Page 57 of Spoils of war
My eyes snapped open.
The world was on fire.
Smoke swirled above me, curling through the rafters. The ceiling groaned overhead, blackened and breaking. Beams cracked above me, and the roar of the flames swallowed every other sound. Blood stained the floor beneath me, and the soldiers were gone.
I was alone.
And everything was burning.
A part of me told me to stay down, to let the flames take me.
Let it be over.
It would have been quick.
But something deeper refused, and forced me to crawl. Every movement tore through me. My muscles screamed, and nails caught under my skin as I dragged myself across the floor, splinters digging into my arms. But I kept going. I forced my body toward the back door.
The moment fresh air hit my face, it pulled me back from the edge of death. Black smoke rose into the sky, blotting out the stars as fire consumed everything. Everything and everyone I had ever known.
I stumbled into the yard, barefoot, bloodied, trembling.
Then I saw them.
My parents.
Their bodies had been tossed like garbage, left in a heap beside the shed. For a moment I thought it couldn’t be real. That my eyes were lying to me.
But they weren’t.
My father lay sprawled across the dirt, one arm twisted beneath him. His eyes stared upward, blank and glassy, and blood clung to his hair, thick and dark around a wound near his temple. His lips were parted, the scream still lingering on his face.
My mother was next to him. There was a deep gash across her throat, and both arms were still raised, like she’d tried to protect herself.
I dropped to my knees, my breath hitching as a cry ripped out of me.
“Please,” I whispered as I grabbed my father’s hand. “Please wake up.”
But he didn’t.
Neither of them did.
My sobs turned into gasps, my body trembling from the inside out. I pressed my face into my mother’s chest, still clinging to the hope that maybe, just maybe, she’d stir. That it wasn’t real.
But it was.
“I’m sorry,” I cried. “I’m so sorry. This was my fault. I should have… I should have said yes. I should have said yes and you would still be alive.”
No one answered, and behind me the fire roared.
You can’t imagine the sound of a village burning. It’s louder than you’d think. It sounds like the end of the world.
I wanted to give up. There was no one left to fight for. No one to stay for.
Just pain that wouldn’t end.
“Please… let me die with you.” I begged.
I didn’t care if the soldiers came back. Didn’t care if the whole world burned. None of it mattered anymore.
