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I remember my 20th birthday. Father had given me a can of peaches and a lighter that still held flint. Such rarities would have made a man of me but a woman I remained having earned that title some time ago. The men that stopped our wagons later that day must have done the math themselves since they only had eyes for our weapons and myself. See, women had grown a bit uncommon in the world those days and some men...well some men....
They dragged me off to a crevice in the earth. A giant fallen tree lay decaying its life away in a dribble of runoff from a spring through the rocks. I remember thinking how green the air smelt as they threw me down on the mossy ground. My head felt far away, swimming in a murky haze from the blow that still seemed to reverberate up and down my spine. The first of them moved in, dark and leering as two of the others grabbed a leg each and held me down. I remember shaking my head roughly to clear my vision. I remember feeling the knife ripping through my skin as it sliced my jeans away. I remember feeling a loose branch closing into my grasp.
The next thing I remember is rolling over with a gasp in a pool of blood and slowly realizing it was not my own. Whatever had happened had been quick and had been final - not one of my abductors hid their brains from the world and one or two seemed to have lost the commodity altogether. I pushed myself upright with the gory stick still clutched in my hand, then threw it away in disgust when I saw the mess it had become. Did I really kill all of them? With a mental rephrasing of the question, I began to hurriedly count bodies. There must have been at least six to have taken our wagons. How many had I actually seen? It had gone so black for so long. Could I be sure these were all? The world swam again as if in warning. I clawed my way up the mossy cliff and retraced the trail all the way back to the road, all the way back to the wagons.
They were easy to find. Two were on fire and the yells of the wounded drew me to them. I arrived just after my father had passed. I appeared at his side, covered in blood, just in time to feel his cooling brow, to kiss his slackened cheek. We gave five to the fire that night, a fire I kindled myself. That night, they all looked to me to set out guard's orders. It seems I had my uses after all...
They dragged me off to a crevice in the earth. A giant fallen tree lay decaying its life away in a dribble of runoff from a spring through the rocks. I remember thinking how green the air smelt as they threw me down on the mossy ground. My head felt far away, swimming in a murky haze from the blow that still seemed to reverberate up and down my spine. The first of them moved in, dark and leering as two of the others grabbed a leg each and held me down. I remember shaking my head roughly to clear my vision. I remember feeling the knife ripping through my skin as it sliced my jeans away. I remember feeling a loose branch closing into my grasp.
The next thing I remember is rolling over with a gasp in a pool of blood and slowly realizing it was not my own. Whatever had happened had been quick and had been final - not one of my abductors hid their brains from the world and one or two seemed to have lost the commodity altogether. I pushed myself upright with the gory stick still clutched in my hand, then threw it away in disgust when I saw the mess it had become. Did I really kill all of them? With a mental rephrasing of the question, I began to hurriedly count bodies. There must have been at least six to have taken our wagons. How many had I actually seen? It had gone so black for so long. Could I be sure these were all? The world swam again as if in warning. I clawed my way up the mossy cliff and retraced the trail all the way back to the road, all the way back to the wagons.
They were easy to find. Two were on fire and the yells of the wounded drew me to them. I arrived just after my father had passed. I appeared at his side, covered in blood, just in time to feel his cooling brow, to kiss his slackened cheek. We gave five to the fire that night, a fire I kindled myself. That night, they all looked to me to set out guard's orders. It seems I had my uses after all...