War Story

• Sascha Brown, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2017

I woke up suddenly, as I looked around I saw the cold steel bars that shielded me from the outside world. I sat up and peered through the thick prison bars, a military guard came to the door and I tried to reason with him. All the destruction and bombing outside had just about defeated me, all I wanted was peace. It was no surprise that I had once trusted the colonel with my life but now he was the one who had made me a prisoner. I sat on the cement bed that was chained to the wall staring out the window. The sound of crying and screams rang in my ears. I couldn’t seem to get them out of my head.
The day before we had been on a mission just the colonel and I. The job was to evacuate some civilians from the floods in the lower town. But the job hadn’t been as easy as we thought we got into a crisis. One of the people we had been rescuing fell into the water and I dived in after them in the water the current was making them slip away from me. I relied on my instincts, clapped my legs together and managed to grasp their arm. When I was able to get them out safely I asked the colonel to help but he had refused. Once were back in the army camp the colonel had accused me of physical assault of the person I had saved.
I was crushed but the head of the army camp decided to believe him and called that we have an election to deicide my fate. The democracy vote was that I was guilty and no casualty was given. I thought that in the army I had been considered guerrilla. I had volunteered many times in many different battles to give my life to help get to victory. And now I sat in a cold dark cell watching the security guards campaign for people’s misfortune. My eyes had now been opened that the army was corrupt and cold hearted. In my opinion only half of the army camp was not cold hearted and careless. So now it was my job to get out of this dead cell and stop the colonel from doing any more damage.
This was the fuel inside of me that urged me to keep fighting and pushing the idea of insanity further and further back inside my head. I was determined to get out. Suddenly I heard a loud noise I glanced around and to my great relief saw the guard leaning against the wall snoring loudly. I was lucky. as my arm would just fit through the bars. I leaned as far forward until I felt my back was about to break and managed to clutch the keys in my fingertips. I reeled them back and fed them through the bars one turn of the key and the light of day and the soft sent of grass overwhelmed me. It was over I now could do something over through the colonel.