– My name is Saeko, I am five years and ten months old, I am a girl and I have lived in this outpost all my life.
– – –
“Get downstairs! Get downstairs now Saeko!”
“Mommy I want you to go wi-!”
“Go now!!”
– – –
– I have a mom and a dad who work with writing and meetings, and two big sisters. One is in military school and one is in primary school.
– – –
A pitched howl. Boom. The ground shook and Saeko screamed.
Chu-chu-chug. Someone else screamed too. Chu-chu-chug. Dad screamed. Chu-chu-chug. Dad stopped screaming.
– – –
– My favorite food is prota-nugs with red sauce and fried oat. My favorite book is A Map of a Moon With a Blue Balloon. I like it because the pictures are pretty and I get a little scared almost at the end but then I get happy again.
– – –
Shouts. Voices of strangers, some voices she recognized. But not mom’s voice. Not dad’s voice. Saeko fought back her own voice, but it choked her and escaped her aching throat as a thin hiss.
– – –
– One time, my dad said: “If you call ‘Saeko’ in the mountains, you’ll get a eko back.”
– Isn’t it an echo?”.
– Nope. Because my name isn’t San-eko, is it?”
– Oh you…!
– – –
The door was supposed to be shut. It was supposed to be shut to prevent gas and fire to get into the safety room. The door wasn’t shut. Saeko could hear everything.
– – –
– I don’t know really what mom and dad work with, but when they have meetings in the kitchen, I have to be in the bedroom and play games or watch video. I don’t really understand what they are talking about, only that it is about the Union and the Federation and the war. And we were Federation, but now we are Union, I think. Mom and dad was fighting in the war when we were Federation, but they weren’t soldiers.
– – –
Shouts from outside. Footsteps inside. Rough soles moved across the kitchen floor. You weren’t allowed to wear shoes indoors.
And you weren’t allowed to fight wars if you weren’t a soldier. Then they came for you.
Saeko wasn’t sure who “they” were though, Federation or Union. But they were here now.
A voice distorted by protection mask and speaker. “Clear.”
Another voice, lighter, more hoarse. “Door.”
The first repeated. “Door.”
Creaking hinges. Footsteps coming down the stairs. Her heart beat so hard her whole body quivered with each heartbeat. Invisible hands crushed her throat, her stomach.
Footsteps stopped.
“Union Armed Forces, Tyrian Division. Come out, hands on your head.”
She couldn’t see them, so they couldn’t see her, they couldn’t, could they?
A vague buzz, like a radio on low volume.
First voice. “Repeat?”
Second voice. “A child.”
“The fuck…?”
Go away, go away, go away…!
Footsteps again. Saeko pressed her face against her pulled up knees.
Don’t kill me, don’t kill me, don’t kill me…
“Hey kitten. Wan’ come out?”
I want my mom and dad.
– – –
– I don’t go to school yet, but when I start school I will have to go to UC15, because we don’t have a school at our outpost. Satsuki is on UC15, and Sadako is at UC01 because the military school is on UC01. Dad said she couldn’t go to military school because she was Federation but she said “watch me” and went there anyway.
– – –
First voice. She could see his boots. Grey. Worn. One clasp was broken. They looked heavy.
“C’mon, kitten. You not safe here. I’m not goin’ hurt you, okay?”
More low buzzing talk.
“Got it.”
The soldier squatted down beside her. She glanced at his knees, not letting go of her own. Grey fabric. Protection plates. A hole above the knee that was dark with dried blood and had been sewn together.
“Hey kitten. You hear me?”
A hand reached out to her. The glove was grey too, darker reinforcements, almost worn out on palm and knuckles.
Saeko screamed.
– – –
– I like to plant seeds but not so much the ones that grow slow, but sunflowers and peas grow fast so I like to plant those.
– – –
She cried and screamed and wriggled and squirmed as the soldier lifted her up and carried her upstairs and out on the square outside the house.
Around her was smoke from burning buildings. Three people lying flat on the ground with blood on their clothes, two soldiers dragging another two limp bodies there. Dad’s shirt was on one of them.
The sound of hovering spacecrafts and distorted voices made her head spin, that was dad’s shirt, on a dead person, the sound was so loud, the clicking of weapons and scraping of boots against concrete, and…
…someone shouting her name.
– – –
– When I was little I planted a toy brick because I thought it would grow more bricks on it like a potato. I was a little stupid when I was little!
– – –
She tilted her head to see around the soldier’s shoulder, back at the voice, and shouted back:
“Mommy!”
“Saeko, sweet child, I’m here, mommy’s here!”
“Mommy!”
She tried to get free from the soldier’s grip, furiously, but he was too strong.
“Easy, kitten”, he mumbled.
“Let her go, let her come to me, I’m her mother! That’s my child!” Mom was crying.
“Stay down”, said another soldier who was pointing a weapon at mom.
“Take the kid to the shuttle”, said someone beside them.
“Got it.”
And the soldier carried her away.
Saeko screamed, trying to reach out to her mom while each step took her further away from her.
“I’ll come and get you later, sweet child, I promise, mommy will come and get you Saeko!”
The ruins of her home blurred through the tears, her mom only a smudge far away, the crest on the soldier’s shoulder looked like an angel with its light yellow wings but it was an angel whose soldiers had killed her dad and was taking her mom.
– – –
Saeko’s screams died from one moment to another; the echo of it lingered in Haylen’s ears for months.
– – –
– I think that was actually quite clever, Saeko! You formed a theory and you tested it! You’re a smart girl. I heard you when said that you don’t really understand what your parents work with, but do you mind trying again? I’m quite curious now.
Fiction by Mehazael 