Gunfire cracked like lightning against the marble. Shouts layered over each other—some barking orders, others screaming in pain. Boots thundered across the floors, slipping in the growing slick of blood. Doors flew open, splintering from their hinges, and the air thickened with smoke and the stench of iron.
The hallway had become a battlefield.
I saw a man with half his face missing collapse against the wall, sliding down with a wet smear. Another was shot in the throat at close range, his hands clawing at the wound, eyes bulging as he gurgled something I couldn’t understand.
Two men grappled by the stairs, one stabbing the other again and again in the gut until his arm was slick and the body beneath him went limp.
Then came the silence of the dead. The long, unbearable quiet between shots, filled only by the wet sounds of men dying.
And right near me, one man crawled across the floor, holding in his own intestines with both hands. He reached toward the cabinet as if he knew I was there. His bloodied fingers pressed to the wood and he looked at the door before his eyes finally went still.
I buried my face in my hands and tried to stop crying. But then I heard her.
My mother.
They had found her.
She started fighting the moment they dragged her out—no hesitation, no plea for help. Just pure, desperate resistance, like her body refused to surrender even when her mind knew there was no winning.
I didn’t understand what they were doing. I only knew it was bad. So bad.
They hit her. Dragged her into the open. One of them tried to pin her down. She bit him.
Another pulled out a knife.
She kicked. She clawed. She was feral.
And then the blade came down. One finger. Then another. Her screams were wet and hoarse. Her blood painted the marble. But she didn’t stop fighting—not until the third one held her down while the others—
I couldn’t look. I looked anyway.
Her legs were kicking. Her voice went raw. Her hands jerked with every stab of pain. They held her like an animal. They used her like she was nothing.
But then, suddenly, she stopped fighting.
Her body went limp, her eyes unfocused, and her lips started to move in a quiet chant. A mantra. Over and over.
“Don’t look. Don’t move. Don’t scream. Don’t look. Don’t move. Don’t scream. Don’t look. Don’t move. Don’t scream.Don’t look. Don’t move. Don’t scream.”
She kept whispering it, even as they tore her apart.
“Don’t look. Don’t move. Don’t scream.”
Even after. Her voice broke into a rasp, but she kept going, like she thought if she said it enough times, she might disappear. Like she was telling me what to do.
“Don’t look. Don’t move. Don’t scream.”
And I listened.
I stayed in that cabinet, frozen, my fists pressed to my mouth, sobbing silently until my whole body shook—but I didn’t make a sound.
I didn’t understand it then. Not fully. I didn’t have the words. But I knew they were destroying her. Later, when I was old enough to know the shape of violence, I realized what they had done—raped her, again and again, until her body gave out, and even then, they didn’t stop. They didn’t see her as a woman. Or a person. Only as the perfect revenge—an unarmed wife, a symbol they could desecrate to spit in my father’s face.
She had protected me and no one protected her.
When it was over, she didn’t move.
And then the men were dead, too. My father’s men found them. Killed them. Every last one.
