soldier gave a blow to her head and she dropped to the ground with a thud. Voices rose in the
yurts and fifty or so soldiers with the same armor flooded into the scene.
I sat like a carved white stone, waiting for the echo of the scream to subside. I saw the last
soldier enter, his gaze haunting into the darkness where I hid a few seconds before he went off
with the others.
I peeked around the corner of a yurt, knowing I was safer than anyone else in the clan.
The soldiers did not look like us; they have fairer skin than we did. They spoke stridently of a
language I did not recognize.
The yurts lit up one by one, but it did not slow the troops. When they had finally taken up the
space between all the yurts, a young girl pushed open her cloth-wrapped door, stepped out and
was going to hold up her arms, but the next thing I saw was a thin arrow piercing through her
chest, a circle of scarlet blood forming on the back of her dress.
Another boy came out of the same yurt only to see the female corpse lying on the ground. He
screeched in dread, “Russians!” before he was shot down and stayed as dead as a doornail.
The rest of the village relapsed into view, with gleaming swords and even long rifles in their
hands. Then it all came down into unimaginable chaos.
A soldier had a red-haired boy clasped by the neck and when he shrieked for help, a dagger
was driven into his throat and a deep gash was opened. The body dropped onto the ground and
never stood up again. An adult man hauled a soldier into the air and threw him to the ground
like he weighed a feather, at another moment, a whip with tiny sharp knifes embroiled along it
wrapped itself around the big man’s neck and ripped free, leaving an empty space between the
man’s collarbones and the dark sky. Blood splattered everywhere on the field.
For so long a time that it did not seem anyone noticed my presence, nor did I myself. Then
something jerked at my feet. When I looked down to see what it was, a bomb sounded in the
distance. It was Aguzani, with her twisted face and bleeding hands, clawing at my foot, wailing.
“Help me, please....” she uttered.
Her forehead was covered in sand and blood, her hair mangled in dirt. Her lips were split and
a line of dried blood flowed down her cheek.
“I’m sorry, I really am sorry,” she continued, “The Russians attacked us and we had no choice
but to sign a peace treaty with them…they said if we are willing to sacrifice one girl from our clan
and offer her to them, they will give up invading our land and—
“The Russians told me to do it to show my obedience. They said if I do what I’m told to, they
would not harm us. And then I thought it would be better to let one person die than sacrificing
the whole clan.
She turned to the facing the frantic people—all ages, yelling and shrieking, and looked at the
fire started in the midst of the fight, “Please, I know I was wrong before, please, help me!”
I went astounded and stared at her blankly. Part of me told me not to believe whatever she told
me. The other half told me the opposite. I helped her stand and we rushed towards the gate, when
all of a sudden I caught sight of Benjamin pushing his sword into a soldier’s heart.
His eyes met mine and went as wide as they could possibly go. Run, he mouthed, just as he
had a steel chain around his neck and was dragged away from view.
Silence. Then in my heart hope vanished as dust; the people who were fighting for their lives
had been in vain. Some of them now dropped their weapons; some of them pointed their own
spears and guns toward their own selves. Death was here, around us, within us. The Russians felt
