Story of Nine
This piece reflects on the destruction of culture, offering a take on history itself and emphasizing the importance of understanding where we come from.
“Welcome, children of the mantle,” said the first.
“It is time,” said the second.
“To be perfected,” said the third.
“To be saved,” said the first again.
They stood over the corpses of those they had just slaughtered. They were the Nine. They thought themselves to be the mantle’s salvation. Salvation through blood. Salvation through death.
The first stepped over a fresh body, I had once been friends with that one, he had a name, Frank. Now he lays there with blood filling where his eyes once where held . “We see you. We see your suffering. Fall to our blade and seek salvation.”
Our people had never thought of themselves as needing salvation. We were content, living as we always had. But outsiders saw us as different—our customs, our ways of life, all too strange, too old. We had done nothing to provoke them. But the Nine walked onto our farms, uninvited, and slaughtered us. Their supposed salvation was the excision of all peoples who did not break bread with them. We were not the first to fall to their blades and nor were we the last.
Now, few of us remain. And those of us who do… Well, we resist. Any action of defiance will give our people a name—not one born of fear or blood, but one that speaks of courage. It will mark the beginning of the end for these Nine.
“You think you're different, do you?” the fourth said, disdain dripping from their words. Their cloak billowed in the still air, a mockery of wind. “You will remember this history, where we offered mercy and salvation.”
Somehow I knew in the history of what is to be left of this place, there will be nothing but ash and dust.
A fifth spoke, cold and clinical. “We will give you a proper warrior's death. Put you out of your misery.”
We were different. We had expected our fate, and we had laid down our weapons. They did not know mercy. They lied. They didn’t even bury us.bodies strewn across the landscape, forming hills and valleys in the land
A sixth stood touching on a banner that bore our peoples ensignia, their fingers trailing down the tattered cloth as it burned at the tips. they spoke, their voice soft, almost motherly. “I thought you would've been different,” she murmured, as though mourning something already lost. “Next time, maybe the ones who come after you will be better.”
Silence.
“What did we do?” I asked, breaking the stillness for the first time in what felt like forever.
“Survive,” said the seventh. His voice was steady, unyielding. “you survived. dared to be different, and for that, we are sorry. Perhaps if we had met your people sooner, this wouldn't have happened.”
fall,
wither
and
Rot,
You
will
be
perfect
All words that they have said to the peoples that have fallen to their blade.
The first held a sword glistening with blood, stars reflected and refracted in the grey steel. “Oh child of the mantle, why do you struggle so?” said the first “you will be perfected, brought into a new world. Your world is only known for oh what is the word?”
“Mortality,” said the eighth, their voice flat, almost bored, as they examined their nails, the dismissiveness clear in their posture. “a fragile one at that, given how easily your people where to cull, i have met with ants who had for bite to there steel”
“Yes , mortality. We will fix that for you child”
“Why do I need fixing?” I said. Knowing the end was coming.
“Well, you were. Different. Now take heed child, do not take this personally, but the gods have deemed you insignificant, and must rid this world of that. Alas that includes you.” said the ninth.
Different in the eyes of the nine, where people that did not live in their society, that did not worship their gods, did not partake in their wine. If anything their gods were excuses to remove ideas that challenge theirs.
“Fall to our blade child of the mantle and embrace salvation,” said the nine.
And fall, I did. Not with defiance, but with the weight of a truth that had settled in my bones—this was not just the end of my life, but the end of everything we were. And as I fell, I embraced it, for there was no other choice.”