Kalina

Chapter 1: The Run

I lie awake as I try to picture seeing my mother and sisters again, as I imagine Acacia's baby blue ribbon intertwining itself within her braids. Hello, my name is Kalina, I'm 16 years old and the 2nd child of 4. I have one brother, two sisters, a mother and father. I used to live in a beautiful village far from here, with one story houses and neighbors only a yard away, flowers along the walkway and vegetables growing in the entrance, our village surrounded by blooming trees during the summer. But now I am forced to live in a raggedy, old, broken down, abandoned house. No running water, holes in the walls, broken windows, no furniture, no blankets or clothes other than the ones on our backs. I woke up on an average day, everything was normal, my mother and sisters were going to get the water and fruit for our breakfast. My brother next door at his workshop, father about five houses down working on the villages shoes, I was washing and preparing dishes for the upcoming meal. It had been about one hour since everyone had dispersed from the house, and then, my father came running into the house screaming for my brother and me.
"My princes," is what my father calls me, meaning, my princess, "We must go, where is Arnit?... I know you must be scared, but we need to leave now!"
I had run to the workshop and collected my brother, father had told me to meet him at the tree line behind the village. Arnit and I began running. all I could think about was my sisters and my mother, I looked back to see if I could see them, to see if they were following ... and that's when I saw it ... saw him. He sat 8 ft tall with a shotgun in his right hand, he was riding on a tall midnight black horse with a white mane. The horse was gorgeous but the man was anything but that. He had a scar running across the left side of his face and it looked as if his left eye was missing, he wore a heavy black cow skin cloak, a white shirt and black pants, and huge boots, but what scared me the most was what was on the back of the horse ... or who. There sat my sister, Acacia, 4 years old, on the back of the scary man's horse, who held a gun. I immediately told my brother who had been running by my side the whole time. He turned and looked, he stopped, and right as his foot lifted off the ground as if he were about to run, we heard our names being hollered.
It was our mother, "KALINA! ARNIT! YOU MUST GO! I GOT THIS!"
As she finished her sentence, she was grabbed and pinned by a tall dark figure, she blew a kiss, so gentle and calm ... it was as if she had no care for the man, as if she knew how scared and vulnerable I was ... as if somehow, she knew, that it would relax every nerve in my body. Everything calmed down, there were no screams, no hollers, no gun shots, no foot steps, it was like a dream, when u fall off a cliff, and everything goes silent. I had wanted so deeply to go back for my mother and sisters but then reality kicked back in, I could slowly hear my brother and father's calls, growing louder and louder. Arnit had already started running to the tree line when I had noticed my other sister being placed onto the backs of horses. It seemed as if these monsters were taking only the girls. I began running towards the tree line, cutting my legs on the bladed grass.
When I arrived to the tree line, father said, "We must keep going. Do not stop. Follow me, do not seperate. We will be fine, as long as we stay quiet, and don't stop moving"
We'd gone about 4 miles when father stopped at a tree, we were out of breath, dehydrated, hungry, tired, in pain, physically and mentally, we crowded around the tree, and he told us to climb.
"Climb, climb now, I don't know how much time we have, just climb," said my father.
Arnit and I climbed the tree, to the highest and most stable branch, with our father not far behind.