Welcome to Gaia! ::

“We are alone now.” The solitary voice was the only sound in the rubble of a once-glorious town square. Around a central pedestal that had once supported the statue of a great leader, a crowd was gathered in silence, eyes turned to the lone man who spoke with a strong voice despite the uncertainty of the situation. “Somehow, we were covered up and forgotten by the sands that sweep through our town, and now, there’s no one left to save us.”

In the crowd, a young Gazıra stared at the man with wonder in his eyes – to him, this man was a god. He had become a beacon in the darkness when the boy’s father had been killed, a male figure he could look up to.

“Now, we must save ourselves,” the man went on. He turned to speak to the entire crowd. “We must take the steps required to keep ourselves and our families alive. And unfortunately, that means leaving this place forever.”

Gazıra shook his hand free of his mother’s and rushed off through the crowd, pushing through legs of men and women who were too captured in the man’s words to notice.

“Khazrstan is no more.” The man paused to let his words sink in. “Our country fell when our leader fell, and now we are all that is left. There are four hundred and seventy-two people gathered here today: men, women, and children. We are all Khazr, and we are all joined by this disaster.”

The child reached the front of the crowd and stared nearly straight up at the man. There was wonder and awe on his face, as if he could picture the man suddenly sprouting wings and flying to the gods.

“We must cut all ties to our homeland,” the man said, prompting unrest in the crowd. He waited for the whispers to quiet before going on: “In order to live, we must forget about this place. We must change our names. We must never speak our language again. We must forget this place ever existed, but we must always hold Khazrstan in our hearts. This place will always be our home, our birthplace – but it is not the sanctuary it once was. That version of this country will only live on in our hearts and our minds, and there’s nothing we can do to change that.”

A distant pop echoed around the square. At first, Gazıra thought it might have been a bomb like the one that had killed his father. But it had been too quick, more like a gunshot. Gazıra’s mother always told him he was too young to be able to tell a gunshot from a bomb blast, but he couldn’t escape the world he lived in.

He pulled himself out of his daze to focus on his hero again, but his hero was falling to the ground. The body hit with a sickening smack, but Gazıra could still see his hero’s chest rising and falling, blood spurting from a wound in his abdomen and confirming that the sound had been a gunshot.

Gazıra stepped forward slowly as the rest of the crowd looked around worriedly for the shooter. Kneeling, Gazıra brushed dark hair from his hero’s eyes and took his hand. “Don’t cry,” he said as a tear streaked the dirt on his hero’s cheek. “It’s okay. See?” He smiled broadly as if doing so could make the world right again.

His hero returned the smile weakly, but his teeth were red with blood that leaked from the corner of his mouth. He took a few more shuddering breaths, his hand tight around Gazıra’s. Then, he was still.