Anja

I awoke to screaming. I didn't comprehend that it was screaming until I walked into Joshua's room, my apparent brother. He was lying in the corner of his room, his throat slit. rede spilling down his white sleeping gown. His eyes open and blank with terror that had killed him.

I blinked once and it hit me. I gulped and felt my breath hitch in my throat as I imagined the same knife scraping neatly across my own flesh.

I heard a scream cut off with a gurgle, a sudden and brutal end to a life that reminded when we slaughtered pigs in the springtime. Not any longer. Not when the happy farmer and his wife and two children were dead or dying.

I had to leave.

I blinked several times before I decided that my original decision to jump out of the window was folly and suicidal. These men who murdered the family who cared for me these past few years were here to kill me too.

I didn't want to die. I wanted to see green grass once again. to feel the wind caress my face as my eyes take in the wonders around me.

I didn't want any more death. But I was only seven, and I had no idea that tonight was only the beginning.