FOR THE MOTHERLAND (PART II)

in #fiction6 years ago (edited)

For the motherland - Pixabay CCO

The tell-tale sound of a rustling not very far from Luke made him realize that he was not alone. His heart, which had been beating wildly now leaped to his mouth, all the while skipping to beats at once. They had found him!

Initially, his initial temptation was to bolt from his hiding place, and hope that he would find a better hiding place in which he could hide from the ones who so avidly sought his life. But reason soon kicked in, and probably for the best as well.

The most important part of Luke’s brain (which also was responsible for sifting out the daily loads of madness which life threw at him to produce some cognitive plans which he could utilize to afford a semblance of logic in a world where little to nothing made sense) informed him that running into the open would alert his pursuers to his presence and location, with them definitely knowing that he was there, as opposed to the chance that no one was yet aware of the hiding man. It was a chance, but still.

He would have to find out whether this new presence was aware of his own. As quietly as his bulky frame could allow, Luke crept to the end of the broken wall and peered out from behind it, praying that whoever was there was not facing his location.

The scene was like something ripped out of a nightmare and superimposed on a semi-urban setting. Dying fires struggled to remain incandescent on pieces of wood once used as parts of human shelters. What once were buildings, the products of people’s sweat and blood and tears, had now been reduced to little more than ruins.

Columns of smoke from a presently unseen place rose to cast an infernal pall on the landscape wracked by cruelty. Cruelty of humans against other humans. And the most pathetic twist to the whole scenario was that the cruelty being executed was done simply because of differing opinions and ignorance.

And then Luke saw the newcomer, just as the newcomer saw him. A creature under the same circumstance as Luke, a being hiding for his life, an unsaid prayer in his eyes that the other human being was a comrade, or at the very worst, a specimen not maddened enough to have no regard for human life. Luke, for his part was delighted to see that this newcomer was not so new to him.

“John!” Luke whispered as carefully as he could. It took a moment for the other to recognize him, but soon enough, the connection was made. John quickly crept over to Luke, the mask of fear on his face temporarily softened by relief.

“Luke. Matthew is… he….?”
John began to cry.

Based on a true life story...

That little boy,

@pearlumie

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.35
TRX 0.12
JST 0.040
BTC 70351.33
ETH 3563.43
USDT 1.00
SBD 4.72