All I Need ✔️

Chapter 24

The following chapter contains violence and traumatic imagery. Reader discretion is advised.

14 Years Ago

Safania woke to the sounds of screaming. She looked outside her bedroom window and saw flaming houses all around her.

"Papa!" she screamed, running downstairs. She found her father in the middle of the living room. He bent down with his arms outstretched.

"Come here starfish," he said, using her nickname.

She ran over to him, taking refuge in his warm, familiar embrace.

"Papa, what's happening?" she asked, afraid.

He kneeled on the ground and took both of her shoulders in his hands. "I know it's scary Starfish. But you need to hide. Irado is here, and they're going to burn this entire city to the ground."

"Why?" Safania asked, still afraid and confused.

Her father sighed. "We don't have much time little one. There is just too much to tell. All you need to know is that the men out there are looking for us. They want to try to hurt us to get your mother to do what they want."

"But why burn down the whole village?" Safania asked. "They didn't do anything."

Her father smiled sadly. "Of course I would tell you that they're coming to hurt us, and you would immediately think about others."

The two heard voices approaching their cottage. "Safania, hide in here," her father instructed, pushing a bookshelf aside and revealing a hole in the wall behind it, just barely big enough for her to fit in. After helping her inside, he pushed the bookshelf back in front.

"As soon as they leave," he told her, "You run to my sister's house, okay? But for now, promise me you won't make a sound."

"I promise. I love you Papa," she said from behind the bookshelf.

"I love you too Starfish."

Safania realized there was a crack in the bookshelf that allowed her to see out. She saw her father crouched on the floor. He was praying, she realized. Suddenly, she heard the door burst open.

The men were talking in a language she didn't understand. She saw one approach her father and kick him while he was still praying. Her father looked up. "Can I help you gentlemen?" he asked politely.

"You are the husband of Zamari?" a voice came in heavily accented Eirlin

"Proud husband," her father replied.

The men talked to each other in the same unknown language. Safania was frustrated the crack wasn't bigger so she could see their faces. Evidently the leader must have said to search the house, because Safania could hear their footsteps on the stairs.

"We were told you have children," the voice came again.

"A child," her father said.

"A child," the voice repeated. "I apologize, my Eirlin is... what is the word? Rust?"

"Our child is not here," her father said sharply.

"Do you think that I will believe you?"

"No," her father replied. "So go ahead and look. You will see."

For several minutes, all Safania heard was the house being ripped apart. Clattering pots, tipped over furniture, opened and closed doors. Her heart nearly stopped when one of the men came and ripped the books off the shelves she was hidden behind.