Shattered

Chapter 1 - The Last Day

Amira loved the hard-packed, twisting path of The Mountain. The long, dusty road stretched as far as her eye could see, its sides flanked with lush, viridescent trees that shaded her from the scorching sun. Soon, Amira came to her favorite resting place, a broad, sun-kissed cliffside, just in time to see the innocuous sun rising from the sky, bathing the village of Tebek in a warm glow.The dried-dirt roofs of her people were dotted across the rolling foothills, their smoking chimneys signifying the start of a new day and the beginning of a sumptuous breakfast. As her gaze turned toward the fields, she could see the rows of pale green sprouts scattered across the rich earth.

Amira glowered as she saw her younger brothers chase the chicks that had escaped from their family pen. The fledglings hated to be locked up in their cages, and constantly fled from their "prison". They escaped so often that Amira was perpetually angered by their incompetence. Her stomach growled as she caught a waft of the ever-pleasing smell of the village's usual breakfast of labneh. Not wanting to miss her meal, Amira hurried down the mountain for home.

When she arrived, her family was already sitting at the hearth, scooping of tomatoes and olives onto their bread.

"Saaghir, stop mashing your breakfast together! Asu, stay still!" Their mother fussed as the troublesome pair caused chaos about the household. When the two finally settled down, the family knelt in front of the hearth and closed their eyes in prayer.

"Bismillah ir Rahman," Amira's father began, his deep, melodious voice transforming the words into birdsong. However, something seemed rather strange: as he spoke, a faint whistling began to accompany his words. Amira, at first, thought nothing of this, but as the prayer went on, the whistling became angrier and more insistent. When her father stopped speaking, the family looked up fearfully, they eyes filled with confusion. They could barely register the strange sound when the world exploded, covering the village in a never-ending darkness.

***

Amira woke to a sizzling chorus of smoke, flames, and groans. When she peered through the choking fumes, she realized where she was: trapped under sections of her house and covered in debris. Coughing and squeezing herself out of the crumbling remains of her home, Amira shakily stood on the destruction. As she scanned the landscape, she gasped in horror at what her village had become.

The world seemed to be on fire; the once clear blue sky marred by the leaping tongues of flame. Her ears rang with the wails of her community as the rest began to also realize their misfortune. She jumped fearfully as a small pair of hands slipped into her slackened, bloody ones. But when she realized both Saaghir and Asu had managed to claw their way out of their destroyed home, she sighed in relief. The boys had fared no better than she: the remnants of their clothing barely concealed the ghastly cuts and bruises that patterned their bodies.

"Come," Amira murmured, "We must get to a safe area."

After a while, they managed to find a place that wasn't covered in rubble and the trio collapsed onto the ground in relief. After they had caught their breaths, Saaghir pulled on Amira's tattered sleeve.

"Where's 'Umi and Ub?" he murmured as he scratched his head, gasping when he drew his hand and found blood. Amira gasped, then groaned as she felt the cuts in her chest pulse angrily: in the terror of the moment, she had completely forgotten about their parents!

"We have to find them! Hurry!" She scrambled over the ruins, dragging her brothers in tow. Together, the siblings combed through the devastation, desperately calling out for their parents. As they continued to search, the sun began to rise high into the sky, its heat washing over their backs comfortingly, as if it understood the enormity of this terrible event.

It was Asu who had finally found a trace of them. Or what was left. Her mother's slipper was dangling from a wooden plank in one of the walls.

"Akht, akhi, I've found 'Umi's slipper! Let's search around this area!" He cried to his siblings in excitement. So, the search began once again, the children's vigor fueled by this new hope. After a while, however, they still had not found any other clues on their parents' whereabouts.

"Akht, we're going to go back to the clearing again!"Asu and Saaghir whimpered, exhausted.

"Alright!" she replied. "I'm going to search for a bit longer." She watched as the boys made their way back to the spot, then began her final search. After continuously finding nothing, Amira sat down and pondered a lingering question: If Asu had discovered the slipper, where were they? She began to search around the rubble surrounding the shoe before examining the item itself. Grabbing her mother's worn shoe, she peered inside and shrieked. The shoe was not only bloody, but still had her mother's foot inside.