Desert

I dropped my bat and looked up. The sky was as blue as the sea, the clouds, as white as clear milk, but there was a shadow - a shadow growing bigger and bigger. I ran as fast as my friends ran and I heard it explode.
People were running and screaming in every direction. Young children got separated from their parents, and some parents even left their children for dead. I heard the loud noise again and I kept running. I couldn’t see where I was going with all the dust in my eyes, but I found an empty house where I thought I could hide. I ran to the corner, I crawled into a ball, and put my hands over my ears. To keep my hopes up that I would live, I thought about my mother.
She was a beautiful woman who married my father while she was still very young. She cared about everyone: my father, my sister, and me. She said that someday everything would get better and that there was more out there than this desert town. My mother was dedicated to teaching my sister and I how to read and write, which was forbidden in our country. She was a perfect mother who everyone loved.
My sister was only four and I eight. Father had left early that morning to work at the factory. I could smell the oatmeal that mother was making for my sister and I, and I heard the door bang open. My sister and I jumped out of bed and ran upstairs to see what was going on. There were two soldiers; they wore their light army uniform and their helmets with the crest of the country on the front. They wore durable boots and dark sunglasses, and, of course, they carried guns. I saw one soldier burn all our books and papers with which we practiced the alphabet. The other stared at me, and that was when I noticed that mother was nowhere to be seen.
“Mom!” I yelled. Nothing. The oatmeal was knocked over and spilled everywhere on the floor and my sister started to cry, I wanted to scream. I looked at the soldier that stood in front of me. He kept staring at me with his big sunglasses. I wanted to scare him, fight him or ask him where my mother was. After his partner said something in a language I did not understand, the two left and slammed the door. I never saw my mother again.

I put my hands down when the bombing stop. Most likely, my friends didn’t make it. They couldn’t run as fast as I could. I left the empty house and noticed that it was almost dark outside.
Home was nothing like it used to be after mother disappeared. Father became depressed and drank as often as he could, while my sister sat around playing with dolls she made out of toilet paper and any other materials she could find.
“You’re late,” said my father. I didn’t say anything. He then fell back asleep and I went over to my sister to find a black and blue mark on her cheek.
“Come with me, I’ll wash it,” I told her as I took her by the hand.
I felt a surge of pain in my left rib. I woke up to the sight of my father’s face. I could tell he was drinking by the smell of the booze in his breath.
“Go to school,” he said. He then repeated it louder. He wanted us both to attend a secret school, a school where they trained children to become rebels and fighters.
Father picked my sister up by her hair until she woke up and told her the same thing he had told me. I wanted to yell at him to put down my sister, but I knew we would both get hurt if I yelled or talked back to him. My sister didn’t want either of us to get hurt, but I wanted to protect her.
My sister and I walked out into the desert until we found the secret camp where children of all ages had already gathered. I hated the secret school because my mother was always against fighting and violence. The secret school was developed to make children become rebel soldier and join the Kinship, an underground organization that hates the government. It wasn’t until I was older that I found out our own government had taken my mother away. But I wasn’t going to take revenge. My mother had always told us to forgive our enemies, and I was never going to let her principles die.
“Haven’t seen you in a while,” one of the teachers told me.
“I’ve been busy sir,” I replied.
“Do you remember the motto of the Kinship?”
“Fear no one, be feared. Don’t get destroyed, be the destroyer. Don’t fight to live, live to fight.”
“Good boy. How about you! What’s your name?” he asked another boy and I continued to practice shooting with my gun.
“Sir, what’s that?” I heard one of my classmate say. We all looked at the desert sand and saw an army on horseback. It was the government. They started to charge to the camp.
“How did those bastards find us?” asked one of the teachers. All my classmates started to grab guns, bazookas, and knives to get ready for battle. The teachers kept yelling commands that we all had to follow. I grabbed a gun but stayed far away from the front line.
“Time to prove yourself worthy, kids,” said a teacher. Before I knew it, a battle broke out.
The battle kept going and going. I forgot how long it had been. Ten minutes? Thirty? An hour? I lost track, but the government was now in town and we learned their plan. They didn’t aim for the secret school; they aimed for the town.
I still didn’t use my gun; I kept running and hiding. I started to go crazy, wondering if a soldier of the government would find me and if he would kill me. I wanted to scream, but I was too afraid to scream. My heart was pounding so loudly that I was certain the soldiers would hear it and find me; my heightened senses were all that kept me alive. I passed people dying in streets and even tripped over dead bodies. I didn’t stop; I kept running, trying to find a hiding place in the town. Then I turned a corner and found myself in a dead end. I turned around to run and ran into a soldier. By the boots, I could tell it was a government soldier.
Our eyes met. He wasn’t wearing sunglasses like the other soldiers, and I could see his young face and brown eyes. By the look of his face, he seemed to be in his early twenties. He looked shocked and he didn’t point his gun at me. My gun had already fallen out of my hands and I was waiting for the bullet to go into my head. I didn’t stop staring at the man.
“Stay here, you’ll be safe,” he said, pointing to a garbage can. I was so skinny and small, but I was still amazed that I could fit in such a tight space. I heard other soldiers outside talking to each other in a language I did not understand. I went back to thinking about my mother and I kept as quiet as I could, hoping that someday this cruel life would end, that peace would be made in the world, and that I would live long enough to see it happen.