The jets roared like flying beasts in the dusk, drowning out the cries of the villagers below. With each jet that passed by, a whizzing sound resonated across the air, as if the sky was whistling a solemn tune. At the end of the tune came a loud bang, followed by a bright light that stunned the air. When the blinding light cleared, a small mushroom cloud remained.

Rashad was with his mother and sister when the final jet delivered its payload. They managed to avoid each and every target, but they couldn't say the same for many others. As they roamed the streets, Rashad saw many familiar faces in great pain. He saw Ginjay, the only local doctor, helping a woman with a missing leg hop her way towards the side of the road. Ginjay himself had a gash atop his forehead that was gushing blood. Mud covered the gash as a temporary bandage, but the blood was seeping through it.

The woman with no leg was crying out, and Rashad recognized her screams—he heard them all too often in the small classroom at the edge of town. It was his teacher, Ms. Reyes, a humanitarian volunteer who ventured to this far out rural town to become the only legitimate teacher this town has ever had. Before her, the local mage taught what he knew to a group of children—which were basic agricultural techniques and herding practices. Up here in the mountains of Yemen, wheat was grown and mountain goats were herded for meat and milk. Small water runoffs provided what little water the town could obtain, and as the runoff descended below the mountain, it would evaporate in the heat of the Tihamah. What Ms. Reyes didn't realize was that what she was volunteering for was a death sentence dealt to her by her very own country of origin.

While the machines cleared the sky, the smoke still choked the air. Rashad's mother tried leading him into a cave up in the mountains—an emergency hideout she had cultivated in case the conflict traveled its way up into their rural mountainous settlement. His mom would secretly confide in him her deepest concerns about the situation they were in. She was unsure whether she should be mad at the Kabish for hiding in their village and painting a target on their backs, or the Americans for sending bombs to wipe out everyone in the village—a village that wanted no part in this conflict.

Rashad has never met his father, and his mother would never say what happened to him. He had his suspicions that he left her and this life for a better life in the capital. Yet Sana'a has its own problems. For starters, the most basic necessity of water. Sana'a is one of the few capital cities in the world (and probably the only one at that) that has no water. There's a rumor that the wells in Sana'a only yield dirt, mud, and animal feces. They say the mud tastes the best.

Whatever happened to him, Rashad knew he wouldn't be here if it weren't for his mother—who became both mom and dad to him and his sister. His mom took to working the fields with the other men. Of course she got dirty looks and even was verbally abused (and although she would never admit it—physically abused) at her job that made barely enough money to pay for food and a roof over their head. That roof over their head was actually a tent that she had made from wool she had brought from the local fabrics merchant. For the first two years of his life, Rashad and his mother had no home. Later when he turned five, his mother came home from work one day with what would be his younger sister. As he grew older he would ask her where she came from, but she would never say a word. The topic made her flinch as if a shadow was lurking behind her and grasping her shoulder.

It was when he turned ten that the conflict started to trickle into the village. The Kabish came searching for young boys to train. They would talk to the fathers of local families and somehow convince them that their sons were needed to provide a necessary service to the country and to their God. When the Kabish approached his mother, his mother refused.

He remembered the moment clearly. He was eleven at the time they started recruiting wildly. A hooded man, dressed in a brown robe with a rough sandy rope tied around his waist, came into Rashad's tent one day and spoke to his mother about enlisting Rashad into the service of the Kabish—to defend their homeland from the Westerners who sought to destroy their culture, rape their land, and kill those who do not conform to their way of life. His mom wouldn't have it—she wouldn't send her son off to die.

"The last man in my life who left this village never returned," she scolded the recruiter. "I'm not losing my boy to your dangerous game."

The recruiter looked like he wanted to strangle her, and Rashad clenched his fists waiting for the moment to strike. Go ahead, he thought, touch my mother and let's see what happens.

Apparently the recruiter could read minds. He looked at Rashad, all smug and comfortable behind his brown hood, and laughed. "This one is a fighter. He will join us sooner or later on his own accord."

Rashad asserted, "I'll never join you."

The hooded man kneeled down to Rashad's level—he didn't even notice he was that tall until he knelt down and was still towering above him—and assured him, "When those machines come for your family," he paused looking at his mother and younger sister. "Only then will you turn to us."

The hooded man got up, turned, and exited the tent. From that day forth he has never seen that particular hooded man again. He didn't get to see his eyes or much of his face, only that faint smirk and his height were the features engraved into Rashad's head.

Needless to say, if it came to it, his mother was willing to take a beating to protect him.

As they made their way up the rocky cliffs to the cave hideout his sister stopped for a breather. The setting sun still cast a hazy glow over the dry mountain air. The temperature was at the century mark and steadily declining to what would be a another freezing night. His sister, Nima, was covered in sweat as her entire black outfit was dripping. She was tempted to take off her niqab, something that could really get her in trouble. But since they were a decent distance away from the town, no one should be able to catch her.

As she began to unfold her niqab and expose her face to the dry air, Rashad heard gunfire off in the distance. However, the way the sound waves traveled up in the mountains, he couldn't tell if the gunfire was coming from above or below. Wherever it came from, his mother knew that it was a sign to get to the cave hideout as soon as possible. She gathered Nima and helped her up the cliffs. Rashad however was standing still, trying his best to identify where the gunfire was coming from.

Then he heard his mother call his name from up above. Her voice—it was fighting the sound of the gunfire.

That's when Rashad knew they were climbing towards danger.

"No mama! The gunfire is up..."

Boom!

It happened within milliseconds. One second he was looking up at his mother and Nima standing above a ledge calling his name—the next he saw rocks rocketing down from above. He lost his balance and was tumbling down the cliff. Jagged rocks pierced his clothing and his skin. Blood coated his clothes and seeped from the slashes in his gown.

When he realized that he had stopped falling, everything around him was dark. The sun had finally hid behind the horizon and the moon was lurching its way above it. Small pebbles still skipped down the cliffs and landed around him. The gunfire was silenced, and the only noise that remained was a sizzling sound up in the sky—almost like a flame dancing in the wind. Rashad clutched onto dirt and dragged himself away from the pile of rocks around him. He managed to push himself up off the ground and onto his feet. He limped towards a ledge and looked upward.

Rashad called out, "Mama! Nima!"

The only response he got was an echo of his own voice. Rashad clutched his body with his left arm. Boy did it hurt all over. He felt like he had endured the death of a thousand cuts. He had slashes on his arms, cuts on his legs, gashes on his head. However, with his right hand on the ledge, he managed to pull himself up and hugged the ground with his right leg. After getting half of his body on the ledge he rolled over onto his back and started panting.

The moon had slowly risen higher over the horizon and was providing solid light in the clear evening sky. Yet the light in the sky reflected off of a shiny object in the sky. The object seemed almost invisible, like a chameleon blending in with its surroundings. The object glided across the sky like a shiny giant bird. The wings of the bird were long and rounded at the edges. Its beak was curved like an semicircle and its talons were wrapped up, almost like it was attached to the underbelly of the thing.

Then he saw one of its talons unhinge itself from the thing's underbelly. It separated from the beast and shot forth into a mountain on the opposite side of the valley. Then an explosion occurred and rocked the Earth. Debris erupted from the mountain like a volcano. Rocks rained over the valley, and parts of the cliffs crumbled like a house made of straw.

Rashad heard rumors of these things. These things were machines, created by the evil men who wished to destroy their way of life. Rashad never believed in such folklore until he witnessed the thing unload a bomb onto a mountain. The machine, still shimmering in the night sky, took off and flew away into the night, disappearing amongst the stars.

Yet, the moonlight was not done revealing bits and pieces of what just happened to him. The moonlight led him to a black fabric flowing in the breeze above him. The fabric was stuck between two rocks and Rashad immediately knew what it was—Nima's niqab.

Rashad found himself calling out for his sister. "Nima!"

No response. Rashad rolled over and pushed himself back up off the ground. He climbed up the tattered cliffside and made his way to the ledge that held Nima's niqab. He grabbed it and clutched it to his chest. He didn't want to think of the worst, but dark thoughts clouded his head. His head swiveled back and forth around the landscape. All he saw was a bunch of rocks and—oh wait what's that?

His head zeroed in on an appendage sticking out from beneath a boulder at the edge of the cliff. He limped over there and examined the leg. He saw the sandal sticking out and the size seven of the woman's feet. The brown leg was covered in dirt and pebbles. His heart began squealing, his eyes started to water.

"No," he shook his head.

Rashad used whatever strength was left in him to push the giant boulder off the edge of the cliff. First he tried pushing with his hands, then he pushed the right side of his body against the boulder. Both attempts didn't make the boulder budge. He immediately put his back against the boulder and started pushing backwards against it. His weakened muscles strained against the pressure, the veins in his head were popping out towards the surface of his forehead, and a cold sweat beaded down his face. When his muscles and body gave in he sank to the ground in tears.

As he wiped his nose and eyes of moisture, he spotted a rusty crowbar buried beneath a thin layer of sand and pebbles a few feet away. It must've come from up above—at whatever target that invisible machine struck. He got up and reached for the crowbar. Then he turned towards the boulder wondering what would this thing do that his body couldn't.

That was when he spotted a small opening beneath the boulder. Apparently, the boulder was wedged between two flat rocks on each side. Rashad knelt down and fitted the crowbar in the open spot and began to push down with all of his strength. The boulder began to elevate itself, but Rashad needed more power. He then began to step on the crowbar and it moved a bit higher, but still not enough to retrieve whatever human remains rested beneath it. Finally he jumped on the edge of the crowbar, snapping it in half, yet at the same time thrusting the boulder free from the wedge as it rolled away from the edge of the cliff.

After regaining his composure from snapping the crowbar in half, he stared at the remains beneath the boulder. Rashad found his throat throbbing and his eyes blinking rapidly to hold back tears. In reality, Rashad didn't know which to do first—cry or vomit. His convictions were confirmed. What lied beneath the boulder was his mother, but he did not expect to see her clutching Nima in her arms. Both were hard to distinguish in their disfigured state; their bones were shattered, their muscles smashed to dough, and their innards so crushed that they blended with the blood splattered around them.

Rashad wanted to cry out his mother's name. He wanted to tell her that he loved her one last time. He wanted to grab a hold of his sister's hand like he did when he walked her to school at the dawn of every morning. He would practice counting with her by taking note of all of the rocks in the village. He would point out any animal they passed by and ask her what it was. "A scorpion" she would muffle beneath her niqab, "we learned about them in class last week. Better stay away from them." Of course he knew she learned about scorpions in class last week, after all he shared the same classroom with her. Ms. Reyes taught multiple grades in one classroom—she was the only teacher in town.

And now, Rashad will be the only Hani in the village—at least what's left of it. Alone, Rashad curled up into a ball besides the remains of his only family and cried himself to sleep that night.

When the moon disappeared and the sun took its place, Rashad was awoken by a shadow towering above him. He rubbed his eyes of the sand and eye mucus that gathered around the edges of his eye sockets overnight and began to slowly make out the figure.

When Rashad took note of the shadow he realized it belonged to a person. Rashad turned and looked at the person casting the shadow. His mind told him to run, but his heart had no will left in him to survive. He shall join his family in paradise.

The man wore a brown hood and robe tied around by a thick sandy rope. The tall man looked down at the boy, then at the remains of his family. He knelt down and took off his hood revealing an unkempt black beard and long curly black hair that would make most women jealous. His eyelashes curved upwards, as if leading his eyes to see the higher good in all things. His mustache curved around his mouth and connected with his beard. His dry lips were chapped and almost bleeding because of it. Yet the thing that stuck out most was the scar on the left side of the man's temple. It was a weird scar, shaped almost like an upside down mathematical pi symbol. But wait, there was another scar on the opposite side of his temple. The scar looked almost like the Greek Omega sign, instead it had a line dividing the symbol in half.

The man didn't need to introduce himself. Rashad knew who the man was, even though he didn't know his name. He remembered the visit he paid his family when he was eleven.

The man offered his hand and his service. "Do you wish to seek justice for your family?"

Rashad looked down at the ruins that were his family. Besides his mother's leg, there was no solid physical body left to bury or burn. The machine had taken the only two things he had in his miserable life. He had nowhere else to turn. In a village as poor as his, there was no such thing as an orphanage. Food and water was a scarce commodity that was seized by labor or force and not handed meagerly to anyone.

Rashad looked back to the man shedding one final tear. He reached for the man's hand, and at 14 Rashad would become the newest member of the Kabish.