The Walls Fall In

         Barefoot children laughed and ran about in front of their village hovels as Ilan sat with his father. Ilan’s father wore a weary smile as he teased his son about his whittled duck that looked like a weathered beaten rock. Ilan cared little for his craftsmanship; he only cared to keep his hunting knife sharp and to wrestle. His father wanted life to be simple. He hunted, whittled, and loved his wife, but refused to mingle with the other men who volunteered for war. War was a fool’s game. Patria had won decisively almost a century ago, so why bother stirring up more trouble.

         Of course, his opinion seemed contrary to his living situation as he lived with his wife and two children in a rebel controlled city firmly placed inside rebel territory. The man never set foot on Patria-controlled land, but he imagined the newly paved black roads, the spacious apartments, and the city plaza lined with spruce trees. He even dreamed at night that he lived in a house with electricity in Society. His daughter would marry a man who had a good job and she would have clothes that kept her warm at night, instead of the dirty scraps of clothes, they used for cover. Ilan’s father felt inferior because all he could offer was a one-room shack whose only amenity was a wood-burning stove.

         Ilan cherished only his family and envisioned for them a better life outside of the rebel area they called Lower Falls. At sixteen, he sought to fulfill his dreams of a better life by defeating Society and dismantling their apartheid government. He, like most of the boys his age, trained for war and glory. His chance would come, of course, but most of the fighting only occurred against the Reds and rarely the Whites. Fighting against the Reds produced no real results except dead teenage boys, but the chance to fight against the professional army of Society, Patria, was too hard to resist. For now, he’d sit on an upturn crate next to his browbeaten father until his friends came along.

         “Dad,” Ilan said, “I’m going to run off. I’ve got to go see my friends.”                              

        His dad patted him on the back with tears in his eyes, but Ilan got up hating him. Those tears were not worthy of a man who considered himself a Blue Hound. Blue Hounds killed without regret, burned and pilfered for fun, but they didn’t cry. A sturdy, dark woman with chestnut hair never let tears fall from eyes, even when her last two children came into the world stillborn. She dug a little hole in the surrounding fields, shrouded their tiny bodies in white cloth, and gently placed their bodies in the ground. A Blue Hound took the bad with the good and kept going.

         Ilan sprinted away from the village square with his hunting knife tied firmly to his body. The muddy lane squelched in between his toes as he continued toward the edge of town where the guards marched around the perimeter. He usually had no problems crossing the perimeter into the wildness where Patria scouts may wander. The guards knew all the scraggy dirty children in gray tunics that played and hunted in the woods. They let him pass again with no more than a nod.

        He continued in the direction of a ravine just a mile outside of Blue territory. The water here reflected clear as a mirror as little silver fish darted about. The sun’s rays shined through the canopy of elm and pines trees onto the thick undergrowth nestled on the great trees’ trunks. Here, Ilan reflected on his home and his future. He wanted to fight in the army and die a martyr in the arms of his beloved. He, only sixteen, did not have a beloved, but he romanticized the idea that he’d fall in love with a fair-skinned girl, then fight for her honor against some foul heathen Patria soldier. He’d be the best fighter, but before he could enter the army, he had to demonstrate his prowess with a sword and firearms. He could wield a sword with the skill of a mercenary, but he, like most of the boys he grew up with, never handled a firearm before. The power it possessed was awe-inspiring, but he, like his compadres, never saw how the bullets could rip through a man’s body with such impersonal power.

      “Ilan!” a voice called in the distance.

        Ilan’s thoughts took him away from reality that when he heard that disembodied voice, he stood up instantly and whipped out his knife. Alert, his palms sweated, but Ilan held firmly to his only weapon. The voice called out again. Although it sounded familiar, he still kept the weapon in a striking distance ready for its unsuspecting victim.

      “Ilan!” the voice gasped and through the gaze of his heightened senses, Ilan slashed at the air for his victim, his sister, Alonya.