Just Children (standard:drama, 1436 words)
Author: Sunset Boulevard	Added: Jul 11 2006	Views/Reads: 2993/1924	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Its a story inspired by the forgotten suffering children endure the world over in times of war. Its a tale of children taken from their home and forced to join rebels in their campaign against ruling forces.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

off with my bag on top of his car. He went with all my books and 
homework inside.' 

How we laughed that day. Mwalimu wasn't able to punish him since he
couldn't prove he was lying. How far away we are from all that now.  
I'm so tired now but we must be ever watchful. Our enemies are always 
close and we must be sure to spot them before they spot us and shoot us 
in the back. Viva the Liberation! It seems strange that my mind was 
never so full of such thoughts a few years back. They have truly taught 
us so much that mother and father never knew. Who ever knew we had such 
an evil and corrupt government that would do anything to suck the very 
last shilling out of the people, and that only young rebels like us 
could lead our people to salvation. Father never knew what sort of 
people he was working for. 

Still, I would have liked to have had a chance to say goodbye to him.
I'm sure he looked high and low for us. If only they had given us a 
chance to write him a message before they took us. I shouldn't dwell so 
much on it, after all we left him mother. They did not hurt her unlike 
some of the others mothers. The ones they dragged back into the huts 
and the screams. I know what they do. I know because last year I saw 
Simeon through a window. He raped her. That's when I decided to move 
out of his room. I couldn't remain with such a beast, after all we are 
fighting for our freedom from the government oppressors not destroying 
other peoples lives. 

Destroying others lives... What about the people who we had to
discipline for opposing us? The ones that were hung? The limbs that 
were cut off? You also did those things too . I saw you slash a boys' 
hands off. He was about your age. We are like the monsters in the 
stories the old women would tell us about. The ogres who would lure 
little children into the forest and eat them up piece by piece. We 
destroy all that crosses our path. 

I talk as though my life is not already destroyed. I can never go back
to being the little girl I used to be. This fight, this gun, this hate 
has destroyed us both. You are only eleven Kiki. Your birthday was just 
three weeks ago. Has God forsaken us? Is this what other children in 
the rest of the world are doing? Are we not just that, children? I 
would have been qualifying for my nursing diploma right now. You would 
still be in primary school. So what are we doing in the middle of the 
night in the bush with soldiers hunting us down like wild animals?  
What have they done to us all? Maybe we can go back to how it used to 
be. No, they would never forgive us. All those dead people because of 
us. We must keep fighting till they kill us or we kill them. 

Come on, get up. We have to get moving before they find us. I can hear
dogs barking. They are close. Kiki! Kiki! Please wake up. Oh Kiki, why 
must you do this to me. 

It is well my brother. Go into the light. Be at peace and pray for the
sister you leave behind in these forgotten lands. 


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