Yesterday I was out in my front yard, laying in the sun. I felt the warmth wash over my body as I stretched out and took it all in. I watched the cars pass, and a few people that walked by waved at me. It was almost dinner time but I didn’t want to go in because it was so beautiful and I was so happy.
Then I heard a car stop behind my fence. I lifted my head and tried to look over wondering who would be here. A strange man I’ve never seen before came barging through the gate and straight at me. I leapt up and I yelled and I tried to get away. I was much smaller than him and not fast enough. He grabbed me roughly around the neck – I couldn’t scream. He put a dirty, smelly bag over my head and I felt him lift me off the ground, carry me a few steps, and toss me down onto a hard, cold floor. Moments later, I felt an engine start up and the floor beneath me began to move. He was taking me. I cried all the tears I had to cry. He was taking me and I didn’t know where I was going. I wouldn’t come in for dinner and my family would wonder where I was – they would cry for me. Would they ever see me again?
We drove for a few hours (it felt like days). The man opened the door and grabbed me by my leg, pulling me out of the truck. I saw others around that looked just as confused as me, with tear stains on their faces. I wondered if they had been taken as I had. Another man came up to me and grabbed my head, holding me by my ears as another began wrapping wire around my mouth. I could no longer scream. They then flipped me over onto my back and tied my arms and legs together with the same wire. It cut into my skin and all I could do was whimper. They then lifted me into the bed of a truck lined with large cages and tossed me into one along with 6 others. I watched them fill all the cages, close up the truck and heard them get in the front. Then we started to move.
As dawn broke, we were driving down a very dusty road – not like the city streets I came from. We drove down these roads until the morning was bright and we could finally feel some sun warming our frigid skin. The truck finally stopped and 3 men opened the back and hauled the cages out, throwing us all to the ground, carelessly. One small girl who’s mouth wire had come loose was the first to be pulled out of her cage. I watched them drag her out by her bound legs. I saw the fear in her eyes as one man tied a rope around her neck and lifted her up by it. She couldn’t breath. He carried her away like that. I heard her scream for what seemed like forever and then silence. What had he done to her? What will he do to us? I watched them take the others, one by one. I heard screams and cries and whimpers. I lay shaking in my cage until finally… they came for me.
They grabbed my legs and pulled me out. The ground was rocky and rough and scraped my side bloody. They pulled me up by my ears and slipped a rope over my head. They drug me from that spot to a small barn a few yards away, tearing my skin on the ground the whole way. They grabbed the rope that was around my neck and lifted me with it, taking my breath as they did. They tied the other end of the rope to a pole sticking out of the wall and hung my body from it. I could barely get any air. I struggled to breath. My eyes widened as one of the men turned around and I saw what looked like a piece of that same pole in his hands and he was coming towards me with it. I didn’t even have time to think before he flung it back and swung it towards me, colliding with my back end. I screamed in pain, much louder in my head than through my mouth, still wired shut. He continued to beat me until I was seconds away from passing out from lack of air and then he cut me down. I fell to the ground, hard. I could tell that most, if not all, of my limbs were broken. I couldn’t move. I breathed in all the air I could into my lungs, filling them up.
I was trembling as he spat on me. He then grabbed the rope and pulled me closer to him. I saw something shine in his hand and before I knew what it was, he slammed it down on my legs.. and cut off my feet. The pain was excruciating. My heart leapt out of my chest and never came back. I saw the red blood pour out and stain the ground. One of the other men yelled out to him, “Blood outside!!” and the man drug me by the rope, still around my neck, out of the barn. Here I could see the entire ground was brown – stained with blood that looked just like mine. I couldn’t even think I was in so much pain. When he lifted me up again, I hoped for the end. I hoped that he would hold me up until the rope took my last breath because I could not live through this pain. He hung me up, over the branch of a nearby tree. He called me pathetic… and tasty.
I closed my eyes and I waited for the end. All of a sudden, I was consumed with a pain so horrific, I forgot about my broken bones and my cruelly amputated legs. My back was so hot and I could hear my skin crackling. I was on fire. From my bottom up, the fire rose. I flailed around as best I could trying to put it out but it continued up my body towards my head. I urinated because the pain was so bad – the fire kept coming. As my body spun around on the tree branch, I saw one of the men taking one of the others out of the barn. An older male. He was bleeding as well and it appeared his legs had also been removed. He looked at me with such fear that I felt more for him than I even did for myself. We both knew his fate. I watched them toss him like he was nothing into a huge pot overflowing with boiling water. I watched him struggle, unable to get out with his legs tied and likely cut off. I watched him die as the flames rose around my face. I felt all my skin burnt off my body. I felt the last tear I would cry run down my cheek.
I thought about my family. Where are they? Are they looking for me? They love me so much, they will look for me. But they will never find me. They will never know. Maybe they will think I chose to leave them. I would never choose to leave them. I hope they know how much I love them. As I took my final breaths, my body swug around again and I saw my fate. All of the others that had been taken. Their bodies boiled, charred, beaten, chopped up.. all piled up or hung near the side of the barn. A massacre. All their lives lost. I could feel the stagnant thickness of all the fear and horror that had come before me. And I knew that more would come, I would not be the last.
Yesterday I was out in my front yard, laying in the sun. It was so beautiful and I was so happy. Today I am but a number. Another life lost. Another tortured soul. Another casualty of the dog meat trade and the belief that our pain is “tasty”. Please help those who will come after me. Please don’t let me die in vain.
OhStormy 