Chasing the Stars

The Loss of War

Screeching sounds echoing around the steel chamber, a cacophony of screams, sobs and scratches. The dim lights lighting up the bare room, creating demons that search around scaring the weak and reminding the strong of the wreckage above their heads. We've been trapped down here since evening approached, each broken soul waiting for the shining light to appear and free then from this ice cavern.

I sit here, waiting, alone. Fear trembling through each cell of my body, afraid for myself, afraid for them. I see children crying in their mothers arms, too young to understand the danger overhead. It wasn't some fairy tale or action story, with bad witches, and heroes to come save the day. It wasn't black and white. There was no happy ending. All grey. Everyone fighting for what they think is right, different motives, everyone has their reasons. No one is truly bad. No one is truly good. We've all committed sins and treason. We've all acted by virtue, been a hero for a day, and unlike in everyone's favourite tales, there isn't always a happy ending. The heroes don't always defeat the villains. Everyone doesn't always survive. Each sacrifice isn't always worth it. You can't always tell the good from bad. Who can really say they are fighting for the right cause when they send thousands to kill millions and millions, wrecking lives left and right? Everyone is corrupted in their own way. But that's just how life is, and it changing, is a wish that will never be fulfilled, at least not in my life.

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Before I could carry on my thoughts, listening to the explosions rattle the ground, shaking and cracking the steel overhead forming lightning bolts, as if Zeus had had enough of this war and was sending his wrath down to wipe us all out, I felt a soft tap on my shoulder. I spun my head around, adrenaline flying into my veins, to see a woman. Tears were flowing out of her eyes and a noticeable scar crossed the left side of her face. She was frantically pointing at something just out of the peripheral of my vision, as I turned to see what she was pointing at, a small gasp left my mouth. In the corner of the room, buried under a pile of blankets, was a baby. It was sobbing but the most noticeable obscurity was its skin. Bright red. I scuttled over, cautiously touching its forehead, flinching back as if I just touched ice.

"Can you save her?" I heard the mother's voice from behind me, trembling on the last word. I couldn't. I didn't know what to do, I'd never been taught what to do in emergencies, and that angers me, as I've wasted 18 years of my life learning things that will never do me any good, who really needs to know how to do algebraic division, when I can't even stop a baby from dying.

"Maybe." My voice catching in my throat as I lied, to her and myself, because of course I couldn't. I was a weak, young girl. I didn't understand why she would choose me out of everyone trapped in the steel cage to plea for help, but as I looked around, I saw that everyone had their own problems. She left, begging others for help but most would just shake their head. I guess that's what happens in a world like this, the cruelty diminishes the kind heart in others, and I wished that someone would prove me wrong, stand out from the crowd, sweep the child out of my arms and heal it, like the prince always does to the princess in fairytales, but that never happened.

So I sit here, tears threatening to spill, as I watch the life drain out of this child, my heart full of pain and rage. How could this happen? What had she ever done wrong? Is this the end that will come to all of us? Left helpless dying, surrounded by others, as the final breath leaves your mouth, swivelling up into the sky, floating away into the infinite oblivion of the universe.

A scream pierces the stale air, sentencing the entire world to silence, or so it seems, no breathing, no crying, no talking. Everything stopped to witness the heart-ripping moment a mother finds her dead child lying on a strangers lap, and as I notice how the baby's heart had stopped beating, her life extinguished before me, another broken sob echoed after the mothers, mine, followed by the clutter of sounds to follow as the moment passed.

The mother clutched her baby and scampered off, and here I was left, my second death to witness, and most certainly not the last.