Tattered Remains

The Time When

"Let me go!" I scream as the bigger man, the one pulling my mother, yanks her in front of him and smacks her in the face making her cry out in pain.

The smaller man that is pulling me, the one with the whip, punches me in the back of the head and I instantly grow light headed, not even able cry out in pain. Everything is fading to black but I can still see the fires of what used to be the village center around me. As soon as they got Mother and I out of the house they set it ablaze just like every house we passed. The amount of screams I heard. The bodies I saw. The things they were doing to the women, to the children. Nothing I understood completely at the time but I knew they were hurt and I knew I'd never forget it.

"Oy," Calls the man pulling me, the man with my mother turns around. "Have your way with her after I tie this whelp up."

My mother's eyes shoot up when he says that, "Please, no!" she screams. I don't know why she was screaming. Were they going to do what they did to the other women?

"Shut your mouth before I'm forced to punch your teeth in," says the man standing above her, ripping her shirt open about six inches from the top. Now exposed, she screams again.

I'm too scared to speak. I stay quiet as the man with the whip takes me to the gallows we have in the center for the criminals. The people like these. He doesn't stand me near the noose, but ties me up to one of the support beams, ankles and arms behind me. I can't move.

The men know what the other wants. The one with my mother drags her by the top of her braid to in front of the gallows, where I'm facing. He rips my mother's shirt the rest of the way off, it falling off of her shoulders. The man on the gallows next to me does the same with my shirt before unhooking the whip from his side. It shimmers in the light of the fire. There's metal barbs or something laced into that. I yelp before he even raises it above his head. I close my eyes to brace and the man pushes my head to face my mother again before he strikes me across the back with the whip. I cry out in pain and he hits me again.

"Open your eyes, child!" he yells louder than I can scream, "Watch what happens when you speak against us!"

He hits me again, I force my eyes open through the tears as the other man rips what cloth is left of my mother as she screams and cries for him to stop. She cries for my father but he can't hear her. No one can except me and the men with us.

I scream again as the whip meets my back again and I shiver as a warmth runs down my back. The whip made a large cut on my right shoulder. I'm sobbing harder at this point. I want my mother. I want this to stop. But I can't say anything. I can't do anything but scream.

"No!" my mother screams as the man holds her down with one hand on her stomach, pushing hard as he lowers his own pants with the other, "Please don't do this! Please!" Her voice breaks and she screams as the man moves forward, forcing his hips closer to her. She's screaming louder. I want him to stop hurting her.

I thrash and scream now trying to break out of the ropes as I watch what this man does to my mother. The other man sees my movements as a challenge.

"Still not enough?" He asks me. Why isn't he stopping his friend? Why are they doing this? What is he doing to my mother? "I'll show you!"

He strikes me over and over with the whip, laughing maniacally. Every time I try to look away from my mother the man will position himself and turn my face to look at her. The man throws the whip in front of my nearly unconscious body, but not until the other man gets off of my mother. She lies lifeless, though she's still conscious. She cries silently as her bare chest rises and falls.

The man leaves my mother and walks over to the gallows, stepping up and sitting on the edge, turning his head to the man next to me, a smile still twisted onto his face.