And the wooden oak doors came crashing down on the ground.
It may have been her fear or her anger that sent her blood to her head that kept her running. Either way, she felt her heart hammer against her chest as her pursuers closed the distance behind her. She withheld the urge of turning at the horrible sound of their leather shoes trampling on her beloved oak doors.
She gathered the hem of her skirt, and padded barefooted towards the staircase. She ascended the wooden staircase that leads to the labyrinthine apartments above. Her mind focused on her parents’ room, and she pictured the tall wooden closet lined with her father’s rifles. Her father.
Her heart clenched at the thought her father. Gunned and butchered like a pig by those Japanese invaders. And where have they taken her mother?
Could they have…How dare they? How dare they?!
Tears welled up in her eyes. She brushed them away as she stealthily rounded a corner after another in their lavish ancestral home. In the previous days, when she and her sister had nothing to fear, they always sit together in front of the piano where she plays her music. Her heart fills with joy at the sound of her sister’s hearty laugh and giggles, overjoyed by Bach’s music. Their laughter and her parents coaxing bounce against the aging walls, brightened by the streaming sunlight, seeping through the capiz windows.
But today is different. She has to ignore the beauty of their home and give herself time to distance herself from her pursuers.
She slipped through the heady wooden double doors to her parents’ chambers, and walked silently towards the closet. Its dark wood gave a beautiful sheen, and silently creaked as she pulled the doors open. It revealed her fathers’ beloved firearms. An M1 Carbine, two M1903 Springfield Rifle which her father commissioned in the Americas when they visited the previous year, a handful of M1917 revolvers and several others she can’t recognize.
She gave herself the liberty of using the latest semi-automatic rifle and two revolvers. She quickly loaded all firearms, glancing occasionally behind her to keep the doors in check. Brushing away strands of her hair that escaped her bun, she pocketed a handful of bullets and calculated a round of 17 shots before she completely loses hope, given that she loads each revolver with adequate amount of bullets.
Her head snapped back at the sound of breaking glass a few feet from her parents’ chambers. Carefully, she positioned herself behind the door and listened intently to the commotion outside.
She silently prayed and thanked God that her father lost hope in having a son and taught her how to fight, unconventional to typical Filipino-Spanish families. She closed her eyes and words of silent prayer escaped her lips.
Ave Maria, gracia plena, dominicus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus…
She breathed heavily and tried to focus her mind away from her broken wrist. The largest of the five Japanese soldiers who assaulted her grabbed her wrist and twisted it in an odd angle. The best she managed was point the revolver’s barrel in between his eyes and pull the trigger before any of his barbaric comrades approached her.
Then she broke into a run, three Japanese soldiers close at her heels. Regardless of the situation, she managed to smile as she remembered how she blew two of the soldiers’ heads while trying to escape from her parents’ chambers.
She rounded a corner and slipped to the back of the house, obscured from the street by tall Acacia trees her grandmother planted and a high wall at the far corner. The late afternoon sunlight casting shadows on the cold wall behind her.
She rested her back against the brick wall, and collapsed on the ground. She closed her eyes and thought of her sister.
Soledad.
Her mother hid them in the family storehouse when word spread around town that the Japanese invaders are just outside their town gates, marching fearlessly and shooting mercilessly in the streets.
Barbara, take care of Soledad. Keep each other safe! her mother whispered into her ear.
When their parents left to secure their home, she decided to hide her sister in a barrel of grain and covered her with hay. When she peered outside, she saw how her father fought bravely to keep the soldiers at bay. When her father finally fell, she feared that she and her sister will be discovered and ran towards the house to divert their attention to her and away from the storehouse.
As she pondered on the day’s event, a shadow loomed above her, blocking the sunset from her face.
She looked up and gasped. Three Japanese soldiers surrounded her.
The smallest of the three laughed and spoke to the others. They laughed. Then they looked at her and their beady, evil eyes fixed on her.
Pater noster, qui es in cælis, sanctificetur nomen tuum, she prayed.
She winced in pain as one of the soldiers grabbed her neck and yanked her upward.
Their eyes met.
And she screamed.
