Circle of Hate

The story of a man who turns militant after his family is killed in a drone attack

I'm only a man...

Tears ran down Khalid's face as he looked at the terror about him; ethereal drops of sorrow, each one as heavy as another world.

  

A useless, pathetic man... What can I do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. 

"Brother? Are you okay, brother?" Khalid heard a voice calling out to him, a voice from another time and age, with the cheer that nobody who called themselves human deserved to have. With tremendous effort, he pulled himself away from the terror within his mind, and looked away from the carnage to see a man. A tall, bearded man, dressed in the clothes of a maulvi, held his hand out to him.

On his face was a smile, one that seemed to tell Khalid that the man understood everything he was going through, and that he empathized. Khalid took the man's hand and stood up with his help. 

He looked around at the terrible scene once again. He stood before a pile of rubble, dyed red by a torrent of blood. With a sick heart he once again saw the small limbs sticking out among the rocks, the small, disembodied limbs which had belonged to his son. Khalid's eyes watered again, and he hastily looked away. Then, he turned and looked back at the man, trying to hold in the great emotional torrent which threatened to break the dam of his heart. 

The man spoke again, "It's good to see that someone survived, brother. You are blessed. I hope you are not too badly injured." His voice still seemed to come from somewhere else, somewhere other than his mouth, in a deeper dimension far away.Khalid tried to speak, but a lump formed in his throat the moment he opened his mouth, and he quickly closed it again, trying to remain steady.

The maulvi seemed to understand this, and he spoke once again. "Do not worry if you cannot speak, brother. I'm not here to force you to do anything. I know only too well the horror of these drones." 

Drones...

Hearing the word seemed to snap Khalid back into reality. Lifeless machines designed by humans halfway across the world, made for the singular purpose of causing death and destruction. He clenched his fist tightly, and a minute fraction of his pain seemed to transform into anger.

Khalid finally managed to overcome his feelings, and he spoke, the words uneasily exiting his mouth, "Who...Who are you?"

The man flashed him another reassuring smile, and replied, "I am Nosherwan. I saw the drones strike this area so I ran here to see if there were any survivors. And here I have one. You are a lucky man.

 

Lucky?...He didn't feel lucky. Everyone was gone 

Khalid looked at the rubble once more, unable to look the man straight in the face. His wife and children, all destroyed in one fell swoop. Killed, by some demons in the West. Khalid had always counted himself as a tolerant man, one who believed that all men had good in them. Well, he had evidently been proven wrong. The people who had spoken against the West, who had called them monsters, inhuman monsters...They had been right all along. 

Nosherwan seemed to realize that Khalid had been drawn into deep thought, and he tentatively spoke, "...Are these people...Your family?". Khalid nodded, and fresh tears welled from his eyes. Nosherwan stood on the spot, stunned. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. Please, if you need to speak, I am here. I know what you're going through-" 

He was cut off as Khalid turned to face him, flames of rage simmering in his eyes. "-Know what I'm going through? Do you think you have any bloody idea what's happening in my head? You couldn't understand, you'd never understand!"  

"...But I do",Khalid seemed caught off guard as Nosherwan replied. "You feel sad, lonely, and painfully incompetent. Over and over again, perhaps, you have thought about how unable you were to do anything, how you wish you had the strength to have changed their fate. But now, you realize, you are but a man, an entity of infinite goodwill trapped into a useless, incapable shell. And most of all, you desire revenge. You want to hurt those who hurt you. And you would be right in doing this."

Now it was Khalid who looked stunned. Nosherwan looked him dead in the eye as he spoke, and Khalid could see hurt in them, deep hurt. Nosherwan's eyes, too, were brimming with tears. Khalid could see then, that this other man had also experienced the same horror as him before. That was the only way that he could have understood him so well. 

"You don't want to live on, do you? You just want to it stop, to see them all in Heaven again." Once again, Nosherwan's words cut straight to Khalid's heart. Of course he did not want to live. He had no reason to do so. He wanted to fight back, but he was unable, being, after all, only a man. What else could there be for him to live for? 

"...Yes. I just-just want to see them all again."

"But given the chance for revenge, would you take it? Would you take any means possible to strike back against the people who have ruined your life, and slain your family?" 

Was it even a question worth asking? The answer was simple, right? 

"Absolutely". His voice was no longer plagued by tremours. He understood what it was that Nosherwan was offering. 

"Brother... You are a braver man than I. I tried to have my vengeance, to become a martyr, to fight for my family...But I was a coward." Nosherwan seemed to be overcome by emotions from his past, and he looked at Khalid with awe in his eye. 

"Then... Then I shall do this for the both of us. For both of our families. And when I am martyred, if I go to Heaven, I shall be sure to tell your children that you loved them. This shall be for us both." Khalid said.

Nosherwan stood there, unable to say a word. Suddenly, he embraced Khalid. "Brother, only now can I see the truth in the words, 'There is no man greater than the martyr'. I shall aid you as best as I can. God bless your soul." He broke the embrace, and signalled to Khalid to walk with him.

As they moved, a peace seemed to cushion Khalid. Soon, he would have his revenge, and die as a martyr. 

And then?

Well, only God knew.