Adeela Hameed

She Wanted Peace: A Story of Conflict

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She loved her parents. Playing with them day in and out, she was a toddler with exceptional energy. She had lots of friends which made her love wilderness even more. Her mornings were spent with her father, roaming around the magnificent lake at the center of the clearing. She was intrigued by the vastness and clarity of this lake but feared its unknown depths too. She admired her home just as any other kid would, looking through clear prisms of eyes, to a world that never does understand the purity hidden inside. She was not a killer. She never would be. And her mother was her soul. She had dreams of her own and wanted to be a strong, independent being and an entity that would bring peace to her world.

One afternoon when clouds filled the sky with darkness and a hush fell over the entire region, she complained. She was bored and wanted to play. But thoughtful enough of what was going on around her, she silently noticed something. A strange aura had filled the place and to make matters worse, her parents looked worried. She questioned but they just comforted her. A sudden whistle broke the reverie. Just as sudden, panic started. She could hear her surroundings roar with loud thumps made by scared feet jostling for safety. She was alert now. Not bored anymore, but vigilant. Before she knew or could understandably put the panic together, the house fell. She was pushed out and into the still hysterical crowd. Rain poured like never before, jutting, like a storm happening inside each droplet. She saw her parents being dragged away by huge contraptions. She tried to make her way to reach them, crying out loud, mournfully but could not as strange gases had filled the air. Her vision started to blur as multitudes began to fall, one by one, miserably moaning in pain and fear. She was once again pushed away towards the clearing.

The rain pummeled, voices fell but the gizmos bellowed. Her parents were still bound and she could see them suffer. The peculiar gas from before had paralyzed her but the heart was still awake. She watched with horror how those nozzles plunged bullets into her parents’ bodies. Their breath was weak and while crying their last tears, they looked mournfully at her. She fell to pieces there and then. The bullets had created holes inside her parents from where rivulets of blood flowed. The rain descended, not stopping even for a second, as she perceived what looked like machines slaughtering her parents one by one. She could take no more of this ghastly sight and fell to an unknown, unbearable darkness.

She woke up to find her leg amputated, blind in one eye, homeless, rendered an orphan and a witness to an unforgettable massacre of her family that would haunt her forever. Just a matter of hours and here she was; destroyed, distraught and forgotten. She had sought peace. But this was her fate now. She was not a killer, just a baby Tiger.

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