Zela steps from her teepee and faces the rising sun that is now rising in the east. Her raven colored hair blows slightly out in front of her with the breeze that has come through. She sighs at the morning and adjusts her strap of her small leather pouch on her shoulder. Aleshanee, Zela’s daughter, pushes past her to join a small herd of children that have made their playground over by the river.
Zela’s eyes follow the path of her daughter and she shouts out a warning, “Aleshanee! Stay within my sights! Do not go too far!”
Aleshanee giggles and looks back at her mother, her large brown eyes, just like her mother’s, twinkling like one millions suns have been put into each sparkle. “Mommy, you know I always listen to you.” She turns back around and rejoins the children of the village in their games.
Shaking her head, Zela walks toward the river. She promised the old Anevey that she would help her do the old woman’s laundry. The smells of the river and the laundering filled her nose with its sweet aromas. She always liked washing. She sat by the river and waited to be joined by the woman, for when Zela offered to bring Anevey’s wash down to the river,
Anevey told her that she wasn’t as old as most thought. She laughed softly at the recollection.
After the moment of laughter, Zela sat in a moment of silence that was disturbed by the song of horses’ hooves as they rained down on the earth’s soft ground. All of the villagers, with the exception of the laughing children, stopped to check out the sound.
In the distance, with each passing moment, the men on horses made themselves seen. When they reached the village, each villager saw the same thing. Men with crazed looks in their eyes, each with a gun, or a weapon of some sort, all ready for the raid. With a slight raised of the hand from the, what they figured to be, leader, they men descended on the village with shouts and chaos. They seized what they found to be valuable and set torch to what was unwanted. Women, men and children, who managed to get in the way, all perished.
Zela, who had rushed back to her teepee to try to defend it, looked frantically around. Many of the villagers lay on the ground, beaten and broken, a lot with blood pooled around them as it seeped into the ground. She paused for a moment, and then searched the faces for her Aleshanee.
Her heart rate kicked into high gear when her daughter was not found among the killed. She whipped around and around, searching desperately for that angel faced little girl.
She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw a limp form in the arms of the leader of the rampaging men. The man headed to the river with this body and she thought the worst. He jumped off the great beast which he rode and fear gripped her heart then squeezed. She raced in the direction of the man, scrambling around bodies and even jumping over some, as he dunked the person into the water and held.
She screamed and flew at the man but something stopped her, like she couldn’t get to them. No matter how hard she tried. She fell to her knees and watched as the man drowned She Always Plays, her Aleshanee. The man, after a couple of forever seeming minutes, stood and with a smile, he mounted his horse. He nodded slightly then set off in a gallop in the direction he came, his men following.
Zela cried and climbed into the water and grasped the little girl, holding her close in her arms. She looked down at the dead, with no color in her face and terror filled eyes. She could almost see the images her daughter saw in the last moments of her life.
Then... I woke up crying
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