War Broken

• Isabella Lancaster, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2021

I feel so alone. Even with my two children by my side, cuddling up next to me, saturating my worn out clothes with their wet salty tears. I am in my own thoughts, I can’t concentrate. I feel like I’m dying with every step he takes away. Away from our beautiful family, going towards a terror. My husband is heading off to war to fight for our poor, beloved country.

All the other families have heard the dreadful and terrorising rumours, but who created these rumours, and what if they are shockingly true! No one really knows. None of us want to admit it to ourselves that they won’t come back, that this might be the last time we ever see them alive.

He gloomily climbs into the rusty old train with graffiti covering the dirty windows. He waves a sorrowful goodbye through the murky glass as I take my last look at the darling love of my life. Will this be the last time our eyes meet?