The Fairies

         Renya and her parents were on their way to the park when they were taken. After three years of avoiding the scary men in their brown suits, Mommy said it would be okay if they went outside for a walk. Six-year-old Reyna ran and jumped all over the street for the first time in four years. The pretty star on her sweater flew about as she played. She thought the star made all of her clothes look pretty, but Mommy and Daddy hated theirs. They said it helped the Nazis find them, whatever Nazis were. They sounded like fairies.
         A big car started screeching as it stopped in the road.
         "Watch where you're skipping kid!” the man in the car hollered. He wore a brown suit.
         Daddy grabbed her hand and lifted her so that her star hid in his chest. Mommy hugged Daddy around the waist so that her star was hiding too. Renya thought that the stars were playing hide-and-go-seek. She liked that game. She made a note to ask Mommy and Daddy to play that with her when they got to the park.
         “Let me see you cards,” the brown-suited man ordered. Daddy’s eyes went very wide. His skin turned white and he started to shake all over. Renya got scared and started to shake too.
         Then, all of a sudden, Daddy dropped her. “Run Reni! Run!” But Renya stopped, frozen in place, fear over powering her, and she couldn’t run. Mommy grabbed her and ran away as fast as she could. The man in the brown suit charged Daddy and knocked him over.
         Renya, unfrozen now, screamed. “Daddy! Mommy, we can’t leave Daddy!”
         “Don’t worry Reni. Daddy will find us.” Mommy said as she ran. Out of nowhere, another brown-suited man jumped out of an alley. In one fail swoop, he grabbed Mommy and threw her in a truck with a big plus sign on it. Renya heard a loud thunk. Then, the man picked her up. He looked her straight in the eyes as he spoke to her. “Daddy won’t be with you anymore you little parasite.” He laughed, throwing Renya in the truck. Mommy started crying softly. Renya sniffled.
         “Why did they have to find us now?” Mommy cried.
         “Why did who find us Mommy?” Renya asked.
         “The Nazis,” Mommy whispered.
         The Nazis. Why would the fairies want to hurt Daddy and Mommy? It didn’t seem right that fairies would do that.
         Renya leaned against Mommy as the plus truck started to move. Renya felt something poke her in the side. She pulled it out and looked at it. It was the picture she drew for Mommy and Daddy. But Daddy couldn’t get the picture now, so she kept it in her pocket. She squeezed her teddy bear close, not wanting to think about why Mommy was so sad, or why fairies could be so mean.

*~*~*~*

         A jolt from a pothole threw Renya up, and she smashed to the ground. The plus truck stopped. A man came out and grabbed her roughly by the hand, tossing her from the truck like a sack of potatoes. Mommy started to get up, but the brown-suited man pushed her back down.
         “But I have to go with her. She’s my daughter. I can’t just leave her. She depends on me.”
         “You are going to a different camp, so sit down and shut up before I shoot you on the spot, you little -----!” Renya's ears rang with the sound of this new word. She knew Mommy didn’t like it, because she sat down, dumbfounded, and began to cry again.
         “Don’t you make my Mommy cry!” Renya shouted at the man.
         The man stared at her. He grew red in the face and bared his teeth. Than he grabbed her and clotted her hard on her ear, hitting her again and again, until her face and nose were bruised and bleeding. Why didn’t Mommy stop him? How could she let this evil fairy do this to her? She looked up as the plus truck drove away, her Mommy sobbing as it took her away. Renya was alone now.

*~*~*~*

         Renya woke up screaming. A terrible pain was coursing through her leg. She jerked rapidly, and couldn’t stop it.
         “The patient is seizing, Dr. Mengele. Should we assist it?” A voice broke through her tortured silence.
         “Leave it. I want to see what its body will do. How long it will take it to die,” another voice responded.
         “But Dr. Mengele, I thought we would use this one again. I thought we would remove the liver from it.”
         “No, this will give us more answers than a removed liver ever will. This virus should kill it quite swiftly.”
         Renya heard no more. Her body stopped convulsing. Her last thoughts were of the evil, malicious fairies. Now I know why fairies are only in my storybooks.          As she took her last breath, a small picture of a man, woman, and child, dressed in simple, tattered clothes fluttered from her pocket and landed in a blood red puddle.