Between the Grapevines

Prologue

Once upon a time,

There stood a wooden home no larger than a royal bedroom on the outskirts of a large town. Between the stained birch residence and the lively streets of a populated city stretched long fields of thriving grapevines that offered shade to the smallest of creatures passing through. For the two boys who lived in the isolated home, the grapevines offered protection from the power-driven soldiers that had overpowered their once free country with new military grade weapons and threats. For two brothers as small as they, living with no parents or family left them vulnerable to kidnapping by the trained forces of the Occupation and tortured compliance.

Together, the brothers survived by selling the produce of their own grapevine. The eldest of the two cared for himself and his brother after the disappearance of their parents. They lived in content for many years until one fateful day brought them the company of a similarly orphaned girl who promised them a future of freedom and family across the border. Sanctuary offered by their neighboring country would end all the brother's problems so they may seek the education and lavish life they dreamed.

Any person of sound mind may have questioned the large promises of such a small girl, but the two brothers had not yet reached the age of adulthood. Such reason hardly crossed the minds of theirs that were filled with hopes and dreams.

You see, the girl whose small appearance made her seem trustworthy was of the Occupational Forces. Sent as a spy on the populous city, she had caught the eye of the eldest boy and her interest in him had grown similarly. So she promised them escape and, when the time came for her promise to stand strong, she led the military action that rained weapons of destruction on the brothers and all those who had foolishly dreamed as they had.

For the two young boys, it was a night never to be forgotten. A night of muddied ground, pouring rain, desperate cries, and never-ending crackles that thrust into their bodies sudden heat and pain. They were both shot, but only one of the brothers survived.

Though survival was not an adequate way to define the next months he would spend in the cold cell of the Occupational Prisons, longing for his gone brother and watching the sky turn with each passing day. Still, he had hope that his brother had crossed the border and a future might come in which they would reunite in a free land. That is what the girl he'd loved had told him on his first night in the prison.

Sadly, she had lied once before.

Perhaps, there might have come a happy day in which the brothers lived happily without the threat of the Occupation. Perhaps, if this were a fairy-tale, it may have a happy ending. But this story is no fairytale.

Because when the brother had been marched along with the other prisoners into the cemented field circled by fences of towering iron, he had been made to watch those the Occupation had made examples of. One after another, his young eyes were forced to observe the chairs being kicked out from beneath scratched and dirtied feet so that the rope above straightened and their bones pulled apart. He memorized the sound of necks cracking. He thought it no longer affected him until he saw the younger boy being marched up the stairs with grey eyes he'd grown up peering down into.

His brother had not escaped over the border.

His brother had been hung before him.

The imprisoned brother never forgot the sound of the chair's weakened wood blistering on the platform and the snapping of the neck he'd playfully slapped in all his fifteen years of life. Even after many years had passed and his life had changed, he saw the life drain from his brother's terror-stricken eyes every time he closed his eyes.

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Hey guys, what are you doing here?! What a totally unexpected surprise! If you made it here, I'm so so happy to see you and if you did not, it looks like you'll just have to live with the misery that the first book ended with and who's fault is that? Definitely not mine... as the person who wrote it. 100% not.

Anyway! Scroll on because this is the prologue, not the first chapter you see. *wink wink*