I don’t even know what is going on, or what is supposed to be going on. I couldn’t seem to write this chapter of my life, not alone. I didn’t have any inspiration left, it felt like the world stopped turning, my heart had been ripped out, nothing matters, absolutely nothing. The leaves that were falling from the trees, since it was Fall, the temperature was going down in an insane short period of time, even the attacks in the city didn’t matter, not those anyway.
I could’ve been there, if I was just a few hours earlier. I maybe could have prevented it from happening, but fate didn’t want that for me. Fate had decided that I had to kiss Theo for one last time before heading off, fate had decided that I had to take the long way home, fate had decided this all for me and right now, I hated fate. With all my heart.
It was my fault, it always was. Whenever something happened, it always came back to me. Just like this.
They were looking for me, all this was to find me, because I had to break the rules so badly. I had to love someone even though I wasn’t allowed to and I had to drag my family into this.
It was early, I had stayed the night in the woods with my friends and I was just saying goodbye to Theo, Shai and Ansel had gone for a morning walk.
I told him that I was going to miss him, but I had to go, I had this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach that something was about to happen and I just couldn’t ignore it. Theo asked me if he needed to walk me back to my home, but I said no, it wasn’t a long walk.
When I finally came to my home, I heard nothing. Absolutely nothing. Normally, it was just like this, complete silence. But this time, it felt somehow odd. The curtains were still closed, the lights were out and I saw no one, not even our creepy neighbours who were always looking out of their window, observing people.
I walked closer to the house and saw that the door had broken open, it was lying flat on the ground. I told myself it was nothing and I shouldn’t be bothered by it, but I instantly felt sick to my stomach.
“Mom” I had called out, but no answer. “mom?” I felt like a small child again, calling out for my mum. Worried that the war had gotten to us and had gotten to my family while I was out. All those nightmares I had as a little child, where I saw my own mother getting murdered in front of my eyes and I couldn’t do anything about it, because I’m just a child, a small child.
“MOM!” I got scared, I started breathing heavily, sweating. “mom, I know you’re there, I’m the irresponsible one, not you.” I was rattling, talking to myself, talking to no one. I already knew something was wrong.
“Amber?” my youngest sister said, she’s five years old and she cries a lot, I don’t know why, probably because she’s scared, like everyone else.
She was crying, like really crying this time. Tears running down her face and they didn’t stop. At that moment I knew for sure, that something was wrong, big time.
“Dani-“ I couldn’t say anything, not because I was crying as well, I just couldn’t say anything. Instead of telling her everything was alright, I walked away. I couldn’t tell her that, because it wasn’t alright, it never was going to be again. I walked away from her, to the kitchen. What I saw there, is something that’s going to hunt me in my dreams.
My sister was laying on the ground, her eyes wide open in fear, but at the same time, every single life she had in herself was sucked out of her. Her skin was already pale, her lips blue.
I panicked, I blacked out. I didn’t know what to do, I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, I wanted to break something, but nothing came. I just stood there, I didn’t do anything, I just watched my sisters dead body, on the ground, her soul already far away.
When I walked away, slowly backing out, walking towards the stairs, I saw an arm laying across the floor. Attached to that arm, was my mother’s body. Next to her, was my father. I had fought with them the night before, about something stupid and I never got the change again to tell them how much I loved them. I never did, and I loved them so, so very much. Even though I didn’t seem like it all the time, they were my world. They made me, I was born out of love and that’s one of the greatest things on earth. Expressing your love by passing it on to another live. And now, in just fractions of seconds, it’s gone.
Both of their bodies had the same symptoms as my sister’s. Lifeless, pale, cold, dead.
They were dead. And I did nothing about it. I couldn’t, I would have if I had known, but I didn’t. And I felt even smaller, like I was three years old and I needed my parents to survive. I needed my sister to survive, my sister with her wise words, she always seemed to have a solution to everything, it was incredible.
I was torn from my thoughts when I heard a gunshot, it was close by. I also heard voices, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying, everything was blurred, nothing was real anymore.
Another gunshot and another. I heard at least four. When I heard the last one, blood covered the wall behind me. blood coming from the living room, my sister was standing just minutes ago.
“no, no!” I ran to the living room, which was only three steps away. I turned head towards where I heard the noise and saw her body falling to the ground, while she looked at me, one last tear running down her face. “NO!” I yelled again at her small body, only her fingers moving slightly as she lost grip of her bear that she used to carry around. “no” this time, it was a whisper. Just my breath making its way to the air, disappearing into nothing.
I fell down on my knees next to her body, but still, I wasn’t crying. It just didn’t seem to come, I was still in denial that I really had no family left.
I took my sisters small hand in my own, and rubbed my thumb over back of her hand, silently telling her that it’s okay and that she’s fine and that she’ll have a great time in heaven, greater than on earth. It was safer there for her, she’ll have friends and play with all the animals in the world and it’ll be good for her, it’s okay.
But it wasn’t, okay.
“stand up and show me your hands where I can seem them” A strong, stern voice told me, what was he thinking. My sister just died in front of me, and he asked me to step away from her and ‘show my hands where he can see them?” but I did it anyway, I was a coward at that moment and I couldn’t think for myself. I stood up my arms hanging by my side, my hands clear in their view, just what he wanted. But it wasn’t enough, it never is.
“Show me your hands!” I put my hands in the air and showed them my hands, my nails I had bitten, the dirt that covered my palms, my bruised knuckles from getting angry and punching a tree.
The man, tall and skinny, raised his gun. He was on his own, no one there to help him. Just like me. But I was angry, way angrier than he was, I was furious, malicious, venomous, I was livid. No one could stop me.
I took off as fast as I could, ran away out of the front door, I ran so fast. I didn’t think I had ran that fast, ever.
I heard shots and when I looked back I saw the man running after me, I saw my creepy neighbours standing there, arms crossed. I knew that they had betrayed us and told everyone about it, how we still managed to send each other love, how I sneaked out many times. I knew that, I knew that I was the trouble maker this whole time, it was my fault, it always was, but that didn’t give them the right to shot my sister, my whole family.
I ran more and more, while he chased me. I came to the woods and made turns and unexpected moves to lose the man, and I won. I kept going and I won.
I looked behind me and saw the man bending over, catching his breath. I guessed he wasn’t as mad as I was.
I ran some more, and finally stopped, my legs were giving up and my vision was blinded. Not by tears, they still hadn’t come, I didn’t know what was blinding me and it didn’t scare me. The world wasn’t the same anymore, it didn’t look as nice, the trees weren’t special and all this that I was living didn’t seem worth it anymore.
I bended my knees and I let myself fall onto the ground, I turned around so I was laying on my back and put my arms behind my head.
I was never going to survive this.
“why?” I asked, no one could hear me, but I asked it anyway, talking to the one behind this great master plan, “why did you have to do this? Isn’t this world messed up enough!? I’m so mad, I’m so mad at you. How dare you to call yourself a lord, or special? How dare you?”
But no one heard me and I felt all alone. I had felt alone so many times, but this time, it was real, because I was actually all alone. no one was going to safe me now, no one was going to remember me, no one was going to care.
But I couldn’t help but picture this one person in my head, I couldn’t lose him too. I knew it was mad to leave him or to never see him again, it was impossible, he was my life now.
And even in this world where everything seemed dark and everyone thought they weren’t going to survive this, a small voice in my head kept saying to be brave, be strong and to never stop surviving.
“what if I die? What if we don’t survive this war, this endless fight we’re in?” I asked and when I asked, my dad’s head snapped up from the sky, looking straight into my eyes.
“don’t lose hope, be brave, be strong and always keep surviving”
And after all, I was still in denial, this couldn’t have happened. Please.