Achmed's Journey to Justice

I was a slave and the other slaves looked at me with fear. I had a goal, I had to save my people.

I was in the fields with the others, digging up dirt from the soil with our hands and passing it along to the man on the other end of our line. We were doing this for hours every day; my back and hands hurt so much that I thought I would die. Suddenly, a miner appeared as if from nowhere and started digging down into the ground. He pulled out a block of stone and stood there looking at it.

"You stupid slave! You ruined my mine!" he yelled at me. I fell back onto the floor; he must have meant me.

"You can't do that! You need to be mining, not digging holes!" He screamed at me as he came towards me. My heart pounded in my chest, and my eyes filled with tears as I thought about what he might do to me - kill me? Would they even care? The miner got closer and closer until he was right in front of me, his face twisted into a mask of anger. He raised his fist above his head and I shut my eyes, waiting for it to come down on my face but instead, there was a loud crack and a thud behind me. I opened my eyes to see a small boy lying on top of me with two arrows protruding from his back. He lay there for a moment before collapsing to the ground next to me.

I froze, questioning how this child managed to kill another adult. It didn't make sense until another arrow flew by where I had been laying only moments ago. In one smooth motion, I pushed myself up off the ground and ran as fast as my legs could carry me away from where we were working. My feet touched soft soil again as I made it into the trees and I kept running deeper into them until I felt like nobody could find me anymore.

Then, something happened that shocked me more than ever before: the world around me changed. All around me grew beautiful pine trees and bright flowers surrounded by tall grasses which swayed in the light breeze around us. The ground was soft beneath my feet now, and when I reached down to feel it, it felt like something between sand and moss - cool to touch but not wet or muddy like it had been back in our 'village' area that we lived in all year round. This place seemed perfect, untouched by human hands yet still so… natural, almost beautiful. Wherever this was, I wanted to stay here forever. But then fear crept back into my mind as thoughts of those men who owned us came flooding back into my brain too. They would find me here eventually if they hadn't already figured out where I went! And then what would happen?

I sat down on a nearby rock feeling defeated before noticing something next to my feet; a bow lay there with an arrow placed neatly next to it. Where did this child get such things? No one else had them… But wait… When he shot those arrows at that angry man earlier, he looked familiar… Could it be? Was this little boy actually one of us? Had he somehow escaped? How long had he been living out here in these woods? If he had been living among these 'humans,' then how had he managed to survive without being noticed by them? Questions flooded through my mind until finally curiosity overtook worry and I picked up the bow thinking that maybe, if this child knew how to use a bow, then perhaps he could help save us all?

But no sooner than those thoughts ran through my mind did another thought enter: what if they found him first? What if they hurt him or killed him because they didn't know or understand why he was different? After all, no one else looked anything like him! Then another thought entered, making things even worse: What if his family was looking for him?! What if they were searching for him now? How would they even find him here, though? Surely not many people knew about this place. Or maybe… Maybe some people knew about it after all? Perhaps some knew more than others! It hit me like lightning straight from the sky: Those men who owned us! They knew about this place! They certainly knew more people who then knew even more people until finally someone told them about us! That's why they bought us in the first place, wasn't it? To mine out this special area of land?!

Without making any sound whatsoever, I quietly lifted myself off that rock and moved towards the direction opposite of where those men were most likely located at that very moment. I paused when I heard rustling in nearby bushes followed by footsteps approaching towards where I was standing, hidden behind a tree trunk. I held my breath, staying motionless behind the tree trunk, silently praying and desperately hoping that whoever approached would not see me crouched down there. My heart pounded as the individual passed