The Others

1

 The strafing of the bombs was endless, that's what it seems like to the young girl. She watches as everything she has ever known turns into fire lighting up the sky. Her world is burning. Her friends, family everything is gone. How could anything survive that?

She feels a warm hand on her shoulder. "It's scary, I know, but you need to remember that it's like the wind all it does is mean change is here. Change is neither good nor bad, it just is. Although this is starting out bad, it doesn't mean that it is bad." The girl looks at her mother with wide trusting eyes.

"But what about everyone else? What about dad?" The girl doesn't miss the look that crosses her mother's face. Her mother and father were not close, more like enemies and she doesn't think that her mother is sad that her father might or more likely is dead.

"Honey, your father did love you in his own way but he wasn't a good man." Her mother has the whip marks as permanent proof of that. "I'll always love you, but I do hope he's dead. In that whole city, there weren't twenty people decent enough to live. I know you loved many of them, but that's the truth."

The girl struggles with that, she has or rather had several friends that she played with. How could the children be so bad? Could her mother be wrong? 

The two make their way into the cave that they'd been hiding in since the first sound of the planes came. The girl never knew how her mother knew to come here on this day where they would be safe.

The next morning they find themselves surrounded by the enemy that had come to look for survivors. Thus her new life began.

Betsy awakens with a jerk. Why is she remembering this now? She needs her sleep as today is the day she is in charge of the next wave of fighting. She hadn't understood her mother back then, there's no way she could have. Children weren't treated in the same way the adults were. She had never felt the lash of the whip or the strike of the fist. She had only seen the results on her mother's face.

She can't blame her mother for wanting better for her. For helping the enemy take down those that had enslaved them. She had been lied to by her father and his family. She hadn't known the truth then, but she knows it now.

She's just thankful that she was allowed to fight against them. There was some doubt since she was only half human, but in the end they decided that the other half of her would actually help them fight and defeat the enemy.

Betsy is under no illusions, she knows that when the enemy falls that anyone with known enemy blood would then become the enemy. She's essentially bringing down her own death.

She doesn't care.

She just wants those bastards gone.

She wants this war to end.

She's tired.

"Can't sleep?" The voice of her husband asks as he stirs next to her. Him she does regret. When this war is over he'll either fight to keep her alive or kill her himself. She rather hopes that it's him that kills her.

"Nightmares about my childhood again." Reese is the only one that she's ever told about her nightmares other than her mother of course. Her mother was there when they first started.

Her mother left her alone.

Reese pulls her to him and holds her and she finally feels safe enough to cry. Why did her mother have to abandon her? If she was just going to leave why didn't she let her die when the bombs fell that day? That betrayal still hurts her. Reese is the only one that has ever been able to gain her trust since then. He's her only friend.

High Command didn't need to have her trust and they preferred not having it. They know just as she does that they will be turning on her once the war is over and it's clean up time.

"Are you scared, Betsy, I mean general?" Reese asks gently once her tears stop.

Betsy takes time to analyze her feelings. Is she scared? No. If everything goes right, which it never does, the war will be over within days. At least months. The end is near for those bastards that have taken so much from them.

Reese waits patiently for her answer. "No, I'm not scared. Reese, you know when the war is over that they'll come for me. I've warned you about that before."

"They aren't going to come after the hero of the war." Reese tries once more to get her to stop saying that.

"The victors write history. They will kill me and write out the fact that I'm only half human. I'm surprised that you haven't received overtures to kill me from High Command."

All humans over the age of sixteen are part of the military and are subject to High Command.

Reese's silence speaks for itself. "I have, but I told them that to kill you would be the worse thing any of them could ever do. Not just them, but for us as a people."

"Don't become a traitor to save me, Reese. I'd rather have you kill me than go through what they have planned. I won't even see it as a betrayal, it'll be my salvation really."

"How am I supposed to kill the woman I love?" Reese says caressing her face.

"Just like you kill all enemies. Reese, you are a vicious fighter and you're very proficient with your weapons. I never did understand how you could love me and hate the enemy so much."

Reese shrugs, "That's easy, you're not the enemy. It's not your fault that your father forced your mother. You didn't choose your father and it shouldn't be held against you."

Betsy sighs, Reese will never understand. Perhaps she didn't choose her father, but he was still her father and that makes her an enemy. 

"They will take me and torture me, Reese. I've seen what they do to those of the enemy. I've known what was in store for me from the time I was brought here as a child. I don't want to die that way."

"I think you're wrong, but if they come for you I'll make sure that you die quickly and painlessly."

"You know that they'll be coming for me, they've already talked to you."

Now Reese holds his tongue once more.

"They want you to let them take me, don't they?" Reese is not only her husband but also her bodyguard. More than one assassin from the enemy has tried to take her down.

"Yes."

With this her tears come. "I don't want you branded as a traitor, Reese. Let them take me."

"I can't do that," Reese says sincerely.

"You are all that I have left. I will die, but I don't want you to die as well."

"I can't let you be tortured just because of your father."  Reese refuses to say anything else and Betsy knows that it's futile at that point for her to say anything either.

They hold each other as they fall back asleep.