Heart part 1

Chapter 40 - Taste the Wind part 9: Survivor

26 Years Ago

***

On a beach no longer on the map, a boat laid partly ashore. Near the sand's edge, before rows of flaccid long grass, a boy sat in the sand, hiding behind a salty log. Just behind the grass, two men armed to the teeth stood. Beneath them laid the boy's mother and father, bound like hogs. Like animals, the two men had them trapped under the soles of their boots.

The two spoke in a tongue he'd never before heard. " Two more! I've said it once and I'll say it again, this beach really is the best! We've caught about five and it's only been a few hours. We'll be rolling once we turn them all into the royal family! That tip you got really was spot on!" The one with a bandana wrapped around his forehead uttered with a grin, grinding his boot into his father's back.

The other with a pair of glasses let a short snicker out. " You got that right! It's unbelievable how many of these darkies try to flee into our country!"

Reeling a foot back, he slammed it into his mother's side. Covering his mouth, the boy did his best holding back his screams. Tears streamed down his cheeks and dripped down to the sand below.

" How long is it going to take until you understand? Cyend doesn't want you!"

" Y-you...want our good lands a-and push us out into the sand...yet d-don't want us? E-even the most vile of the old tribes at least had the empathy to take in those they took from as slaves...! Casting us o-out into the desert...you and the other nations already took what little was there..."

" All the lands to the north and west are gone! All we have left is the land by the river! Your people made a promise that land was ours, but y-you lied! You're already starting to set sights on that as well-!" His father spit across the ground, his anger bursting out with whistles and steam, but before he could finish, the one with glasses shoved the tip of his boot into his mouth.

" So you understand us? Well, not like it matters." Pushing his boot in further, he didn't stop even as his father began to gag in pain. " We didn't ask why you came here, we don't care. The only thing we care about is turning you into the royal family so we can get paid."

With a sudden pull, he kicked his foot back and out of his father's mouth. As his father spit and gagged, his mother looked up toward them. " Wha-what's going to happen to us...?"

" I don't know. And I don't care to know. Maybe if you're lucky, you might just get deported back, but I've heard that some of you become slaves. Heh, just like you wanted!" His mother paled and her eyes lost all their color. Unfazed, he didn't look away once. " Whichever it is, I wouldn't account on seeing each other again."

" Anyways, that's enough out of you two. Darien, gag them."

After spewing out those final words he had no chance of understanding, the boy watched the man with the bandana bend down and stick a cloth in each of his parent's mouths, wrapping and tightening it close around their heads. And with that, they each picked one of his parents up and draped them across their shoulders. Without a glance back, the two proceeded toward a slope in the distance. Peeking his head over the log and peering through the long hair-like grass, the boy watched and waited until the two were out of sight.

Still able to hear their lively words and laughs, the boy steadily crept out from his hiding place. His mother's and father's eyes were filled with more fear than he'd ever seen before. He had always seen them as the strongest in the world. If something like this could happen to them, then what did that mean for him? The boy didn't know it yet, but the sight of them being engulfed by the hills would be the last time he'd ever see them.