A vignette, set during Gauron's childhood
Title: Descent
Rating: R (child murder, set during a larger genocide)
Notes: The choice of Gauron's Khmer name actually wasn't mine, but rather, was something haruki_emishi came up with.
While the following work is fictional, the war atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge are not. Cambodia is still feeling the regime's effects, and thirty years later, it's still the most heavily landmined country in the world. Please consider donating to Cambodian Self Help Demining or the Cambodian Red Cross.
The sun was setting, the tropical heat of the day over the fields finally growing only slightly less oppressive, though the humidity still sat suffocatingly on the skin. Even more suffocating, though, was the miasma of fear that hung over the place, carried in the wake of figures whose presence was less welcome than that of man-eating tigers. The thirst of the Khmer Rouge soldiers, of this place itself, for human blood, was quietly insatiable. For those who fell, there was no getting up: the soldiers - children with the eyes of serial killers - would sacrifice them like animals to the ideals of Democratic Kampuchea.
Nhean patrolled like a vulture, moving with a grace that belied the ugliness of his station, though the AK-47 he carried with comfortable familiarity made it impossible to forget. Some of the laborers - the prisoners - cringed openly as he walked by, while others tried not to, though the same thought was written plainly on all their features: Please, merciful Buddha, don't let him be coming for me. As much as that had amused him when he was first assigned here, he barely noticed it now. Today wasn't their day, anyway; he already had a victim in mind.
He always kept a little closer eye on the families - what was left of them, anyway - brought here with children; when he made recommendations as to which of the children to take, to train as soldiers, his superiors trusted his word. Maybe it was because he never let anything like sympathy or mercy cloud his judgment.
Even from the beginning, he'd known that the child he was going to see now wasn't one of the ones he'd be able to save. He had only let him live this long to motivate the parents; now, though, the strain of keeping the boy alive was beginning to tell on them.
They knew it, too; when Nhean approached them, the mother pulled her child close, and the father stepped between them and Nhean, for what little good it would do.
"Your son has been chosen to complete a special task for us." Like his eyes, his voice was too old for his face - the icy tone was clipped, commanding, one that brooked absolutely no opposition.
"Our loyalty to the party is more vital to us than air and water, but despite that, we have somehow managed to raise a son who is ignorant and callow. Whatever task it is, please, allow me to carry it out instead," the boy's mother pleaded, and Nhean paused, all but glaring at her for long enough to let her think he was actually considering it.
"Your hands are too big. This is an engineering task - we'll need someone with smaller fingers. Don't worry, though." They looked as though they were about to protest, but the slight shift in Nhean's grip on the gun silenced them both. "We'll return him to you, safe and sound."
He didn't wait for them to say anything more - just moved smoothly past them to grab the boy's wrist and lead him away. They didn't cry, and the boy followed him limply.
Once they were out of the fields, the direction Nhean headed in was away from the garage and the armory; for the first time, he felt a hint of resistance from the boy, but he ignored it - no amount of resistance would change things now, after all. There was a utility shed at the edge of the field that Nhean led the boy into; his soon-to-be victim relaxed, even stayed where he was bade, when he caught sight of it, though he seemed to tense again when Nhean only retrieved the shovel leaning against it and brought it over to him. "Start digging."
The boy was all too anxious to obey, and Nhean was certain he didn't comprehend the fact that his obedience wouldn't save him this time. Despite the softness of the soil, it wasn't long before the boy's breathing became labored; Nhean watched him with vague amusement as he tried to dig his own shallow grave out in the blood-saturated earth.
He continued to watch until the boy seemed on the verge of passing out on his feet and was only managing to shovel out the barest scraping of dirt. "That's enough."
"But--"
Nhean took the shovel from him with a genuine, almost friendly smile. "Don't worry about it. You've done fine." He didn't even have time to react when Nhean swung the shovel hard, its edge burying itself in the boy's head with a sickening crack.
Unconcernedly, Nhean tugged the shovel free, then reached down to drag the boy out of the barely foot and a half deep rut in the earth; little more than skin and bone, he weighed almost nothing.
Nhean dug the grave a little deeper, careful not to disturb the body of the girl he had buried less than a foot away the day before. As he tipped his latest victim into it, he noticed that the boy was still breathing, despite the deep rift in his skull and the impressive pool of blood that had formed beneath him.
Nhean brought the shovel down, hard. The boy seized, then was still.
As he began dumping earth over the fresh body, he thought he saw its eyelids twitch - though that could have just been a trick of the fading light. Either way, it didn't matter.
It was only a few minutes' work to bury it, and then Nhean returned to his post.
Rating: R (child murder, set during a larger genocide)
Notes: The choice of Gauron's Khmer name actually wasn't mine, but rather, was something haruki_emishi came up with.
While the following work is fictional, the war atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge are not. Cambodia is still feeling the regime's effects, and thirty years later, it's still the most heavily landmined country in the world. Please consider donating to Cambodian Self Help Demining or the Cambodian Red Cross.
The sun was setting, the tropical heat of the day over the fields finally growing only slightly less oppressive, though the humidity still sat suffocatingly on the skin. Even more suffocating, though, was the miasma of fear that hung over the place, carried in the wake of figures whose presence was less welcome than that of man-eating tigers. The thirst of the Khmer Rouge soldiers, of this place itself, for human blood, was quietly insatiable. For those who fell, there was no getting up: the soldiers - children with the eyes of serial killers - would sacrifice them like animals to the ideals of Democratic Kampuchea.
Nhean patrolled like a vulture, moving with a grace that belied the ugliness of his station, though the AK-47 he carried with comfortable familiarity made it impossible to forget. Some of the laborers - the prisoners - cringed openly as he walked by, while others tried not to, though the same thought was written plainly on all their features: Please, merciful Buddha, don't let him be coming for me. As much as that had amused him when he was first assigned here, he barely noticed it now. Today wasn't their day, anyway; he already had a victim in mind.
He always kept a little closer eye on the families - what was left of them, anyway - brought here with children; when he made recommendations as to which of the children to take, to train as soldiers, his superiors trusted his word. Maybe it was because he never let anything like sympathy or mercy cloud his judgment.
Even from the beginning, he'd known that the child he was going to see now wasn't one of the ones he'd be able to save. He had only let him live this long to motivate the parents; now, though, the strain of keeping the boy alive was beginning to tell on them.
They knew it, too; when Nhean approached them, the mother pulled her child close, and the father stepped between them and Nhean, for what little good it would do.
"Your son has been chosen to complete a special task for us." Like his eyes, his voice was too old for his face - the icy tone was clipped, commanding, one that brooked absolutely no opposition.
"Our loyalty to the party is more vital to us than air and water, but despite that, we have somehow managed to raise a son who is ignorant and callow. Whatever task it is, please, allow me to carry it out instead," the boy's mother pleaded, and Nhean paused, all but glaring at her for long enough to let her think he was actually considering it.
"Your hands are too big. This is an engineering task - we'll need someone with smaller fingers. Don't worry, though." They looked as though they were about to protest, but the slight shift in Nhean's grip on the gun silenced them both. "We'll return him to you, safe and sound."
He didn't wait for them to say anything more - just moved smoothly past them to grab the boy's wrist and lead him away. They didn't cry, and the boy followed him limply.
Once they were out of the fields, the direction Nhean headed in was away from the garage and the armory; for the first time, he felt a hint of resistance from the boy, but he ignored it - no amount of resistance would change things now, after all. There was a utility shed at the edge of the field that Nhean led the boy into; his soon-to-be victim relaxed, even stayed where he was bade, when he caught sight of it, though he seemed to tense again when Nhean only retrieved the shovel leaning against it and brought it over to him. "Start digging."
The boy was all too anxious to obey, and Nhean was certain he didn't comprehend the fact that his obedience wouldn't save him this time. Despite the softness of the soil, it wasn't long before the boy's breathing became labored; Nhean watched him with vague amusement as he tried to dig his own shallow grave out in the blood-saturated earth.
He continued to watch until the boy seemed on the verge of passing out on his feet and was only managing to shovel out the barest scraping of dirt. "That's enough."
"But--"
Nhean took the shovel from him with a genuine, almost friendly smile. "Don't worry about it. You've done fine." He didn't even have time to react when Nhean swung the shovel hard, its edge burying itself in the boy's head with a sickening crack.
Unconcernedly, Nhean tugged the shovel free, then reached down to drag the boy out of the barely foot and a half deep rut in the earth; little more than skin and bone, he weighed almost nothing.
Nhean dug the grave a little deeper, careful not to disturb the body of the girl he had buried less than a foot away the day before. As he tipped his latest victim into it, he noticed that the boy was still breathing, despite the deep rift in his skull and the impressive pool of blood that had formed beneath him.
Nhean brought the shovel down, hard. The boy seized, then was still.
As he began dumping earth over the fresh body, he thought he saw its eyelids twitch - though that could have just been a trick of the fading light. Either way, it didn't matter.
It was only a few minutes' work to bury it, and then Nhean returned to his post.