To Feed the Hungry

To Feed the Hungry

Anna had always had more than her share of accolades and applause, but this honor? This was a whole new level, above and beyond any usual call to duty! She was standing before the entire WORLD, personifying the strength and determination that her country stood for!

Although the usual group of chosen ones was quite large, Anna felt she alone was being cheered forward by the excited onlookers. Letting the applause and cheers flow over her, Anna couldn’t help but reflect over life’s experiences that led to this point.

How good it is that I can share this day with my parents, She thought. Just like that first game of soccer when I scored the winning goal!

"Way to go, Anna!” she remembered hearing her mother’s voice ring out, even over the cheers from the other players and the parents in the small grandstand. “That’s our girl, that’s our Anna!” her mother had called.

Anna had basked in her mother’s praise many times over the years. Athletic prowess seemed to come naturally to her; there had been many winning goals scored over the years. Not only on the soccer field; but track and field, women’s basketball and softball teams, always had Anna front and center, scoring runs, goals, baskets, trophies and ribbons.

The accolades weren’t limited to sports either; Anna had perfect attendance and perfect grades all through elementary and secondary school, and naturally, class valedictorian at graduation. Before that; prom queen three years in a row, then voted by her classmates as most likely to succeed in life.

One would think that such beauty and perfection would instill in her peers either fear, or scorn for all her accomplishments; but it was just the opposite, Anna had many friends and many more admirers. She was and always had been; a very nice, very pretty, young lady with a certain grand future ahead of her.

She had been just one semester shy of university graduation when the visitors landed. The world wide panic and ensuing war, had forced her parents to bring her home, where she soon became one of the world’s fiercest warriors in the long siege.

The battles had been horrific beyond human belief; thousands and then millions, of humans butchered, or even worse, rounded up and taken away. The world held out for nearly ten years before the visitors brought the planet under their control.

There were long months before the hard details of the especially onerous treaty, were worked out; those details, especially the annual volunteer sacrifice, shocked and terrified the public, but they weren’t asked to vote on any of it.

As Anna turned from the grateful and adoring public, her steady gaze slowly scanned the open field for the first sign of her awaiting fate.

There! She spotted the first movement of the carnivorous herd making their way through the brush.

Behind her, the noise escalated as the onlookers spotted the first of the ravenous visitors break through the tree line. “Be strong, Anna!” she heard her mother’s voice above the throng, “that’s our girl, that’s our Anna!”



514 words