"Father said that when you have cleared away our piss you can come with us to the stable and help us there right away", barked Gabriel. He was the younger of my brothers, he was fourteen years old now. He lacked maturity, but not sadism. Thomas ran behind him, he was only one year older than Gabriel and certainly not significantly smarter. When they talked about helping, it meant I had to do all the work on my own, as I often did. When father wasn't nearby, they lazed off, when he came along, they quickly picked up a tool. If the work had not been done far enough by then, I reaped the mockery and gloating. Thomas went ahead, his hair was greasy and bad smell came from him. Just like my parents, my brothers didn't care about maintenance. Bent, I ran after them, Thomas kicked open the door to the pigsty, the animals squeaked excitedly; he was happy to do so, he too had a disgusting, sadistic streak.
"Well, well, well, what have we here? Today one of you will die." Thomas tried to underline his pronouncements with pig-like grunts.
It was indeed slaughter day again, lucky for me, because father never let me do this one job. I breathed a sigh of relief for a moment, before I was pressed roughly against the wall. Gabriel pressed his forearm against my throat, his eyes were flooded with madness.
"You woke me up this morning, Emily. You know how much I need my sleep", his foul breath poked into my face.
"Gabriel, let me go", I gagged, his knee pierced into my guts, for his slim build he was pretty damn strong. Although I had my hands free, I did not dare to use them.
"If that happens again, sister, I'll sneak into your room at night, with a knife, and cut your pretty face. Father and mother certainly wouldn't mind."
He let go of me, I hastily sucked air into my lungs. From outside, I heard footsteps across the yard, father! Suppressing my pain, I reached for the bucket with the collected cuttings and began to feed the pigs. The animal for slaughter had already been crammed into a separate enclosure. Thomas stood with it, holding a large butcher knife in his hand, so that the animal became more and more nervous. It spoiled the meat when animals suffered too much excitement just before they died, but my brother did not care. The door to the barn flew open. I looked at my father, the fear in my neck was so great that my growing nervousness drove into my limbs and kept them off from work. I stood there rooted to the ground, while he let his cold-hearted eyes wander over what was happening and looked at me intensely.
"Well, let's get to work, boys."
A stone fell from my heart, I continued my work while Thomas opened the gate. The sow squealed, he kicked it in the pit of its stomach. The pigs in the other enclosure didn't want to know about their food, they smelled doom in the air, and started unfortunate attempts to escape by jumping on top of each other in a wild scramble to jump over the gate. Gabriel tied a rope around the slaughter pig's neck and dragged it behind him into the next room. The animals were all exhausted, as was I, I would have liked to cry, throw myself in between and put an end to this madness. But...
"EMILY," hissed my father, "don't dawdle, get on with the feeding and the mucking out. Then you go to the chicken coop and get on with your chores, understood?"
"Yes, Father."
I did as I had been ordered to do, the hideous sound of a tormented animal accompanying my work in the background. At the chicken coop I took a deep breath. As long as we were already raising pigs and slaughtering them regularly for our own use and for sale, I could not remember witnessing such a macabre performance as the one I witnessed today. I knew that my brothers had a crack. Surely it was another one of their coarse jokes to test me. Like once, when they had forced me underwater to see how long I could stand it without air. I almost died then and nobody in my family would have mourned for me. The chickens were fed, so I headed for the house. I'm sure my mother would have dozens of chores for me inside. The little stones on our farm crunched as I walked over them.
"EMILY!", father's booming voice with the threatening undertone resounded over the whole area and thus conveyed the message to me that I should come to him immediately. Entering the slaughter room, I saw that the sow was still alive. Exhausted, it lay on the ground, red welts adorning its lower abdomen. What had these bestial fellows done to the poor animal?
"You called for me?", I asked and tried to restrain my uncertainty.
"'Yes, close the door behind you", I did, an uneasy feeling came over me, "come here", he ordered.
Slowly I walked towards them, stopped just before the animal, which stared at me from half-open eyes, as if it wanted to say "Help me, please help me."
"You know, Emily, you don't seem to be all there lately," father started, and before I could open my mouth, he added, "so the boys and I thought of something. You clearly lack strength, and in order for that to change from now on, you will slaughter the pig today."
"What? No! I can't do this! Please, Father, don't make me do this", I begged.
"You see, as I thought“, father sneered, "Thomas, would you be so kind."
My brother was standing behind me, he kicked me in the buttocks, so that I flew with one leap forward onto the dirty floor.
"It's quite simple, sister", yelled Gabriel, again carrying that bizarre look in his eyes, "you take the knife and ram it down the sow's throat and let it bleed out. Don't be so coy!"
Every fibre in me resisted, but not doing so would have bad consequences for me. Father put the butcher knife in my hand. Actually, I would have an easy time, the animal seemed to be waiting for redemption; it did not fight back, although it saw the knife. It was not my task to kill an innocent being, it was the business of brainless barbarians, like my father and my brothers were.
"Do it now!", hissed father.
There was only one way I could end this nightmare; I had to kill. The knife, with the pointed end first, suddenly found its way into the throat of the animal as if guided by an unknown power. Warm blood poured out of the wound like a waterfall, wetting my hands. My family rejoiced, I, on the other hand, dropped the knife and left the room in a hurry. Forever and ever this horrible scenario would have burned itself into my head.
***
"A dark Phoenix will rise from the ashes of its wrath. The Lord of Darkness will come to guide and mould it."
My hands trembled, my whole body vibrated as if the earth was shaking. I awoke from a nightmare. Had I really killed the pig? Yes, its blood was on my hands. As desperate as I had tried to wash the red lifeblood of the animal off my hands after the previous day, it was still there and would always haunt me.
It was still dark outside when I came downstairs to the kitchen and immediately helped my mother. Father did not greet me while he ate his breakfast with a smacking jaw. But he did not attack me either.
"Today is market day, so we must see to it that we finish the housework quickly before we leave", said mother, her bitterly angry tone towards me would probably never get any less.
I had completely forgotten that, how could I have thought of that after yesterday? After finishing the housework we left immediately. I felt an advantage at least once today. My brothers and my father left me alone. Father had already loaded the carriage outside and loaded the goods for sale on it. Eggs, fruit, vegetables, and meat. Boards for the construction of the bar were also on the wagon. Father always used to say that market transactions were women's work, and if we didn't come home with enough money, it had happened in some places that even mother felt his hand. It took us about an hour's drive to get to the next town and the next market place. The way there was carefree, no bumpy roads that cost us unnecessary time. A fresh wind blew, the breeze went through my hair, which I wore open today. I was finally away from home and could let my thoughts fly up and down with the wind like a feather. We reached the market place in time, several sellers had already gathered there, they sold