A Concept of Apathy

Chapter 10.5

“This is only pain, and pain passes.”
-Makroism teaching

“Telios!”

I was woken up by my older sister, Elli, and I groaned. She looked frantic, and that woke me up faster than anything else. She was nineteen, five years older than me, although she was about to get married off to another family on the plantation. There were six of us, and I was the second youngest.
“What’s going on?” I asked, getting to my feet.
“I don’t know, but mom and dad are gone and there are fires! Get up, get up!”
My two brothers were already up, along with my other sister. Elli had gone for the youngest as she was only two, and we all ran out of the small box we called a house. I started to feel the hunger, but it had the edge taken off of it with the adrenaline.
Fire was everywhere, the entire northern part of the fields on fire and screams were starting to sound everywhere. Elli grabbed us, getting us to start running in the opposite direction of the fire.
“Where’s mom and dad?!” Ashur asked, he was the second oldest, and he was always slow to wake up. He was still rubbing the sleep from his eyes even as he ran. He was pacing himself, as he was the tallest and by far the most athletic.
“I don’t know, I heard screams and woke up, then I saw fire.” Elli said with forced calm. She was running with Embla, the youngest. Ashur took Embla from Elli, letting her move more freely. Embla was starting to cry, even as Ashur tried to calm her.
“We are under attack.” I calmly stated. I had seen this once before, although in that life I had not been on this side of it.
“By who?” Nuha asked. She was right above me in terms of age, and we didn’t get along very well. She did not like how I just seemed to know things, which I figure came from jealousy. I didn’t like her because that jealousy made her mean.
“I don’t know.” I calmly replied. I was starting to breathe heavier, still running. My feet would likely be cut up a bit, but there was nothing to do for it.
“Of course you don’t, yo-”
“Be nice.” Ashur said, fully up by this point. He was unreasonably keen, and I had a feeling if he was in a more modern time he would have been a prodigy, but he was not so lucky in this life.
I made sure to check on my other older brother, Bragi, who was mute. They called it lame here, but I had the benefit of knowledge knowing he just couldn’t speak. He rather liked me due to my understanding, but other than being extremely hard working he had nothing to set him apart, and he couldn’t even be married off. He had it rough, which I sympathized with but I would sympathize more if we got out of this alive.
The fire was growing quickly, and the screams became louder. I didn’t try to look behind me often, knowing it would slow me down and knowing I was one of the slower runners in the group. We needed a plan, but we had no information and so there was nothing to plan with.
I didn’t like this attack, because I had a suspicion we were going to get cut off. I didn’t know much about local politics as we only had gossip to go off of. I did know that the last time I saw something like this there were people to catch the runners, so I kept an eye out. Indeed, I saw lanterns circling around higher than anyone could carry them and I knew what came next.
“Ashur!” I called.
“Yes?”
“They have horses!” I pointed out the lanterns, and he swore.
“Not around the kids!” Elli said, while Bragi was quietly amused.
“Keep running.” Ashur stonily said.
They were getting closer, but staggeringly so. It was like they were stopping to get groups, and I didn’t like it. I felt like we were being funneled, but there wasn’t much we could do. It also was a problem that it was fall, and time to harvest. It made all of the plants bigger, and harder to run around or through and I felt the branches cut at me.
I wasn’t the only one breathing heavily at this point, and the only one besides Embla who looked to be breathing with some semblance of ease was Ashur. Nuha and I were in the center of the group, like the other three siblings were trying to shield us. Ashur and Elli were in front with Bragi bringing up the rear, and for the first time I looked at the moon to see what time it was.
It was still early at night, which did not seem good at all. It did not help that the moon was very close to a new moon so there was very little light to work with. Even with the darkness, it felt like we were heavily conspicuous running through the fields. I knew if we kept running in this direction we would run into the gravel hills for a short stretch then the jungle. I deeply did not want to go into the jungle, it was a good way to die.
It was such a good way to die they didn’t even patrol the jungle for escapes, as it was taken if you were in the jungle you were dead. It was slowly being pushed back with fire and axes, but that didn’t help us right now. No, for now all we could do was run, and none of us were built for that.
Even Ashur was breathing heavily now, and we were beginning to slow. I could see horses closing in, men in light armor laughing at the screams riding towards us. I grimaced, and kept running. We all had the right muscles and endurance to work plants, but that did not translate to running in the slightest.
I could see the jungle at the top of the gravel hills, a dark mass of death that was our best hope of survival, and I kept pushing. I was barely aware of any other sensation, the adrenaline and focus pushing out everything else. We had to make it, just once I wanted something to go my way.
The horses caught up to us, and there wasn’t much we could do. I stopped, knowing there was nothing but the others kept running. I screamed after them, or maybe it was just a whisper. I couldn’t tell you the difference, and I watched the laughing men throw javelins cutting them all down. I cried after them, but I knew how much damage javelins could do.
When thrown right, a javelin could puncture even plate mail, and these had the look of professional soldiers. They had standardized equipment which was the big give away, and I stood there feeling nothing.
I had stopped crying, and at this point I just felt empty. They spoke a language I did not know, but one patted my shoulder and when I looked up at him he seemed to take some savage glee in punching me in the face. They bound me with ropes, and sent one of them to walk me back towards the fire.
I stared at the fire, and made a decision. We walked all the way back to the fire, and I was put in a group with the rest of the caught slaves. The rope was starting to chafe at my wrists, but it didn’t matter. I looked at the fire, burning a brilliant orange and committed.
It was the first time I burned to death, and it was so painful but I just couldn’t bring myself to care.

***

I had lived twelve times before this, but never for very long. Never before had I made it to see my twentieth birthday. It would be a few days after this one, once my mind had time to process, but I wondered as to the point of all of this. I’d be gone from this world soon enough, so I might just keep going with the flow while I was here.

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