Locked In

Flight

In the Mosque we were praying. Waleed and I had married and I was expecting our first child. Waleed treated my children with compassion, yet he was also firm with them when necessary. Daboor was adjusting to not being the man of the home anymore. The superpowers had fired missiles at the two holy cities in Saudi Arabia but they had strangely not gone into the cities. Instead they had exploded in midair. We knew that Allah was protecting Mecca and Medina from destruction until the Day of Judgment.

Without warning shots rang out. We cowered on the floor and covered our heads as the windows were shot out. There were screams from the guards and one of them came in with blood on his shirt. "Run," hw shouted to us before he fell to the floor and lay still.

"Come on out and meet your death Muslims! Come on out and die slaves of the Devil's Thorn!"

"What the heck is going on out there," Waleed asked.

"It's the Devil's Thorn! They found us," Candy shouted. Horror registered on our faces. This was the end that we had dreaded.

Shots continued firing and soon there was silence. Terrified we grabbed our children, our weapons and ran from the Mosque toward the mountains. All the while we chastised ourselves for not moving sooner. Suddenly a horrible howling went up.

"Hunter dogs! RUN," Blaze shouted.

We struggled forward. Behind us we heard the horrible howling and the pounding of horses' hooves. But the mountains were too far to reach by foot. A truck appeared in front of us and we got in. Tareen put his foot on the gas pedal and we hunkered down as gun shots rang after us. The mountains were the only place where we would be safe. If we could get to the mountains we could disappear and live in hiding.

"What are hunter dogs," I shouted above the racket.

"Specially bred dogs that are used to hunt down slaves who try to escape. They have the bite force of a Hyena, the jaw power of a Mastiff, the stamina and hearing of a Wolf, and the body of a German shepherd."

We drove without stopping. After several days the mountains came into view. Tareen stopped the truck several yards away. We got out and stood listening. The horses and army were far behind. Unlike us they would have to stop and rest during the night.

Towards sunset we stopped and spent the night in a small town. This was the last real area of civilization before the mountains. The next morning after we had prayed the dawn prayer Black Hawk and Yusuf went to purchase some livestock for us to live on. We figured the snows would halt the Devil's Thorn from pursuing us for some time and took this opportunity to buy some sheep and cows along with a few bags full of different vegetable and fruit seeds.

"How did they find out where we were?"

"Why did you stop the truck Tareen?"

"What's going to happen to us?"

These thoughts were all queried out loud at the same time.

"I stopped the truck because it won't get through the mountain pass. And if we want to remain hidden we need to go on foot. It's our only chance," Tareen said.

"They must have come here and began looking for us. The Devil's Thorn is ruthless. They'll stop at nothing to achieve world power. The fact that you escaped the prison doesn't speak well for their glory. They like to think they are masters of America and the world. I wouldn't be surprised if they came out of hiding and revealed themselves to the American public," Thor said.

"Most likely they have decided that nobody is to be spared. In which case let's get moving."

We picked up our guns and with the children between us we began walking into the mountain pass. Praying that the mountains would hide us from the Devil's Thorn and somehow keep us alive to practice our religion. It was hushed as we walked through the mountain pass. The bitter cold from the Arctic swirled around us and we struggled through the snow. "This is horrible. We didn't plan ahead at all for this journey," Hamza said.