Chapter 6 FIGHT That Is It

Instructions

Dawn crept in slowly, pale and unsure, as if even the sun was afraid to look upon what had happened. I lifted my head from the reeds, my body stiff and aching, clothes damp with river water and fear. For a long moment I only listened no war cries, no hoofbeats, only the quiet rush of the river and the distant crackle of dying fires. San Miguel was still. I crawled from the undergrowth and stood, my legs trembling beneath me. Smoke hung low over the town, turning the morning light gray and bitter. Where laughter and church bells once lived, there were only ruins collapsed walls, blackened beams, doors torn from their hinges. I pressed my arms around myself, fighting the urge to run back into hiding. The danger might be gone, but it never truly left places like this. I made my way cautiously toward the plaza. The square looked smaller now, broken. A statue lay toppled, its stone face cracked, staring blindly at the sky. I recognized neighbors who had fallen who I once shared meals, smiles, stories with. Some were wounded, some weeping, some staring with the same hollow disbelief I felt. I looked around longingly chest tight with every step. "Why" I whispered, over and over, afraid to speak louder. I was shaking too hard to speak. “They came fast,” A person said hoarsely. “Too fast.” I knew what he meant. We all did. There had been no soldiers to protect us. No warning horn, no line of uniforms riding in to defend the town. The northern states were left to fend for themselves just as they so often were. The national government was stretched thin by wars, debts, and foreign threats far from here. San Miguel was small. Forgotten. That realization burned hotter than the fires ever had. As the townspeople gathered what little remained, I helped where I could bringing water, tearing cloth for bandages, holding hands when there was nothing else to give. Yet inside me, something had changed. The fear was still there, yes, but beneath it lay something new and dangerous. Resolve. I remembered the stories my father told, not just of raids, but of survival. Of people who learned the land, who watched the rivers and passes, who refused to disappear quietly. If no one was coming to save us, then we would have to endure on our own. That night, as the stars returned to the sky and the smoke finally thinned, I sat by the river again not hiding this time, but watching. Listening. Learning. I was alive. San Miguel still stood, wounded but breathing. And I knew, with a certainty that settled deep in my bones, that this would not be the last chapter of our story. We just have to keep Fighting that is it!