War

• Sky Kweon, Grade 6C
• Short Story
• 2018

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Struggling to stay calm, you forced air into your lungs, which deceived you as your breath was seemingly set aflame. What laid before you was the impossible-turned to a simple operation. War.

Buildings, reduced to rubble was now an overwhelmingly common scene as corpses rotted on streets, with a painful mist billowing through the air, sightless, but indeed fatal. Even this was unexpected. You had to find an opening, but that was impossible, too. Almost every exit was blocked by overprotective, chaotic animals, and you were to become one of them if you didn’t reach a vacant spot soon enough.

Lingering by a middle-aged man, you eventually felt the desperation fall to you, and you approached them, dragging yourself along the grit as gunshots swarmed the fluid surrounding you. As soon as you moved forward, two men lurched forward. You couldn’t see their faces through the smoke, and as soon as they were in sight, it was already too late to move back. They pinned you onto the rough floor underneath, and you were unable to attack their face—since they had gas masks. Suddenly, the burning in your lungs made sense. It was a cruel method, but it was working. Too well. At this conclusion, you passed out.