The War Zone

The sun slowly faded away like sugar in water and the blanket of darkness descended once more in the sky.

Silver silhouettes of soldiers gleamed, exposed to the moonlit sky and disappeared in the fiery discharges. Bang!. Bang!. Sopwith Camels dipped into the atmosphere and darted back into the clouds leaving a trail of spearheaded objects that dropped to the ground as teardrops sluggishly rolling down a cheek and splashing onto the floor. Silence had encased the world for a moment, but the silence slowly oscillated backward like a pendulum back to its war-frenzy scenario, you could even hear the hammering of hearts echoing in unison with the detonation of bombs. The perpetual number of troops hushed as the battlefield eventually piled up with soldiers rotting, left to die. But few remained alive and managed to escape – almost caught. One of which was me.

We hastened through the bramble bushes (ignoring the searing pain of the thorns plunging into our body penetrating our uniform) into the dimly lit forest, dodging the trees that we could barely make out. Sprinting as fast as we could, I and the other soldier came to a halt by a river that seemed to stare back at us mouthing every word we whispered to ourselves. We were stuck. The river was too deep to traverse and too wide to swim. Biting his teeth, the other soldier crouched down and coiled into a ball like a hedgehog would when it feels threatened, whimpering: we’re going to die, we’re going to die. But I didn’t lose hope.

I had known the place from the back of my head, it was where I had first encountered the stranger who had predicted my future (full of war and Hatred); he made a living in a canoe filled with food supplies and the essential items he needed to live in the deserted forest. We followed the tangle of plants that slithered to a stop by a canoe, the stranger’s canoe. The other soldier stood up vigorously like he had been stung by a wasp and mesmerized the canoe in relief. Propelling ourselves over into the canoe each of us clenched onto one of the single-bladed paddlers with the force of vice and strenuously heaved the boat forwards far enough for the isolated forest to disappear out of sight.

As we cheered in happiness and excitement for escaping from the grasp of the Nazi, faith unfaithful sent a warhead whirling at us. Bang!