A Child’s Living Nightmare

“Come on, quickly Omari we don’t have time!” cries Nasi. At that exact moment the front door is
blast off of it’s hinges with a booming thud that is soon followed by gunshots and a piercing sceam.
Mother. Her strangled cries are soon cut off by a sick gurgling; she is choking on her own blood. I
watch this from afar, I’m standing in the room next door but my whole body has frozen with shock; I
wouldn’t be able to move to save my life. I’m brought back to the present by a sharp tug on my
sleeve which is soon folowed by another harder pull that sends me hurtling to the floor. I see Nasi,
my younger brother, crouched down next to me under the sofa, pressing a shaking finger to his
bloodless lips. His skin, though dark, looks pale and it appears as if he’s on the verge of fainting. The
shock of what i’d just seen seemed to numb my body because my mind didn’t seem to register the
fact that I’d just seen my mother murdered. It didn’t get a chance to restart either becasue there
are now storms of soldiers filing through our house shooting randomly, wearing the badges of the
katya tribe; the enemy of the tribe my father had gone away to support : the moruni.

And then we hear it, a soft wailing that seems to be coming from the store cupboard, they seem to
hear it as well for two soldiers turn and open-fire at it until it implodes with a thundering crash. A
cold dread starts to seep through my veins because I’d just recognised the frail wailing. We grip each
others hands, Nasi and I, hold each other for dear life. The soldiers rip apart the remnants of the
cupboard and then peel away the remains of my baby sister, neya. The sight of it makes me want to
throw up and I have to stifle a scream by clamping my hand over my mouth. My once adorable
gurgling 9-month old baby sister was now malformed, the implosion had crushed her tiny form and
all you could see was a distorted body with blood covering her inch by inch. The soldiers laugh and
throw away her tiny form as if it was rubbish. My jaw clenches with outrage. The shock that had kept
me immobalised up untill this point seems to drift away leaving nothing but cold fury and indignation
at the way they’ve treated my mother and sister. The blood is now pounding behind my ears and
everything turns balck, my fists ball so tightly that I can feel my nails biting into my palm. How dare
they? At this moment I feel a rage i didn’t know existed, didn’t think was possible, obliterating my
reason and making me want to rip those soldiers apart as they had done my family.

Without knowing what I was doing I scrambled out of my hiding spot and whilst surging to my feet ,
grabbed a discarded pistol from the floor and started firing at everything in sight. My legs and arms
are shaking with a mixture of anger and hatred but it didn’t lessen my resolve. After a few moments
however I felt a man yank me of the ground and dangle me in the air from the collar of my shirt “
Who are you and what do you think you’re doing?” He barks at me.I spit in his face. His expression
alters from shock to outrage in a span of less than a second. He throws me to the ground and starts
beating me and yelling “ How dare you? You filthy half breed!, Your mother betrayed her tribe by
marrying your father, you deserve to die you moturni” There are more curses and more beatings and
I can’t even brethe anymore. Then it stops. I open my eyes through a haze of pain to see my brother,
Nasi standing there, held by four soldiers twice his size, yelling at the soldiers to let me go. Another
soldier takes his rifle and strikes him across the head with as much force as to send Nasi’s head
snapping back. My brother lets out a strangled cry. I try calling out but my throat is constricted with
pain, my ribs feel boken and everything aches. The soldier beside me starts to move again and I
brace myself for more pain. But it doesn’t come. He hauls me upright and then shakes me. He pauses
a second and in that moment my brother and I exchange worried glances. But that’s all I am: worried
about Nasi’s safety, not shaking in fear or terrified for my life, not even scared. I wonder why:
probably the pain from my ribs that is simultaneously blurring my vision and constricting my arms
and legs whilst leaving me defenceless.

The next thing the soldier say shocks me “You join our tribe”. It isn’t a question. I blink twice and
then do my best to starighten out of my crumpled state. I look him right in the eye and sneer

“I’d rather die”

“That’s your other option, for you and your brother”. I bite my lip to stop myself from saying
anything that I shouldn’t. I glance at my brother, now looking pallid and small compared to his
captors with blood streaming down his face in crimson streaks. I look at him and am horrified; torn
between the decision of joining a tribe that has murdered half of my family or dying in a torturous
manner and hauling him down with me. I see a look in his eyes and know that he is thinking the same
thing. It’s a look that I know must be mirrored in my own eyes. We have no choice. I bite my lip
harder willing it to be yesterday when my only toubles were which vegetables needed picking in the
valley. I’m biting too hard; i can taste the blood seeping through the spot where my teeth are
clamped into my lips and flow into my mouth. I feel cold and the awareness of everything that has
occured in the past hour seems to be flowing all too swiftly through my body; it’s a wonder that i’m
still standing upright. The pain from my beating seems to intensify with the pain of the realisation
and suddenly I can stand no longer...

I woke up, dripping in sweat, shivering, with the taste of blood in my mouth to the sound of a
commanders bark. I opened my sleep-dazed eyes to the sight of my cramped cabin with six more
teenagers dumped together on the two sleeping mats. The familiar scent of urine and vomit, that
was a result of the lack of proper facilities, was in the air. We were all at attention as soon as the
second warning went out. We trudged out of our cabin, my usually compliant stomache still rumbling
from the lack of any proper food yesterday: we hadn’t hit our intended target and only managed to
kill four of the ten intended. My stomache was usually okay, I was used to the always near-empty
state of it, it had been almost two years, when I was fourteen, since I had gotten any real meal on a
regular basis so I was surprised at it’s protesting. A sudden pain started,that had nothing to do with
my hunger, while I was contemplating the state of my stomache; food, painfully vivid memories
started to flood through my mind, of my brother and myself sitting around a wooden table, my
mother cooking something warm and lovely, my sister laughing and playing with a toy, the smell of
hot soup and fresh bread in the air... I blotted out these images as soon as they entered my head; I
couldn’t waste time dwelling on my losses , doing so would only make me depressed and distracted;
something I couldn’t afford.

I needed to think of something in the near future that I could look forward to. I knew exactly what.
The other reason why my stomache usually didn’t protest was because my body had a need far
greater than the need for food or even water. It was crank. That’s what they called it; it was really
cocaine. When we first came to the camp, Nasi and myself, we refused the white powder that
seemed to make all of the other children so ecstatic because we didn’t want to get attached: we still
harboured hopes of escaping then. But then they started putting it in our drinks and food. They told
us it was a new flavour. Within a week we were hooked and all chances of freedom were lost. Now
the best part of the week or even month is getting the ‘reward’. Nothing but my occasional visits with
my brother can make me happier then when I get my little plastic bag of crank. That was how I’d
gotten through my first killing. My hands had trembled and I’d felt sick at the thought of murdering
my charge: a young moturni girl. I’d told them that I couldn’t do it but it had only taken one word to
make me forget all of my worries. To make me forget that I was about to murder an innocent child
half of my age and size, a girl who was probably loved by someone as a daughter and maybe a sister
and to ignore the terrrified pleading expression on her face. Crank. I still hear her scream at night. I
still see how I must have looked to her and to others : cold, heartless, cruel, addicted.

Of course it isn’t easy to get, only if we complete each challenge we are set which in itself is very
rare. But the thing is I’m hooked, if I don’t get it atleast once a fortnight my body starts to go
through the withdrawal symptoms and it makes me vomit and shake so violently that my teeth
chatter and I can’t hold anything.

I walk outside and start to take my place in line behind jotya, another boy about a year younger than
me. I can see a trail of prisoners being brought in from the west side of the camp and that some of
them look to be as young as eight. I look up and see the once pristine valley, though always dry, it
had been beautiful with plants and children, laughing and playing carefree children. Now there were
cabins and training camps dotting the green and brown landscape, drug tents containing our
‘rewards’ and prisoner barges. I look up and I no longer see the once pristine valley, instead I see a
nightmare. A child’s living nightmare.