He Destroyed My World

• Isabella Papadimitriou, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2017

Sweat, salty and wet, trickles down my face like rain against a window pane. It drips as I run for what seems like an eternity. I can’t stop now. Not when I can feel his presence closing in on me. I must fight every urge to surrender. I can hear my heart pounding louder, desperate to escape. Escape. Sounds easy, yet it feels impossible.
Brave and tenacious I fight. For a better life. Against the screams that will forever torment me. As I continue to run, the sweat continues to pour. Everything is scorched. He has done this. He abolished our tranquillity and our beauty. Now, fires have scorched the Earth, ravaging everything in sight. These fires are his breath, hot and destructive. Breathing down on us, laughing at our sorrow.
A sudden stab of pain shoots through my body like a bullet from a gun. The instantaneous agony brings me to my knees. Looking down, it disturbs me. My leg, once undamaged, now with a piece of debris burrowed into my calf like an ostrich with its head in the sand. He has struck me from behind. Trying to stop me. The pain is so unbearable, all I can do is lie here alone and frightened. I feel his evil smirk behind me, happy with what he has done.
Dust whips around me with the scent of the souls that didn’t make it out alive. The restless. I am scarred by the things I’ve encountered. Things that even my worst nightmares couldn’t imagine. Watching him tear limbs off is a permanent stain. A stain like red wine that will never come out regardless how many times you soak it.
I feel my heartbeat pounding trying desperately to keep me alive. Determined. My brain has almost forfeited, but my heart presses on. I will not give him the satisfaction of winning. With a change of mindset, I steadied myself enough to sit up. Agonisingly, I move my leg to access the damage. A triangular piece of metal is burrowed into my skin two inches deep. The skin around the wound is mangled like a ravenous dog has just devoured the flesh off a carcass. Intensifying, I must make a move now. I either die helpless, or die trying.
Transferring my weight onto my hands, I gingerly attempt to get up. Every movement is like a knife being twisted further into my leg. I step onto my good leg hoping with all my will, escaping into the woods will be manageable. As I start to make my agonising voyage across the plains, I could hear one of the bosses he had conscripted yell, “Cease fire!” Those two words were music to my ears. Instantly, the screams stopped and the shouting ended. The gunfire halted and the cannons weren’t reloaded. I think it’s over. I think I’ll survive. I fall to the floor in relief.
He is horrendous, he is petrifying, he is war.
Now, he is over.