WHAT IF?

She was running.  She took short quick breaths as she tried to make her way to safety. Big drops of sweat ran faster than she did down her face and rested on her blouse. She was not sure about what was going on but her instincts told her to run and run she did. She knew she heard screams behind her: a mother seemed to be pleading for the lives of her children and hers as well. The screams were so loud that Amiya could hear it as she ran. Something happened and the screams were gone. Amiya couldn't hear the children crying anymore, everything was silent. Could it have ended already? She stopped in her tracks and turned to look behind her. What she saw raised the hairs on the back of her neck. Her eyes became watery and her vision blurred. She wiped her eyes with her palm but it didn't do much good. She knelt on the ground for her knees were weak. She couldn't believe what she had just seen: the mother and children all lay on the ground with their bodies dismembered. As she tried to push the gory images from her mind, she felt her baby kick; he must have reacted to what she just saw, she thought. When she got up, she saw a figure approaching her. As she wondered who or what it was for her vision was still blurred, she heard the voice of a man yell out to her "run!"  She didn't have any time to think about the abrupt instruction when she began running.  As she ran,  she turned back to notice that the figure was that of a man wielding an axe, his eyes looked bloodshot, his feet were swift as though he was a trained sprinter. Her heart grew faint as she realised that he sprinted toward her.
She had never ran this fast in her life and soon she began to feel faint. She turned back again and saw him hard on his heels toward her and he was getting closer. She screamed and increased her pace holding tight her stomach. All her thought surrounded the little one inside her. As she ran farther, she realised that some houses had been burnt, several farms and cattle were up in flames, cars had been vandalised. The sight disheartened her for she desperately needed a safe place to hide. She tripped and came down very hard on the ground to the extent that her baby felt the fall. She cried out in pain and looked at the sky; it held no answers for her but was strangely fearful, for the moon was red. She tried to get up but the effort gave her a lot of pain. By this time,  the man with the axe stood above her panting like a mad dog. The axe was raised above his head and one glance into his eyes and Amiya knew that he was intent on taking her life that night. She tried to plead with him to spare her and her unborn child but all he wanted was for her to change her name or die.
 "Change my name? Amiya asked. She couldn't understand why someone would want another person to change their name. A person's name meant that person's identity, one of the most valued treasures any human being possesses. It represents a person's belief and values, it represents the person. "I can't change my name, I won't change my name" Amiya responded and before she could take another breath, the axe came down on her stomach.
She felt no pain. She saw that the man had run off to attack another person and this time with a band of men wielding dangerous weapons. They had burnt down those houses and killed the livestock; they were chanting praises to the one whom they claimed sent them out to force people to change their names and to kill off the infidels (those who refuse to change their names). Amiya was an infidel and that's why she was axed. She now turned to look at her stomach and it lay bare with blood gushing out as though a tap had been turned on. She saw her baby, it was a boy. He was cuddled up in her, probably fast asleep, probably dead, she couldn't tell but he looked peaceful. She smiled at him and then it hit her: she would never have a son again, she would never walk again, her husband had been sliced to death before her eyes and now her son had joined him and so would she. She couldn't understand why this was happening; she couldn't understand why someone would send his followers out just to kill babies, women and men who didn't share his faith. She wept bitterly until she lost consciousness.