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The rain poured down from the sky,
Like seeds scattered on the earth,
Hoping to enrich it,
And bring new life there.

The people's faces were grim as they dragged themselves onward.
I try not to look at the faces,
Not ever if I can.

The wretched creatures they are,
I don't see them.
One is just the same as another,
Vessels of evil,
Inferior.
Dirty.

I don't pick out one face from another in the crowd.
I try not to.

So it happened;
She ran.

A soldier let his guard down, and she ran.
A shot rang out, and I held my weapon close,
Not realising it had just been used.
A body fell.

We moved to where it lay.
I didn't realise how far she had gotten,
She must have run like the wind
For the minutes it took for me to reach her
Were the longest of my life.

We stepped to the corpse.
Her lifeless eyes stared up at me,
Blank, and dark.
Her mouth open in a silent cry,
As if uttering a prayer for protection,
As if she held the hope of being saved
Her face, pale now
Showed the bones beneath her white skin,
And the tiny hole in the back of her head,
From which her life had fled,
From which her blood was still doing so,
Her features set, and broken
...and afraid.
Those eyes touched me, and I knew fear.

When my ears finally stopped ringing,
I heard a cry.
And my mind failed me then,
And I believed completely that it was she who made this sound.
But my commander moved before I could find my senses,
And showed to me that which I wished not to see.

In her arms,
In her limp and lifeless arms,
A tiny child lay.
Screaming with all his energies,
And even now, I do not dwell upon
The anger and fear on his face.
I only pray he did not know his mother's fate.

I watched as the babe was picked up,
I could concentrate only on the drops of blood splattered on his blanket.
The infant was held close.
The crying stopped immediately.
I watched as he was placed next to his mother,
And left alone with me.

I stood in the rain,
Watching the drops merge with blood,
Observing them join, and seep into the earth.
I knew nothing would grow there.
The clouds hid us from view,
Until it was only we three on the plain.
The boy lay asleep on the grass,
As much a part of this world as any tree or rock.

And I looked once more at his mother.
And in that moment, I questioned if her blood, would buy my way to God's
Kingdom.