Tattered Remains

The Time Before

 "Father," my younger sister's voice grows agitated at our father from across the room, "you must eat!"

"Babette," I raise my voice slightly, enough for her to hear me across the wood-clad kitchen, "father will only eat with force rather than kind words, I doubt he hears anything apart from what may be going on inside his mind, or rather what's left of it."

I shake my head as I tap the wooden spoon onto the edge of my stone bowl, filling it with stew that had merely been reheated over the flame from last night's meal. I'll have to go hunting again soon. I take my seat across from my father and sister, his eyes still glazed over and her arms still horribly scarred from the annihilation of majority of our village some eight years ago.

I take a small mouthful of what food I have and chew slowly, trying not to pay much attention to the face twisting flavor as I watch my sisters flame-scarred fingers lower our father's jaw and slip a spoonful of stew into his now gaping mouth. His humanity and life comes back to his body and his mouth starts to move, chewing slowly but not losing the glazed look or paleness on his face.

It wasn't always like this, our lives. We never had to worry about who ate how much in the house or which kids would throw stones at Babette or whether Father would ever speak another word. There was a time before. Time before my sister's dark skin somehow grew pale with deep scars, a time before my father was practically a ghost in a shell, a time before I had to be strong so I could protect the village, and a time before I was forced to watch as my mother was beaten, raped, killed, and raped again as I was beaten and whipped in the center of embers and flames that would have been the center of the village.

...

It began when I was nine. My father went out months before on a bandit raid with the other militiamen, leaving the normal city guards behind, and their wives and children with a kiss. I was sitting in the center floor in our stone house. My father, being in the militia, had enough gold pieces to afford such a place. Although he had the gold, our toys came handmade from our mother. She believed trinkets bought with gold may be beautiful but the don't come from the heart.

Being nine years of age, my mother believed I was capable of watching over Babette while she was at the store. At this time, Babette was going on four years of age and could usually play by herself with her sack doll and wooden horse. I was practicing my knots in tying sticks together in forms of tripods and tent structures for the future hunting trips or raids I planned on going on at that age like they were some sort of game. I never realized the type of hell bandits are and how harsh of cold winter could actually bring.

My sister and I jump at the sound of an explosion in the distance and I crawl over to her out of reflex. It gets quiet after the first explosion but our eyes remain on the door, and our mother soon slides through the door, her braided hair now messy and matted slightly to her head.

"Mama~" bubbles Babette, half happy and half worried.

Our mother immediately changes from the calm faced woman that slipped into the door to a stern woman, her normally soft features turned into a seriousness I haven't seen since the time I found it comical to push my sister into the wood pile nearly a year ago.

"Babette, Callon," She says, picking up my sister swiftly, "Let us play a game~" she finishes, her voice quivering with fear that my little sister can't notice.

"Okay, Mama!" my sister giggles. I sit silently in the floor, I know what's happening and it isn't good, our mother only nods in my direction.

"Babette, my beautiful, beautiful, girl," she starts, smiling but pushing away tears, "I love you so much, princess. Stay happy forever."

"I love Mama!" Babette giggles before Mother pushes a finger to her lips to hush.

"Babette, it's time for our game," my mother smiles, her voice now much quieter, like a mountain lion trying to teach its cubs a way of stealth, "I'm going to hide you somewhere, and I don't want you to come out, no matter what you hear, okay?"

"Okay, Mama!" She smiles, although I can see a slight worry creeping into her innocent eyes, "Who am I hiding from?"

Our mother stays silent, trying to think of anything except the true answer, she flinches as another explosion, a closer one, goes off.

"The scary witchdoctor from the market!" she smiles, making a mock scary face. "Remember his scary mask and his leeches?"

"Oh I want to hide from that man!" Babette shivers, and looks around, "Hide me from the scary doctor, Mama."

Mother doesn't respond vocally but instead takes Babette to the corner of the house, holding my sister with one arm and pulling out a sturdy wooden table from the corner. Once the weight from the table was removed from the outermost edge of the corner, the edge of a floorboard popped up which, upon seeing, Mother set Babette down on the floor, and began to lift up the floorboards and set them aside.

"Hurry, darling," she says, eyes now darting as screams come from the home left of ours. "The doctor is almost here."

Babette laughs and crawls in the empty space under the floor and says, "I love you, Mama! Come back for me!"

Mother sobs and regains herself, "I will, darling. Don't come out until you hear my voice, okay? Don't come out no matter what! Stay brave! Nothing can hurt you in here!"

"Okay, Mama." Babette, replies, she seems noticeably worried as Mother replaces the boards over her and scoots the table halfway over the boards to compress them down slightly.

She grabs me by the hand and runs towards the front door as it bursts open. Two men wear an evil smirk on their face, swords in hand, the one in the back has a whip hooked to his waist. The both are outfitted in dense leather armor, painted with symbols made notorious by the bloodthirsty bandit clan on the other side of the mountain.

I can see groups of men in similar outfits running back and forth behind them. Some with swords, some with bows, some covered in blood, some dragging bodies dead, alive, and naked.

"Look what we have here," The man in front grumbles, the smile on his face growing wider and more menacing the longer he looks at my mother.

"They said the famous militiaman lives here," the man in the back pipes up, "where in Oblivion is he?"

"H-he isn't here!" My mother yells. No sooner than she finishes talking is she keeled over the first man's fist, spitting on the floor from the force of his punch.

"Mother!" I yell, running to her side and taking a swing at the man. I take a drastic miss and the man backhands me hard enough to send me spinning to the floor and make me ear bleed.

"Oh-ho-ho," the man chuckles, "we are going to have fun with you two."

"Indeed we are," says the man in the back, stepping up to me and picking me up by the collar of my shirt before grasping my chin and licking the blood from my ear, "indeed we are."