with one another as the storms of emotions raged throughout each of them in the building. Thoughts of having to fight, the mean looking men, and the intimidating guns kept running though Blondie's mind. Eventually the silence became too unbearable as it did nothing but encourage those uncomfortable thoughts to multiply and worsen.
"You don't talk much. Do you?" Blondie abruptly said to Alexander in a bid to distract himself. Looking up from the floor slowly to meet his eyes, the nearly mute boy surprised them by actually answering.
"I don't have much of anything left to say. Besides, you're one to talk. You hardly say anything either." He retorted back with surprising heat considering his nearly expressionless face. "You won't even tell anyone your name."
The blond boy cringed at the thought of his only companions being upset with him for hiding who he was. The boy oscillated between not wanting to be rude and heeding his parents repeated warnings to be wary and not to give his name to strangers.
"I'm sorry. I...I guess call me whatever you want." Shyly he turned away and went back to furiously twisting the little blue beads of his bracelet around.
"It's ok." Musa put on a strained smile to do his best to reassure him. "You really don't need to tell us and with any luck, we won't be here long enough to know each other enough to not be strangers. Hopefully we will never know your name."
"I hope so too." The nameless blond child whispered as he looked up through the barred windows to the clear skies beyond.
-0-0-0-
The wain blue light of an early morning sky greeted Raiden through the open window as he woke. Instead of getting up immediately as he was accustomed to, the man instead chose to lay there in the old repurposed supply closet as the remnants of sleep cleared out of his mind. Pillowing his head up on his arm to prop up a little better he spent the next ten minutes or so simply breathing and looking up at the open sky.
The peaceful silence of early morning did little to counteract the unease of those old nearly forgotten memories resurfacing in his dreams.
Watching the pale light in the sky beyond slowly grow, Raiden pondered a little on why those long repressed memories decided to make themselves known now. He had spent the better part of his life trying to do everything he could to forget those early years, and yet now here they were. Why now?
He suspected that Rose would have been able to tell him. She was always so much smarter than him when it came to matters of the mind and heart. What he wouldn't give for a bit of that guidance now.
She would most likely say something along the lines of 'The unexpected resurgence of those memories could be a side effect of no longer actively trying to repress everything in your past. Digging around in your memories for those old lessons would be sure to dislodge other aspects of your past to float up to the surface of awareness.' Or some other smart thing like that.
Lifting his hand up to have it silhouetted in the light of the window, Raiden idly examined his wrist thinking about that old bracelet. It was no where near as special as his childhood self believed. Just a simple string bracelet with half a dozen or so cheap beads held in place by knots. It was odd that he could remember such an insignificant thing after so many years but other aspects of his past, like his parents faces or even his own long forgotten name, were completely beyond his grasp.
Too weary to wonder the hows and whys, Raiden let his arm rest back at his side as he further procrastinated getting up and facing the various challenges of the day. He was tired in a way that went beyond physical exhaustion and hadn't the boys been harassing him to slow down some?
Instead he spent the peaceful early hours of dawn looking at the brightening sky and drifting through those unearthed memories.