Petra, the Great - (Book One)

"Of all base passions, fear is the most accursed".

Children can be cruel, can they not?

I open my eyes underwater, letting them burn as I feel myself transported elsewhere, for I am no longer drowning. I am in the Shazastar. I am home.

The Shazastar desert is an unforgiving hell. It is home only to the tribes that have adapted to its cruelty and bareness. I stand and feel the scorching sand beneath my bare feet. All around me is red - red sand, red sun, red heat. Yet it is home. I squint as I focus out in the distance. There! There are my village's caravans. I run to them. I know where Papa will be. I know where Grams will be. I know that Zen Zen will be waiting for me by our tent, eating fruits he had stolen and saving me some as well.

I pass by a group of children and despite myself I stop. They stand huddled around a little girl - hair as black as the Shazastar sky and eyes just as vast. A little boy picks up a rock and pelts it at her. She ducks and it hits her skinny shoulder.

"Zavani shasta." Devil's child. He spits.

He picks another pebble and chucks it at the whimpering little girl. "Atisi shasta." Cursed one.

I try to push my way to the children but I am not allowed to. I can only stand frozen as the memory plays before me. Through the blurriness of my tears I watch as the children suddenly scram, leaving the bruised little girl curled up on the sand alone. A woman with flowing grey hair picks her up and whispers words I cannot hear, but remember distinctly.

I fall onto my knees. I do not want to see anymore. Yet, I am taken to another memory. The same little girl, a bit older than the previous time, stands before the mutilated body of a small monkey. Her face hardened; tears streak her dirty face.

"They did this, Zen Zen? They did this to you?" Her voice is soft, questioning not their actions but their motives. Why would they do such a thing? To an innocent being?

She stares at the dead monkey, as I stare at her, my heart racing as recognition stabs me with each heartbeat.

"They harmed you, because they can no longer harm me."

Tears prick my eyes as I realize who this little girl is, as I realize what memory this is. I try to close my eyes to block out the pain, but I know what is to come. I know what it is I do next. For the young girl is none other than myself.

I watch her as she crouches before her dead pet monkey, as she puts a small brown hand over its mutilated body and as she begins to chant - chant ancient words, words she had never heard or learned, yet are as natural as the air around her.

"Don't do it!" But my screams are silent and unheeded. I watch Zen Zen's little hand twitch, and I know it is too late - for it was my love for that little bastard that was the beginning of the end.

***

I know that I am in Bernardino's hut, even before I open my eyes. The warmth and comfort that I do not feel anywhere else, a certain homeyness, is what pulls me out of my fitful slumber.

"We should stop meeting like this, Bernardino," I whisper.

His chuckle gives me the courage to open my eyes and face my new reality. Bernardino sits in a chair across from me. His dimly lit hut smells of a nice porridge cooking. My stomach rumbles in response. Nightmares and forgotten memories sure make me hungry.

"Perhaps you should stop trying to drown yourself."

I had not realized there was another person in the hut with us. I had not realized that the shadow looming over the fireplace was none other than Giovanni de Luca.

I groan and turn away. "Perhaps you should mind your own business."

Again the old man chuckles. "He has been at my side like a mother hen, mia cara. I will leave you in his capable hands. I must return to my stand."