Serena’s+Assyrian+Attack

** By: Serena Ropersmith ** “No Malia, you can’t weave like //that//, you have to do //this//.” My mother said as she showed me, with great care, how to weave the //perfect// basket. I’ve been doing this for 13 years (ever since I was 3) and I still, according to my mom, have lots more work to do. I mean, my baskets may look a little sloppy compared to hers but, what can I say, it’s not my fault. Anyway, my mother and I were walking back towards our hut which is on the far side of our village when a strange man came up to us and said that a terrible tragedy would come upon our city state at the break of dawn and that none would survive. My mother wasn’t convinced that anything would go wrong, but I wasn’t so sure. That night, when my mother kissed me good night, I made a mental note to wake up before everyone else and be on the lookout. “Ah-aukk! Ah-aukk! “ //A warning call from the birds//! I thought. I jumped down from my hammock and walked outside into the cool, dry morning air. It was a nice contrast to the musty, humid air inside my mud hut. //What is going on?// I thought worriedly. I climbed up onto the low wall surrounding my city state so I could see what was going on and squinted into the horizon. //What are those//? I thought //They look like…huge goats…no…bulls…no…What are they? They’re everywhere!// A big cloud of dust was moving toward my city state. They were close now, so close that I could hear the thundering sound of hoofs on the dry ground and the squeaking of chariot wheals//. I have to warn everyone//, I thought. I jumped down from my perch and sprinted towards my hut. “Mother!” I yelled while flying through the animal skin door of our families hut. Now I could hear men yelling and animals screaming as the men whipped them to make the poor animals go lightning speed. I ran over to my mother who was half asleep in her hammock and screamed in desperation, “Mother you have to get up!” She sat up slowly and crawled out of her hammock. I grabbed her hand and pulled her outside our hut. The men had reached the wall and were trying to break it down with tree trunks. In the confusion I heard people screaming and crying, witnessed children clinging to their mothers, and saw fathers with looks of horror in their eyes. “Run!” I screamed. “Run!”, but nobody listened to me. The city state was complete chaos and there was nothing I could do but hide. “Let’s go!” I yelled as I pulled my stunned mother towards a tall tree behind the small wall. As my mother and I were running I heard a loud scream and turned around just in time to see a flying arrow pierce her neck. //The Assyrians are here//, I thought fearfully. I grabbed a spear from a dead body and kept on running, sprinting as fast as I can now. I didn’t go back for my mother because I knew that if I had gone back I would have definitely died too. I knew she wouldn’t want me to die for her. She would want me to try to survive and to never let go of hope. When I reached the wall that surrounded our city state, I quickly climbed over it and started crawling up a huge withered tree. Soon, I was 20 feet up…30 feet up…40 feet up…50 feet up… I was at the top. I watched the horror unfold before my eyes. It was like something from a story, totally unreal, like it couldn’t be happening in real life. I saw dead bodies lying in the dust, arrows and spears flying in the air, people wailing and running. Then I saw the attackers on the strange animal and I could tell that it was a horse. I have heard of horses before but never seen one. Their spears and knives raised, their mouths open, speaking a strange language that I didn’t know, the Assyrians were killing us (the Hittites) and not even caring that we were defenseless and innocent. And then, I saw him: a boy, by the looks of him, about eighteen years old. He was an Assyrian. He saw me and stared at me. He lifted up his spear and I did the same. We stared into each other’s eyes for what seemed like minutes, but it was only about ten seconds. We lowered our weapons and I slowly inched down from my perch in the tree, my weapon still ready in case he decided to shoot. As I reached the ground he trotted over to me on his horse. The big animal was frightening but it didn’t seem like it was going to hurt me. “Hello,” he said. He knows my language, I thought. The boy motioned for me to get on his horse and I knew that if I didn’t, he might hurt me, so I grabbed his hand and jumped on. I had no idea what would happen to me next but I knew that whether it be terrifying or phenomenal, I would have to go through it. We galloped off away from the past and towards the future, a future that was unexpectedly different from what I thought my future would be.
 * The Assyrians Attack! **

That day, that horrible day, I lost everything. I lost my mother, I lost my friends, I lost my house, I lost everything that I ever cared about. But I found hope in the boy that I saw from my tree perch. He saved me because, later that day, the Assyrians burned down everything. I would have been ashes if it weren’t for that boy. The boy’s name was Nebuchadnezzar II, and he became king of Babylon from 605 BC to 562 BC. He also became my husband and built me the hanging gardens of Babylon. Despite our heartbreaking past, we overcame what we had lost and set an example for new generations to follow.
 * Epilogue**