A LITTLE girl in her pink floral dress, skipped around the garden–bare-footed — with her little basket, picking flowers and fallen, ripe fruits, chasing colourful butterflies and playing with her bunny rabbits.

Her mother washing clothes at the standpipe watched her, a sweet child dear to her heart. She would often imagine how beautiful she would be when she grew up, and a special wedding celebration she would have for her when it was time for her betrothal.
That was 22 years ago to this day, a dark day.

A storm had been brewing for the past few days and tonight it unleashed its fury with screaming winds, deafening thunder and frightening lightning. The roads were desolate, except for two black sedans that drove cautiously along the dark country road to a moderate house standing almost in isolation.
Four strange men stepped out in the rain, men with steely looks and stone-cold eyes, on a mission commanded by their superior officer in the military, a lieutenant-general.
What would the military be doing deep in the countryside in the farming backlands?

What illegal activities gathered by an intelligence network merited the presence of army personnel from a neighbouring Spanish country?
A small farming family in deep slumber as the storm drowned the farmlands was awoken by the armed invaders and forcibly taken away before they knew what was happening.
The abductors drove to a secluded army reserve off the highway, and the family was roughly hauled into the base. The mother, father and brother were bound to chairs in one room, and the younger ones locked into another room with an armed guard.

They stared at their abductors, terrified beyond their limits.
What would foreign soldiers want with a simple farming family?

The soldiers left the room and returned after a long while, dressed now in black clothes and leather gloves. They said not a word. The look in their eyes, so cold, it sent shivers down the spines of the family.

The duct tape was ripped from their mouths and they inhaled deeply, tears welling in the mother’s eyes.
“Why have you brought us here?” the father asked hoarsely, “We’ve done no wrong.”
A fist hit him so hard it rocked his head back, and the mother cried, “Please, why are you doing this?! We are farming people!”
One soldier straddled a chair and two specialists of torture stood by. The soldier sitting said to the father, “Investigations have proved that you are involved in an illegal trade.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”

A fist thudded against his jaw, drawing blood from his mouth.
“You have been under surveillance for some time now, and tonight you will have to disclose your part in this trade if you value your life and your family’s. Do you understand?”
The father nodded, scared and confused and the soldier continued his questioning.
“How often have you met with mysterious traders in the backlands?”

“Twice,” he answered.
“Did you take any of your children there with you?”
“No,” he answered hesitantly.
A thunderous fist hit him, knocking him down with the chair.
The mother screamed, “Please, don’t!”

“Quiet!” a voice boomed, silencing her.
The question was asked again and the same answer given.
The questioning line was then changed.
“How many children do you have?”

“I have two sons.”
He was hit to the floor now, blood trickling from his mouth and nose. The son, unable to witness the torture shouted, “Why do you want to know that?!”
The soldiers turned on him like angry pit bulls until he was left crumpled on the floor, gasping for breath.
“Why aren’t you asking me?” the mother sobbed.
“Because we can’t hit you, their pain is your suffering.”

Father and son were hauled upright and given a short moment to breathe easy before the interrogation started again.
“We know of the boats that docked in the ocean and the people who came to the backlands who you did business with.”
The father didn’t answer, afraid now to say anything.

“You have two sons and you’re sure you don’t have another child you sold to be used as a drug mule?”
“No,” the father groaned, “I didn’t do that.”

“We have evidence that you did. You wanted to be rich, to become powerful.”
“No!” he shouted, his voice cracking, “I did not sell my daughter!”
A sudden hush fell over the room and the soldier in the chair rose to his feet.
“So you have another child, a daughter?”

“Yes,” he sobbed, “I had a daughter.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” he continued to cry, “I gave her away a long time ago.”
“How old was she?”
“She was six.”

“You gave away your little daughter to be used as a drug mule?”
“No, I didn’t want her anymore, I couldn’t look at her.”
The soldiers looked at the glass partition beyond where a silent figure watched and listened to every word – the general who had ordered the abduction to find answers from the family in that room.

“She was violated and her impurity became a shame to the family, something I couldn’t live with, so I sent her away.”
“On a stormy night like this, you wrapped a sleeping child in a blanket, ignoring the mother’s pleas and gave her away, not caring what happened to her because of traditional beliefs?”
He said nothing, his head bent and the soldier said to the son,

“You became the golden child because of your lies. You were supposed to watch her while your parents were away at the market, but you were so engrossed in gambling that you didn’t hear her call for you to help find her bunny, and she wandered too far from home, where bad boys saw her. You didn’t hear her scream for you until she found you, much later, her dress torn, her face streaked with tears, her bunny in her arms.”
The mother stared at the son, shocked and angry.

“All these years you’ve been living a lie. How could you? Your heartless father took away my baby and you helped with your lies!”
The son was so choked with guilt, he couldn’t answer.
It was then the father realized something and cautiously asked the soldier who had been interrogating them,
“How do you know about all this that happened to my daughter 22 years ago?”

The soldier stared at him, not answering for a long moment then he said,
“She told me all about it.”

The mother gasped and asked, her emotions rising, “You know her? You know my daughter?”
“Yes,” he answered, glancing at the glass partition, “She has been seeing and hearing everything that transpired in this room.”
There was a shocked silence then the mother asked, her voice trembling,

“Can I see her?”
The soldier did not answer.
After a long moment, the door slowly swung open…

To be continued…