Fennec's Ramblings

Prompt: the day the sun went dark.

Trigger Warning: Graphic violence, implied sexual assault, violence against children

I remember the day my world went dark. Ten years, and yet I remember it as though it were yesterday.

I am in the kitchen with Mama and Papa. In the distance, we hear voices; shouting. The next moment, there's a crunch as the front door bursts inward, and an unfamiliar figure charges into our home. Its a soldier, dressed all in metal. Papa grabs the axe and rushes the man, but its no use. A sword knocks his attack wide and the soldier punches him. Why does he do that? The soldiers are supposed to be keeping us safe from bad men. Father said so. That's why Big Brother went away, after all: to be a soldier and help protect Dergeria.
"Lei! Maya! Hide!" Papa yells. He never yells unless he's angry, though. Did I make him angry?
Mama screams. I've never heard her do that before. The man grabs Papa and hauls him outside, and Mama grabs me. "Look at me; Look at me," she says urgently. "You need to run. Alright, sweetheart?"
I feel numb. Confused. "And... Papa?" I manage to mumble. She wants me to run off? Alone? I'm not allowed to do that, though.
"I'll go get Papa. We'll find you, Lei. I promise."
"Another in here!" a gruff, unfamiliar voice calls outside. Another soldier stomps through the doorway and lunges for Mama. I try to warn her, but no sound escapes my lips. She shrieks in what I now know to be terror, and the man curses. Mama grabs the pan of eggs and hits him with it, covering his helmet in yellow-and-white goo. He roars angrily and grabs her arm. She struggles and squirms like I've never seen her do before, but he is so strong. He drags her outside as well.
Outside.
I know Mama and Papa told me to hide, but I need to know what's going on. Why is everyone so angry? Are these the bad men in red that Callum told me about? I tiptoe over to the window and peek outside.
I immediately wish I hadn't.
There are so many soldiers outside! There must be at least a hundred of them. And they're killing people. The blacksmith, Mister Ironhand, tries to run, but a spear gets shoved through his back and he collapses. The baker's wife- I keep forgetting her name- is lying in the street, desperately trying to push a soldier off of her. And... yes. I blink, and all of a sudden, the cloaks the soldiers are wearing seem to burn themselves into my eyes. Red. Nearly every one of them is wearing a jacket or cloak of crimson. Higher-pitched cries catch my attention and I watch, numb, as they tie a rope around my best friend's neck and lift him into a tree, still kicking and struggling.
Run. Hide.
Mama and Papa both told me to. So why can't I move? Papa's voice catches my ear. Two bad men are holding him down with his head on a block of wood. They force him to look to one side as more Red Ones push Mama to the ground. Then, they... I don't really know what they do to her, but she fights them, and Papa yells and screams. But they keep going. Eventually, Mama slows down, and she gets really quiet, and Papa's voice gets hoarse. Eventually, he just stares, horrified, at what the soldiers have done.

Then, another soldier steps toward Papa, raising a big axe. Papa doesn't even try to fight as he swings the weapon down.
I'm far away, but I still hear his head thud to the ground, then roll a little way to Mama's body. One of the soldiers shakes his head and stabs his sword into her chest. And he laughs.

Suddenly, it all hits me. Papa. Mama. The village. Callum. All my other friends.
The world. Gone.
I scream. A hand claps over my mouth and a voice whispers in my ear. "Shut i', brat. Or they'll come fer you too." One of the Red Ones? I scream anyway, heedless of his hand muffling the sound. My vision blurs. I... I feel a hand shoving me around. "Nothin' left in here!" the man shouts to those outside.
Everything is wrong. I see a sort of darkness at the edges of my vision. A darkness that's getting more and more apparent. My voice is getting weaker. Like how Papa's did before he died. After a while, I do fall silent just like the man told me to. And my eyes continue to fade until the whole world is enveloped by darkness.