The broken warrior

Dimah Qazi; 12 years old

"Listen to me darling," Moms voice wavered, "run, run as far as you can, away from these grounds-"

Black smoke swarmed the night skies and enveloped us in a serene silence, away from the breaking branches and bellowing fires. All I could see were those green eyes staring back at me, glossy and tired.

"Go south, past the dungeons-" A scream sliced through night, befalling a strange uncertainty within my soul, "and just keep running, ok habibti?"

My eyes followed the door knob that began jiggling, my heart accelerating in its beats. My mother grabbed my slim arms, shaking me to consciousness I was barely grasping onto. The smoke was blinding me, it was slithering up my veins and clogging every pathway I opted for a way out, but mom didn't stand for that.

"Wake up, Dimah! Don't deprive me of those eyes I gave you, not now," I blinked hard at her words, opening my eyes as wide as I could, "good girl, just how I raised you,"

The sound of our door being banged echoed within the four walls of our home.

"Once you turn 18, run to the castle and become the golden warrior your father raised you to be. Understood?" I nodded urgently, trying my best to find a way to get us both out of here, alive and well.

Mother looked behind her, at the door knob that was jiggling with such valency it's screws were unwinding. Her grip on my arms tightened, eliciting tears to my eyes, not at the pain, but at the thought of having to run out of her embrace, at the thought of having to look into her eyes for the last time.

"Mama, I can't," I shook my head at her, traitorous tears escaping the sockets of my eyes, "I can't-"

Mother pulled me into her arms, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed into my own. It was her attempt at silencing me, and it had worked. There was no time, the screws began falling out of the knob, the screams grew louder and the fires outside our home bloomed. I could have only hoped that father and Slaiman made it out alive.

"I love you, habiti," She whispered into my hair, caressing my quivering back.

"I love you too, mama," As I uttered my last words, mother let go of me, her eyes sparkling with a force I'd never witnessed before. She inched her head to the direction of my closet and placed a hand on her lip, forcing me into further silence.

It was the first time I'd seen her so enthralled in sadness. In melancholic rage so robust it had scared me into the closet out of fear I did not understand it.

I listened to her. What else could I have done? The darkness of my closet was suffocating; space non existent and air concentrated in tar. Though something caught my eyes. Throughout the voice of blackness, something called out for me. A glint, a reflection, I didn't know, but it was something, something out of the darkness.

Silently, I knocked onto the back of my wardrobe, only to hear a hollow sound that echoed back at me. There was something behind the closet.