It was chilly outside, but the crackling fire in the fireplace kept the room comfortably warm. Aldriona sat on the floor with her back against the wall, wrapped up in a warm blanket to the point where only her head was visible. Her hair was uncombed, turned into a wild tangled mane. The door to her room was locked, barred with the chair that was usually placed in front of the fireplace.
She was exhausted, hardly having slept all night. Every time she closed her eyes, memories came flooding back. Every time it was something different, a flash of times past and of all the things everyone told her that she should put behind her and forget about.
Darkness, people vaguely outlined in the light of a far away fire. Chaos and confusion and over all the overwhelming dread and pain.
She shaked her head, trying to purge to pictures from her mind.
Firelight again, but closer this time. A child in her arms, illuminated by the fire, peacefully asleep. Her child. Her son. So small, so fragile and precious. Never had she loved anything or anyone as much.
"I wonder where you are now…" she whispered to the empty room, before closing her eyes again.
The scene had changed. It was scorching daylight, hot and blindingly bright. A small yard inbetween a number of sad looking huts, a tiny tree casting meager shadow on parts of it. In this shadow, a ragged blanket, and on it an infant and a boy of a few years. The boy was playing with a doll made out of sticks and a few scraps of fabric, enthusiastically trying to engage his little sister in the game even though she was a bit too young to understand the game. They both looked alike, olive skin and black hair. But where the girl had her father's dark brown eyes, that boy had Aldriona's pale grey. They were both laughing, the cheerful sound breaking the otherwise so silent afternoon.
She had been gone for only a moment, to the other side of the huts to fetch water from the stream, And still, when she returned, the boy had been gone without a trace, along with, as she later learned, two other young boys belonging to other slave women.
The pain was as much physical as emotional, as if someone had punched her in the stomach. The cold dread of returning to find him gone was as fresh in her memory as if it had just happened. She felt beyond tears, overwhelmed by regret and grief, as the memory replayed in her mind over and over again. Constantly was she looking for ways she could have acted differently, things should have done to prevent it. She knew of course that it was pointless, that nothing could change the past, but couldn't keep her mind from turning back to the same thoughts over and over again.
It felt like she had barely closer her eyes when she looked up again, realising that the fireplace was cold and dark, and a pink light was colouring the sky outside her window.
