War Is Pain

• Mia Fenwick, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2017

The battlefield was filled with screams of the wounded and dying. The nurses were just on the horizon but, I doubted that they would make it in time. My legs ached, my bloody hand was shredded to pieces, but I had to make. It if I didn't I would never see Jane again. She was my everything. Without her, I would never have made it this far. All of the horrors, the death, the suffering. I had lost everybody but her. My parents when I was eight and my brother when I was ten. My brother had been my only comfort until he died. I was lucky that I met Jane. Without her support, I would never have survived. I was beaten and broken. My body, my heart.

I saw the nurses nearing me now. "So close, not much longer" I muttered to myself. "Hold on." I felt myself slipping. The weight of death dragging me down further towards the ground. The nurses were so close. I could barely see them through thickening fog. In a final burst of strength, I put my hand in the air to signal I was alive.

A nurse ran over and then quickly called for backup. The said words like bad and torn but nothing was broken and the cuts, not fatal. She then rolled me over to look at my back. Another nurse came over I could not see her face but I could hear her voice. It was familiar. When the nurse rolled me back into my original position I caught my first glimpse of the nurse. "Jane!" I yelled at the top of my broken voice. "Daniel," she said through tears. "Please don't talk." I shut up instantly. Then we cried together. The bombs came closer. I told her to run, to go with the nurses. She would not. I couldn't make her we sat there together. Watching the explosions rise through the fog. She smiled down at me as the world faded away. The sound of the explosion reached my ears. It was seconds later that I felt it. Death.