Bang!

• Emre Cupples, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2015

I breathe deeply as I run from the war. It is dark and I can hardly see a thing in the thick snow. Tears pour out as snowflakes drift into my brown messy hair. I will freeze to death if I stay out here any longer.
I have my head down looking at the ground. The only thing keeping me warm is my blue nightie that mum made me for Christmas and the scarf that Nan gave me when I had the cold last winter.
I glance back. I can see the village in the moonlight. It is in flames and there are people running around trying to get out. I look forward again, trying to see through the snow to safety.
I hear a scream from behind me. I stop running and look back. There, just past the gates I see her. She is a small girl and has just managed to get out alive before the flames got to her. My heart feels like it stops all of a sudden. I then see a dark shadow moving towards her.
I yell out, “RUN!” but she can’t hear me. She is so scared and I think to myself, better to die trying than to not try at all. I run towards her as fast as I can, calling out to her. The shadow stops.
Bang! I gasp in air. I feel a fast and deep stab go through my chest. I fall back and slam down into the freezing, wet, solid ground. I feel something angry rush through my cold body and take my soul.
Red liquid drips down to my hip. It’s warm before it hits the chilly ground.
I feel my heart; it is pumping fast trying to move the blood through my veins.
A tear runs across my cheek and drops to the snowy grass.
I listen to the the dreadful screams that are all around me. I feel that souls are trying to get back to their bodies, but they cannot. They just keep going up and up. It’s like death is to be won. Like there is no choice to life.
Bang! Bang! Guns are shot and lives are lost. People run around in horror. They have just lost their life friends. The friend that says I will always be on your side even when it is the hardest times, the ones that say I will always be there to catch you before you fall and the ones that keep a promise to never tell a soul.
As new snow falls, men rush to the injured that lie on the white snowy ground. There are lights flashing, people in uniform race past me.
I watch helplessly as they rush past, but I can’t move; not even to tell them that I am here.
Look up at the stars. There are not many out tonight, but they do make the sky shine.
I smile and close my eyes, then let out my final breath.