War Shadows

• Lauren Ivory, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2016

The snow falls softly on the windowsill, mountains cover the landscape and fluffy clouds paint the sky. The overwhelming screams of silence fill the atmosphere as walls of wooden planks surround me. I can’t stand being around other humans, not after all I’ve been through. Excruciating pain, not physically but mentally. The blackness creeps inside of me, a demon in the darkness. The war changes people; my mind will never heal from the sanity that was lost.
“Ring, ring… ring, ring”
No, not again. Please don’t be Jonathon again.
I’m scared to move, the wolves will come attack me. I carefully tread over to the phone and hesitantly pick it up.
“Hello? Who is this?”
The sound on the other side is an eerie silence until I hear the panting of a man.
“TOMMY WE NEED COVER NOW!”
The voice howls into my ear like a wolf. I slam the phone against the dusty wood. It can’t be, Jonathon is dead. I was the only survivor from my barrack. Is this real or just my mind playing tricks on me again?
“Ring, ring… ring, ring”
I feel the wolves closing in at me from all corners of the cabin walls. They’re pushing me towards the phone that deafens the growls. I leap towards the phone and pick it up once again.
“Jonathon, is this you?”
“Tommy, follow me I know a trench nearby that will protect us from the guns. We have to pass the shore and then hide above the hill but once we get to the trench we will be safe, trust me.”
My body shakes with adrenaline and fear rushing through every vein in my body.
“Jonathon, the wolfs are trying to kill me, what do I do?” I rasply say.
“Come on, Tommy follow me and you will be safe.”
I know I should trust him.
“Bang, bang, bang!”
“JONATHON?! Are you alright?” I say, my voice full of worry. After a long minute of silence and muffled voices Jonathon finally speaks again.
“Tommy, the troops are here already. Go ahead without me, I’m as good as dead. My gun is out of bullets and I’m shot in both my legs.”
His voice trails away, too weak to continue.
An inhuman sound escapes my mouth and tears come pouring down my traumatised face.
“Jonathon, I can’t leave you.”
Though I already know that he’s dead as I hear one last breath escape his mouth and whisper in my ear, RUN.
Then a wolf’s growl sparks through the phone. It’s the shadows coming after me for leaving Jonathon behind. So I do what I did in the war, I run.
The growls grow louder and louder until suddenly they all stop. My mind snaps back to reality and I find myself in the middle of the numbingly cold snow with the telephone in my hand and the previously severed cord lying dead on the ground dragged through the snow?
How did I get here again?