Standing on the dried out, deserted hill I watched as the black crows swooped down, gorging themselves on whatever was left of the slowly decaying bodies. I think to myself ‘what has the world come to, to have done something as brutal and merciless as what has befallen upon my people.’ I step back and look inside myself. All I see is a coward that has deserted his friends, his family, his whole life just so he could live one day more. I’m filled with disgust at the thought that I’m supposed to be a warrior, a protector.

I look once again at the massacre that had happened hours before, a thin dust had settled over the once peaceful land which was now covered in a fine coating of blood. I remember the taste of fear, of desperation; of longing to be held and protected as if I was a child once again and not the protector I’m suppose to be now. Thousands of twisted, decrepit bodies enveloping the land are all that show any traces of the war that had been taken place earlier that day.

I slowly climb down the hill and make my way towards the destruction that I had once called home. The instant that I reach the dwellings I knew, as only instinct can, that every single body that had once resided here was dead. As I walk slowly down the paths between the burned downed huts I began to see evidence of terror and devastation. I see how some of the families had tried to pack, to escape. Yet, in the end, their efforts were wasted. Turning the corner, I was assaulted with the cries of mercy that had long faded, but was imprinted into the land.

The war had been ruthless, no survivors, myself not included. Turning another corner I was accosted by the sight of our village healers strung up onto oak wood crosses, upside down. Splinters and cuts evident by the rivulets of blood that had drenched their backs. Engraving were carved into their stomachs. The sign of their god; their almighty and merciful holy being. I wonder, would their god want this? If he is so gracious, would he want all this blood and destruction on the hands of his followers?

The front of the bodies were no better. In fact, that would be a sight that haunted my waking as well as my sleeping hours for the rest of my life. It was obvious that they had been whipped after they were tied to the crucifixes. Their bellies had been stripped of flesh and their insides hung out limp, imitating meaty jump ropes. The image will have etched its self into the front of my brain, burning there, for years to come.

As I walk up to one, my favorite, named Deilos, I was struck by the image of raw pain that marred his once handsome features. His eyes had already glazed over and he had begun to obtain the smell of burnt flesh and a mixture of slightly spoiled milk with rotten fish. I slowly untie him and begin to sink to my knees. I lay him onto the ground and close his glassy gray eyes. Only after I bow my head and whisper the rites of the dead do I allow my self to twist away and vomit. It tastes of bitter fright and it burns the back of my throat. I close my eyes in a vain attempt to stop the flow of tears. Tears of worry, of despair, but mostly tears of a weary soul looking for peace and rest.

Though I had not fought as the others had, I could feel the fatigue of the day; of having to face the death of my people, of my world and having to face my own cowardice. Yet the day was not over yet. Forcing myself to stand I walk towards my home, passing burning stumps of what might have been a friend or even kin at one point. I shudder to think of what may had befallen my family, my sisters.

I look toward the fencing area, where the little children would play while their mothers and fathers would work. It was utterly ruined. All that was left was smoldering embers of a child’s playground. I swear I could still hear the children’s shrieks echo into eternity, throughout the valley. Forced to watch their families crumble before them, before their own certain death. They watched close as I had watched from afar, their mothers being ravaged again and again, their moans of anguish and dismay going unheard and useless. The tiniest children were forced to witness the debauchery of their siblings, forced to listen to their fathers beg for their families to be spared. The pleas went unheeded and the men were castrated for their efforts. The enemies brethren looked on in amusement as if this was just a play that was put on especially for them.

The weight of grief and guilt brought me to my knees in front of the dying ashes as a gentle wind scattered the lot away. With the sun shining and new blades of green meadow peaking through the carnage, the land looked as peaceful as a burial ground, which in a sense is what it was. As I kneel in the circle, I see the children as delicate flowers, the pedals being ripped off by an eager toddler; or perhaps they were as a fragile butterfly whose wing were crushed under the wheels of a wagon cart.

These people, my people, people who have done nothing were belittled and finally beheaded. They died honorably, fighting for their lives and for their freedom., but in the end, what did they accomplish besides bloodshed? I have given up hope for this world, a world where nobody cares about who you are. Yet there is still hope for a new world, a better world. A world where mindless killing has no existence and peace is savored as if it where gold. Standing in the wasteland that used to be my life, my being, I look towards the future, a place where the silence sounds so loud.