Reverse Perception

"Bad Dreams" - Vaasvan

It was the night of my third birthday."Vaasvan!! Vaasvan!!" My mother screamed to me "Vaasvan hide in the closet and count to ten!", I ran and did as my mother told me to. With tears running down my cheeks ,I had no idea what was going on. I heard commotion downstairs and then my mother screaming, shortly after I heard my father yell " damn you" followed by a sound of a body hitting the floor going off. I covered my mouth so the intruders didn't hear me weep as I panicked, fear welling up in my chest. I count to ten, and walk out of the closet, everything was turned over or knocked down, my mothers jewelry box was empty. I walk slowly downstairs scared of what I might see. I step on the very last step and I slip and fall, I look over to see my mothers head laying next to the stair case and a puddle of her blood surrounding it and myself. I look to the right of me to see my fathers intestines and his blood all over the walls as he sits and leans to the side of him blood dripping down of what remains of him. I scream and cry, I get up and go to the kitchen to grab towels hoping that if i clean up the blood and put it back in there bodies they would come back too life. as I am trying to put my mothers head back on her body I look up to see a symbol of some sorts. A man burst through the door and is in utter shock to see dismembered bodies and me holding my mothers head. he yells " Drop the head and get down" I do so, before I stand up I kiss my mothers forehead and whisper in her ear " I will find whoever did this to you ill make them pay" I stand up and put my hands up on my head the guard grabs me and tosses me out the door into the freezing sands of the night. The guard came out and yelled " Get out you putrid scavenger these were good people". My parents had never told anyone about me to avoid the fee on their already hard lives, I ran away crying and tripping and freezing in the sands before I collapsed on a hard cold rotting wood porch.....

I jerk awake,holding my chest staring into the empty darkness. Diivara shuffles into the room and wraps her arms around me. She must've heard me moaning out caught in my memories. I let her hold me, and why shouldn't I she's like my real mother to me. There's not been a day I haven't loved her like she was my true mother since that day she took me into her home after finding me on that freezing porch. I eventually look up into her pale dead but yet love filled eyes and her scarred face from when she and her parents were burned in their own home, unfortunately there wasn't anyone to take her in after her parents died. Now that I'm old enough and have enough coin we take care of each other like this. We comfort each other in our shared terrible pasts. The War destroyed us both. Eventually she leaves and we both return to our uncomfortable sleep.

The next morning I wake up the sun blasting my eyelids until I can't pretend its not there anymore and I open them. I smell something cooking and smile, Diivara is skilled in the kitchen despite having to relearn how to cook after she was blinded. The smell of porridge hits my nose. We hadn't earned that much coin this week due to the harsh weather so we had to stick to the simple foods. Then something sweet hit my nose. An Aalmonian fruit. The town of Jaazath had recently gotten a shipment of them. As a child they were my favorite fruit. Diivara must've used the last of her "travel" coin to buy them. I entered the kitchen and was greeted by the short, tan woman before me. Her walking stick tapping the ground in front of her. Her beaded braids swiped side to side each bead clacking against
the others. The sunlight trying its best to beam through our blackened windows. What little rays glowed through hit Diivara across her darkly tanned screen just like all of the rest of the natives of Sandri including me. She was like a foreign entity had entered into my dark world when she saved me. She was my mother, and she brightened my somber days.

We sat together for an hour eating and talking about small nearly useless things. We stay away from the topic of my previous illegal involvement has its brings up bad memories. After breakfast I kiss her on the cheek and head out the door to my job, taking care of the Haav a type of towering desert wolf native to Sandri ridden to cover large distances.