Scars

• Alexandra Mitka, Grade 10, Fort Street High School
• Short Story
• 2022

Excellence Award in the 'Unleashed 2022' competition

I march towards the bridge, steel pylons guarding passage across a river that stretches towards the horizon. People filter past, immersed in their lives, unaware of the parallel universes of a thousand others. Shards of these universes filter into my own, interpreted, reinterpreted and reflected as whispers of the past, echoing in the confines of my mind.
As always, the river immerses me within a past barely repressed. It bewitches me, unlocks the door, coaxing out the memories of a life, indeed another parallel universe, one far more bloody and brutal, revealing to myself the bottomless well of grief and longing for the fallen soldiers I once called family.
The void of water can sense it. It sees and understands with a searing sympathy. It reflects this bottomless well. I wander towards the edge, leaning against a rail, icy against my fingers, my anchor to reality.
A car backfires.
‘Gunfire.’
I flinch.
‘The fanfare for the apocalypse that is the battlefield.’
Someone yells in frustration.
‘I see them, the broken bodies of innumerable battlefields, nightmares converging into this point at once, the past colliding into the present, my mind, the theatre.
The voices of the dead, my true family, they cry out in anguish.
Their sorrow echoes throughout the void, the loss of what could have been, of the life torn out of them, gunfire, their send-off, signalling Death to collect.’
A blur of people stream past me, echoes of reality slipping into my maelstrom reverie.
‘The voices wail, I can feel their loss reflected in mine, longing for the warmth of companionship once again. They reach out of the water, beckoning.’
Wind snatches away tears.
‘I too reach out, burning desire borne of an even more painful existence driving me over the edge…
I plummet towards the voices, their welcoming arms held out, peace settling into me and I am free, I am finally free, my soul uncaged from that freezing well of isolating despair…
The faces are turned up towards me, and, as if a fog has lifted, their features contort, their arms held out to stop me as they scream, over and over, “Did our sacrifice mean anything to you at all?” The horror and shame mirrored in the crowd of people who clamour as my universe crashes into theirs.
Elation withers into horrific revelation, and my stomach curdles as the water races towards me and, no I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, I DON’T WANT T-‘
A hand on my shoulder implodes my internal mirage, and my body tenses, adrenaline crackling, dropping into a defensive stance, battlefield instinct sharpening my vision into a razor edge, fists raised-
"Woah, woah, are you alright?"
The words shatter the haze of battle, its tendrils that never truly left.
A smile spreads across my face, and I gaze into the eyes of the unwary by passer. ‘They say eyes are the window to the soul.’
"Of course I am."
‘Coward.’
But what choice do I have?