I wake up on the floor, having no clue what's going on. I look around, and five men are turning the room inside out. They were wearing tan uniforms with gold buttons. Three of them have two badges, and the other two have four. One of them, one with four badges, is looking under my bed.
My uncle runs into the room with his face all red, "What are you guys fu-"
One of the men pushes my uncle gently. "Get out of here!" He grabs my hand and yanks me towards my uncle. "And take your kids as well!"
"You can't just invade my home without telling me anythi-" My uncle gets interrupted by the man. He shoots the roof as a warning.
He aims the gun at us, "Take your entire family out of your house." We don't move, so the guy then slams his fist into the wall. I flinch. "Now!"
"Sir, this room is clear!"
Dozens of citizens stand outside with the military running around.
"You can't just raid our homes without a flippen explanation!" My neighbor says to the two soldiers outside his home.
"Once we get the order, we can explain it to everyone. But for now, just get out of our way."
Two gunshots are heard from another side; they're used to get the attention of the crowd of people. "Everyone, prove your allegiance to Azraba immediately. If you don't have your ID on you, you will need people to back you up." Says the man who fired the gunshots. He has long gray hair and a very raspy voice. He wears five badges and has a white hat with a large badge on it. The badge is the emblem of Azraba, two guns making the shape of a cross under the sun. His uniform is different as well; it's blue, accompanied by a large gold and white stripe going across it. His collar is also gold. His pants are completely white.
"Are we going to jail?" says Anra.
"Don't worry, I've got Uncle Rob, and I's id cards. I doubt they'll check the kids." Says my aunt. I'm not quite sure if Anra understood any of that, but he just nodded.
Numerous soldiers ran through the crowds, and people scrambled through their wallets to find any type of id. My uncle vouched for a couple of people who didn't have IDs on them.
"You know, this would be a lot easier if we could go inside to get our IDs." Someone in the crowd blurted out.
"Yeah, why would we carry our wallets indoors?" Someone else said in support. "To me, this all seems like some bullshi-" The man gets hit in the side of his head with the back of a gun. The man then, in retaliation, punches the soldier. The soldier's cap then falls off his head; his face is now redder than the inside of a blood orange. The man is then tackled to the ground and has his hands tied tightly together behind his back. "You know what, screw all of you!"
"Can you please just stay quiet?"
"No!" The guy is then hit once again in the head with the back of a gun, knocking him out.
One of the guys who raided my house with two badges runs up to the speaker. "Sir, we've searched all of the houses!"
"Search harder, dammit!" he barks back. The speaker then looks around him. "Have you guys checked the outside furniture? And have you guys even gone through everyone's IDs yet?"
"How can you be so sure that they haven't gotten away already?"
"We have military personnel surrounding this entire area; it's physically impossible for someone to escape! All they can do is hide."
The soldier with two badges opens his mouth like he's about to say something before shutting it and storming away. "Search the outside furniture. If you already have, just do it again."
The soldiers outside my uncle's house begin walking towards two barrels next to the house. The taller one says, "Have you searched this one yet?"
The shorter one replies with a quick, "No."
I turn away from the house. An old lady wearing a red dress taps a tall soldier on the shoulder. "Mir, what is going on?"
The guy turns his head to the side to see who's talking to him. He then turns his entire body to the woman and says, "I'm not allowed to say anything yet."
"Why?"
"Because those were the orders I was given." The soldier then turns around and checks the ID of the person behind him.
My ears are blasted with terror as I hear people lose their voices while they scream. All around me, people begin shoving people out of the way. The cries are then followed by blasts and the sound of glass breaking. I move my shoulder slightly to the right, allowing me to look back, where those gruesome sounds are coming from. The bottom of my frown drops, revealing my shacky crushed teeth. My eyelids expose my eyes as my eyebrows go up inwards.
I face the place I've been staying at for the past week, and it's barely recognizable anymore. Two people stand to the side of it; both are wearing gray cloaks that partially cover their faces. The cloaks look new. On their feet lay two carcasses, the bodies of two soldiers in clean uniforms. Behind them are two open brown barrels. The barrels are big enough to fit a person inside each. The taller one has a long, fancy stick. The shorter guy also has a stick, but it's attached to a long and wide piece of metal with a red symbol scribbled onto it.
The soldier with the fancy clothes slams his fist into the air upwards, "FIRE!"
Soldiers begin shoving people in the crowd to get a good shot at the cloaked figures. Bullets fly all over my uncle's home, while shards of the broken windows grazed my skin as we began running away from the action. My brother covers his ears and begins screaming, which is a reasonable response to the situation.
The one with the stick points his weapon at the ground, and a beam-looking thing comes out of it and shoots at the ground. The bullets reach the area above where the stick was shot at, and they freeze like they hit an impenetrable wall and fall to the ground after being crushed.
"You know, only two people would've died if you guys didn't intervene." Says the cloaked man with the sword. He has a crisp and clear voice. There was also a heavy accent he wore.
"Come on, the forcefield only lasts for at most ten seconds." Says the taller person. I could tell she was a woman based on her voice, but barely due to the gunshots. She, too, has a heavy accent.
"You know, you need to work on your spells," says the taller guy as he backs up and runs into the distance with the woman.
A soldier stomps while facing us, "Get out of here now before you guys get shot!"
My uncle carries my younger cousin while running. Which is good since he's not witnessing all of this. I carry my younger brother, who, unlike my cousin, is screaming and crying.
Before we're able to escape this madness. I notice a cracking noise, so I look over to my right, just to see something that will scar me for life.
"Oops, looks like I missed."
"I mean, you still hit something, idiot."
The person to the right of me is a woman, not that much older than my aunt. She's a mother, holding her child close to her. She's lit up like a candle, slowly melting. She throws her child onto the ground before tripping.
"Run…" She murmurs before being fully engulfed by the hot parasite eating her up like a tree struck by lightning.
The little girl's feet are glued to the sand, "Mommy?" My aunt grabs her by the arm as she screams. She holds her hand out towards the campfire, trying to go back to it. But it's too late. I turn my head further back to see what caused this mess, and I see the two cloaked demons, burning the helpless soldiers to dust. The tall woman was the one who was shooting out fireballs at the soldiers, the one responsible for what just happened.
This whole time, I've been dead silent, just observing the chaos around me. Until now, I let out one long and loud scream. My throat burned, but it just needed to be flushed out. It's strange, I feel more for the death of this woman than my own parents. I guess it's one thing to see a corpse, and it's another thing to see a girl witness her own mother burn to death. That reminds me, I wonder how she thinks about all of this. She was fed by this woman, taken care of while sick by this woman, and taken to school by this woman. Meanwhile, I only knew her for less than 10 seconds.
My legs are burning; with each step, I'm getting slower and slower. We reach a halt; most people, including me, can't run anymore. I was never the athletic type; I can barely run for 2 minutes straight. Thankfully, though, we're far away from the battle.
After a moment of silence, someone finally spoke up, "What, what was that all about? Did you see that woman? From a single hit, she died in one of the most painful ways possible!" The man walked through the crowd, assessing the situation. "She had a daughter, a husband, SHE HAD ANOTHER GOOD THIRTY YEARS AHEAD OF HER!", he says as he falls to his knees. "Now, she's gone, she's gone forever." A tear falls from his right eye.
A man with a red bowtie took a step towards the guy on the floor, "Were you him?"
"What?"
"Her husband, were you him?"
"No, she was my sister."
The man with the bowtie puts his hands into his pockets, "Well, sorry for your loss."
"I take it you guys all want an explanation," says a soldier holding a gun in his right hand, sitting on a rock. He has blonde hair, blue eyes, and only one hand. Everyone stared at him, quietly demanding answers. "We got a tip from a trusted source that two Keyminean contract killers were hiding in your city." The man grunts in pain as he continues explaining. "So, we began searching everywhere in the area for them, and the search was indeed a success."
"Why didn't you tell us anything at all?" My aunt asked.
"Those were just the orders I was given, ma'am." The soldier explains.
I can barely pay attention to the situation, as all I can see is what happened to that mother.
It keeps playing in my head, over and over and over and over and over and over and over…
I slam my fist into the ground, cracking a rock. The area that I made contact with the rock with begins to sting, causing me to close my eyelids with great force. But I don't feel as much pain as I should; I'm too occupied with something else. Way too occupied.
I turn around, but I see absolutely nothing except stupid sand. My heartbeat pauses; I jump up and look in all directions. I pick up my feet and use them to quickly maneuver between the crowd.
"Excuse me," I say to a girl that I bump into. "Anra! Anra, where are you?" I yell out. No matter how much I ran, no matter how much I yelled, I couldn't find him.
Anra is missing.