Brides to Darkness
Today was like any other day at the farm. My mother was working in our tiny and sufficient vegetable garden and my father plowing in the family field with my little brother. In the distance I could see the lumber mill and the quarry and if I squinted, and had enough imagination, I thought I could see the mines. Above all of us the castle loomed like an impending storm on the horizon. I took in a deep breath. The smell of dirt and water mixing to make mud was a familiar and reliable smell. No one was the same once they smelled the sweat of a good days work.
The breeze blew and puffed up my dress high enough that I had to hold it down and look to make sure no one saw. Like I said before, today was any other day at the family farm here in our cozy little cottage in Talisar.
I was in the kitchen when it happened.
A man, a man who worked at the mine a while away, came running down the path.
“Attack! Attack! They’re here! Help! Attack!”
At first, I didn’t know what he was talking about. Neither did anyone else it seemed because everyone was frozen staring at the man from the mine. He was panting as if he ran all the way from the mine without stopping, which he probably did. He wheezed pointing back the way he came before he passed out completely. Still, no one moved. No one moved till a pool of blood around the poor man slowly formed. The wife of the man from across the street had stolen herself to go out to the bleeding man in the middle of the path. Everyone watched, silent, as she bent over him.
“Dead.” She announced, as if everyone thought that he might be alright with just a glass of water and some sleep.
Then, the worst thing happened that I have never forgotten: we heard the noise, the noise of a thousand marching men coming towards us. As if a spell had been broken the people I have known since I was born, the same people who would look down at you if you made a squeak in prayer time, the same people who would be appalled if a lady tripped on a stone while walking, those people ran and screamed and yelled and kicked like wild animals. My mother threw her seeds down and ran into the cottage. My father pushed my little brother on the ground and ran for the pitch fork that was against our barn door. People were throwing babies out of their arms so they could run just a little bit faster. But I just stood there. I just stood there watching their odd behavior and stayed watching as the army marched in and slaughtered anyone they could find. People I’ve known and thought I understood became strange blobs of flesh and bloody puddles. Like cattle, we were mowed down and forgotten about. I heard in the distance someone yelling that the castles walls were closed. With this piece of information, the people I watched became even more hysteric as they grabbed anything lying down and found a way to us it as a weapon. Up on the hill I saw my brother had an oddly contorted leg jutting out in the wrong direction. I saw him waver and shudder and finally tripped where he was trampled over by the rampaging ox with the plow still attached. I saw my mother being raped in the pantry closet as she called out for my father. I looked and saw my father fighting with a woman for the pitch fork. He pulled and punched her till he had it in his hands. Finally with the pitch fork he turned and ran. He ran away even though I knew he clearly heard my mother. No one was a human that day. Fear makes people do horrible, irrational, and terrible things. Since that day, I have never trusted anyone, which is how I was able to survive at all.
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Points: 359
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