Chapter 1: Aazadi

Chapter 1: Aazadi

Mink’s P.O.V

I wasn't dead. Not yet. But it sure felt like it.

When is a person supposed to die? I didn't know. I'm not literate. Women aren't supposed to be.

At least that's what he says.

Is it when we stop breathing? I don’t know…because it felt like I had been holding my breath for years, afraid that they would hear me.

Is it when your heart stops beating? I don't know. Because mine stopped the moment I saw my partners set on fire in front of my own eyes. Their flesh melting from their bones…their screams echoing in the desert mercilessly for all to hear.

And no one came to help.

My mother had been different. She'd cared for me. Fed me. Brushed my hair. Told me I was special. That the Goddess of Wolves had created me to destroy all those who torment us. I had believed her, just as I had believed in her stories of a beautiful world outside the confines of my door, which I wasn’t allowed to open…ever.

But I had made that mistake…I had opened that door…when I heard applauds and screams of what sounded to be a joyous occasion.

Little had I known that my world would turn upside down right at that moment…

"Jala dena sabko! Kisi ko mat chorna!" (Burn them all. Don't leave anyone alive!). She had screamed at me as the fire turned her fair skin black, made it bubble out blood. "In rakshaso main se koi bhi jeene layak na hain!" (None of these demons deserve to live).

I hadn't answered. I couldn't. My throat had clogged, my mind had gone numb…and I had been restrained by those very monsters, my head held in their rough grip and my eyes pried open to watch the grotesque scene until the very end…

But he'd laughed. Laughed so hard. While my mother...my father....were burnt to death, their bodies blackened skeletons that hung from metal poles in the middle of the pack. Their screams echoing through my mind even now, even after a day had passed.

But they had saved me…they had kept me in a cell and were now waiting. Waiting for the day I turn fourteen and become the pack’s next breeder.

A sound of bells broke me out of my thoughts.

It came closer, slowly yet steadily…accompanied by the familiar sound of something being dragged through the rough sand grains.

I peeked from behind the tent where I was hiding, waiting for an opportunity. A khanjaar (a knife) was held tightly in my hand, a man's white kurta (a top for men) hung from my thin body, my white hair hung loose over my face, camouflaging with the sands below.

I’d purposely rolled on the sand and dirt before I came into hiding. I'd prepared myself as such so that no one can distinguish between the sand and me. So no one would be able to suspect what was about to happen next.

The noise came closer and stopped in front of

his door.

"Malik!" (Leader) One of them called out in his gruff, intoxicated voice.

I peeked further, but remained in the shadows so I wouldn’t get caught. The others were sleeping. Deeply.

I saw two of his big, burly men holding a girl by each arm in a brown dress. She looked unconscious, her head drooped and her legs dragging. A trail of blood on the sand behind her showed that she was bleeding from between her legs. Her face was hidden behind a curtain of her dark hair, but I could tell she was hardly a few years older than me.

"Kya hain?" (What is it?) Came a gruff, slurry voice as the door banged open. His voice.

Rafael.

The leader of our pack. The strongest warrior of them all. Someone who thinks himself to be God.

He's the reason every woman in the village is a slave, a breeder. He says that women are birthing organs, their only duty was to cook and clean and satisfy the soldiers. And those who couldn’t birth anymore will have to die. He killed my parents for keeping me hidden till now…for keeping me away from his hungry eyes.

“Malik, she just gave birth to a choodi (girl)! Should we kill her too?” One of the men asked him.

Kill her too? The ominous sound reverberated through the air, creating a deafening echo in my skull.

“What’s the need? She’s dying anyway. Throw her out in the dunes; she’ll be buried under it by morning.” I held on to my Khanjaar tightly as Rafael’s slurred voice echoed through the quite village.

“Yes Malik!” The men echoed and dragged the woman away while Rafael came out of his tent, a green liquor bottle in hand and wearing only a loin cloth. I hid my face behind the tent and used my ears to listen to his movements. My wolf hadn't awakened yet, but I could hear better, and see and smell better than anyone in my pack, even the men.

I listened to Rafael’s movements in the sand, but then his feet turned towards me. I keep my body close to the ground and start backing away like a snake, using my hand to disturb my train in the sand in front of me. I heard Rafael turn the corner as I hid behind the tent. He stayed there for some time, as if sensing something amiss, but not realizing the implications. And then he moved back inside the tent, throwing the hara (green) bottle on the ground with a loud clanking noise.

I waited in that position for hours, I don’t know how many but I had to be patient. But then everything grew very quiet, except for the sound of night owls and the distant crickets. That was when I stood up. I was about to walk the other way, straight into the desert to regain my freedom, when a light coming from the front of the tent caught my eye.

I walk towards it slowly, my feet soundless on the sand. I found the bottle that Rafael had thrown on the ground. I pick it up and smell it and instantly, I remember the smell of this liquid that Rafael had poured on my parents before setting them on fire.

Suddenly, in the dead of the night, a plan hatches in my mind.

"Jala dena sabko! Kisi ko mat chorna!" 

My mother’s desperate voice echoes in my ears, and her meaning becomes clear to me.

I take the bottle with me and pour some on the tent I’ve been hiding behind. I then remember another kind of water my mother used to store in our house, the one she used to cook food and burn lamps. And I know where they keep it in storage. So I seek out more bottles as the entire village sleeps, after a night of drinking and gambling as usual.

This water is blue and they use it to burn fire. So I pour it over as many tents as I can, and then take two rocks in my hand. Just like my mother taught me to, I hit them together to create a spark and throw them on the water and it catches fire. Suddenly, a wind blows through the desert, a strong wind.

Good. A storm is coming.

And as I watch, the fire spreads like a red and gold river, slowly engulfing the tents one by one.

I turn around and walk towards the fence of our village, as the fire keeps spreading behind me.

And then come the screams. Just like my mother and father had screamed…they scream as well. Cold and blood curdling.

Amid the screams, I hear the women chanting something, almost like a prayer. Only one word comes to my ears- aazadi (freedom)!

The men scream like women, terrified of the fate that had befallen them. This time, I laugh. I laugh so hard that I cry.

And then I run. I run as fast as I can until I reach the vast sands of the desert, endless and engulfing. Until there are no more screams.