Remember

• Tess McWilliams, Grade 7, Mackillop Senior College
• Short Story
• 2018

Excellence Award in the 'Write Along 2018' competition

My vision penetrated through the incredible darkness by the sheer luck of sunrise, striking down its enemy. Blood from fallen soldiers soaked into the uncharacteristic sunrise, painting the picture of the misery last night’s raid had caused. Bodies littered the ground, reminding me painfully of the pollution in Adelaide. Dust caked the camp, lashing out at anyone who moved. This horror was the sign of a lost war.
My hands grasped at the rocky trenches we called home. The unbearable stench, blending in with the depressing reality. Endless silence wrapped around us as we hauled lifeless bodies from the field. Shock dispersed as a new wave of fear rolled in. We had only hours to be prepared for the final stand and all I could think about are your eyes when you realised, I wasn't coming back home. I'm sorry.
Their silhouette was barbaric, with weapons of all sorts in clear sight. Over the endless silence their boots attacking the ground reached our ears. We raised our guns towards the hopeless end for when the first shot went out, we were terribly outnumbered. Our backs to the fallen and to a calm, peaceful life, we attacked.
My ears seemed to close down as terror was unleashed. Our defences weakened incredibly as countless of our army dispersed. Beside me, the only soldier I had ever come to recognise collapsed and before I had the chance to react, an unbearable pain pierced by chest. My screams lost in the gunshots and shouts of the enemy. All it did was motivate them, as agonising pain racked my body, with no friendly faces to save me and I thought, that this was surely the end.
When all is lost, I remember why I came here, to save you, to protect you and in my dying moments I remember your face and your touch and all I can hope for is that in the end though you will be sad and challenges like no other face you, you will remember me as the one who sat next to you on that bench 20 years ago, the person who was beaten cruelly to defend you, the one who put their life on the line for you, the one who went to war to save you but most importantly the person who said hello to you that first Monday you went to school. I wish not to be remembered as a hero but a man recognised for that moment when I chose to give up on being popular and to stand up for what is right, not what is easy. That choice where I turned away my rich, emotionless family to sit with a young girl I had never seen in my life. I want to be remembered by you.