Yulia and three of her friends were playing in the open garden. With rosey cheeks and sweaty pores, they giggled at each other. They were barely 10 years at that time.
"It feels good being the winner in the school games today." Glib boasted.
"You might have won this week, but I'll surely beat you next week." Artem replied smiling hard.
Anna and I just sat on the grass, laughing and admiring the boys brag about their powers. That was how most of our weekends were spent. Suddenly there was a loud explosion, few meters away from where I was sitting. All I could here was a zzzz sound, the entire garden was covered in smoke.
"Anna! Glib! Artem!!"
I couldn't see a thing. After a few minutes of staggering, my hearing started coming back to me slowly. Alarms were blaring from every corner of the streets. Just then someone grabbed my hand.
"Yulia, we have to leave here now."
"Mom, what is happening? What of my friends?"
Mom didn't say anything, she carried me in her arms and started running. With the thick smoke covering the air, I couldn't see mom was running to. I put my hands across her neck tightly, I have never been so scared in my life.
It has been 21 days, Airstrikes upon Airstrikes. We were under attack, that's Mommy said. I only got to see Dad once in two days I have never seen my best friends since the day of the first explosion. Mom would never let me leave the basement of the shelter. Above the room I stayed, I'd hear screams of people in severe pain.
I have seen such scenarios in movies, I never knew that there was any chance that I'd experience such. Anytime I opened my eyes during the night, I'd see mom sitting awake, holding her phone tightly in her hands. I knew she was scared too, but she never wanted me to see the scared part of her. Mom was strong, she volunteered to help cook at the shelter we stayed. We lacked resources to make a rich meal, therefore we managed whatever we could fix with what we had.
I lost track of date and days, I had no clue which day was Tuesday or Sunday. On a sunny day, there was a major explosion close to the shelter we stayed, we had to evacuate to a new shelter. That was where I saw Glib. It felt so good seeing him after so many days. Unlike me, Glib was much more involved in the war. He would help out in the shelter and sometimes he had to tag along to deliver resources to the men at the fronts.
"Have you heard from Artem and Anna?"
I asked, hoping to reunite with my friends.
"Oh my God, you didn't know? Both of them never made it out of the garden. Yulia, it was a terrible sight."
That was the greatest shock i had since the war, everything was happening so fast. I couldn't imagine losing my best friends in that way. They weren't the only things I've lost to the war. I've lost my freedom, my happiness, my sanity not to mention the material loss, I haven't slept in a bed in fifteen days.
Meeting Glib made me so happy, he wasn't letting the war defeat his spirit, that gave me some sort of motivation.
"Yulia do you remember those days the four of us would play with pots, we will never see such days together again."
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Also, he had a crazy plan, he wanted the children to play a great role in the war.
"Glib, I don't really understand your plan."
"It's simple, the children in our country should come out as many as can volunteer and walk the streets."
"What do you mean walk the streets? There are airstrikes almost every hour."
"We must show them that there are children dying on this side as well. We must show them that we are human and we bleed and die. We must show the world how we feel."
He felt that if we show our enemies that the children are not scared to die. Perhaps if we marched the streets, with the blood of our parents, our siblings, our neighbors in our hands. It might just touch the hearts of our enemies.
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It took some days to organize, but we pulled it off. Thousands of children, with blood in their hands marched the streets of my country. That was the first day since the war began that there was no airstrikes.
The thing about wars is that it is very easy to start, but quite difficult end. I believe most of us have seen a lot and heard a lot about the war, I thought we should take a moment and think about how the children over there feel right now going through a war.