Pain

• Julia Goh, Grade 6D
• Short Story
• 2014

Pain was all I felt. Pain was what everyone felt all day every day after it started. There was a pain in my tight and swollen chest, pain in my aching and bloody legs and pain in my sore and aching heart being away from the ones I love.
As I rose from bed, my lungs more than ready to give up, I swung my legs over to the side of my inexpensive make-shift bunker to feel the cold hard, unforgiving ground which halfway across the Earth led to my family.
Joining my fellow crew members for the everyday special of plain, white and mushy, oatmeal porridge, I took a seat along with my best friend. He always had a bright and happy outlook even though we were in the middle of World War II. Gallipoli was a great place to be in if orders weren’t being barked at you every second of the time you were in the camp.
“John, do you really think we will make it out of here alive and life will go back to normal?”
“Mate, if you want something badly enough and work to get it, anything is possible.”
With that note, I was off to fight with John closely following behind me. This is it mate, the final push ad then we’ve made it and the golden gates of Gallipoli will beckon us to enter.
We ascended up the hill which could lead to our demise or our victory but the frontline was heavily guarded by soldiers armed with guns and malicious looking features. We knew many of us would not return but we were prepared to not come back and enlisting would nearly be sealing our fate, but we still did it.
The eerie silence was disrupted by battle cries followed by raining fire which did not shake us. Stampeding on the absorbent ground, we pounded towards the summit of the hill. Jack alongside me, had already engaged in a battle which he swiftly ended with a shot of a gun. Back on his feet and next to me once again, he glanced at me with a reassuring smile before collapsing to the ground.
My face contorted into horror as I see my best friend fall to the ground with the life quickly draining from his eyes. He looked at me before closing eyes for the final time.
Rising from the ground sluggishly, I felt guilt weighing me down that he was the reason for his downfall, if I weren’t here he probably would be alive but then why were fighting in the first place? What was the reason for this senseless violence? Could they have not just discussed the matter for whatever reason it was one? This was not a way to make a decision and it never will be.
Lifting my hands and letting my gun hang slack around my neck and looked into an enemies eyes before a bang rang out louder than any other.