I can't feel my feet anymore. I don't know how long I've been standing here. My hands are shaking, my legs numb, but my heart… my heart feels like it's being crushed under the weight of something far heavier than it was ever meant to carry. But I don't move. I can't. It's like my body is made of stone, rooted to the ground, but inside, everything is collapsing. The world outside is collapsing. I hear the explosions. They're distant, but they still rattle the walls of the building. I hear the gunfire, the screams, and the sirens. Everything in this world is so loud, so violent, but none of it makes a difference to me anymore. None of it changes the fact that I'm empty. Hollow. I thought that war, the chaos, would be the worst thing that could happen to me. But it's not. It's not. What's worse is living in a world where nothing is real. Where everything hurts, and no one notices. The war outside is just noise. A backdrop to my own personal war. A war that's been raging inside of me long before the bombs started falling, before the sirens started wailing. The silence in the room is suffocating. It presses down on me, making it harder to breathe, harder to think. I don't even know if I can remember what it's like to breathe without this weight on my chest. It's been days, but it feels like I've been trapped in this nightmare for a lifetime. I look at my mother's lifeless body. I want to reach out, to shake her, to scream at her to wake up, but I know it's too late. She's gone. I've already lost her. The world took her from me. I can't do anything to stop it. She died in the wreckage. When the building collapsed, I couldn't hear her anymore. There was dust everywhere, and I couldn't see her through the smoke. But I could still feel her. I could still hear her gasping for breath, struggling to hold onto something, anything, but there was nothing to hold onto anymore. Her grip loosened, and I felt the warmth of her hand slip away. I wasn't ready for this. I wasn't ready to lose her. I wasn't ready for the pain. The agony. But here it is, tearing through me like a bullet through flesh. I was never ready for any of this. When the war started, everything changed. The whole world turned upside down. The streets are full of ash now, and the air smells like burning metal. The sky is always gray. There's nothing left to hope for. People are gone. Families are scattered. And I'm just… I'm just here. Still alive. Still breathing. But it feels like it's pointless. Like I'm just existing. I want to scream, but there's no one left to hear me. The world is too loud. Too chaotic. Too broken. I know I should be more grateful that I'm still here. That I still have the chance to run, to escape, to be free. But what's the point of running when there's nothing to run to? When everything is broken, when everyone I've ever loved is gone or dying, when the world is in pieces? I think back to the last time I saw my father. It's strange how you remember some things so clearly, even though you want to forget them. I remember his voice, his laugh, the way he would ruffle my hair before he left for work. I remember how he would promise me that everything would be fine, that we'd get through it, no matter what. He was wrong. He died in the war too. I don't know how, or when, or where. I just know that one day he was there, and the next, he was gone. My mother never talked about it. She never talked about anything after that. She just… faded. Slowly, little by little, like she was disappearing piece by piece. But the war, it didn't care about that. It didn't care that she was falling apart inside. It didn't care that I was falling apart too. The war didn't care about anything. It's funny, isn't it? The things we care about. The things we hold onto in the middle of all this chaos. My mother, she was my everything while I still question what I was for her. And now she's gone, before I find the answer to my question and all that's left is this empty shell of a world, this broken, shattered thing that I don't even recognize anymore. I think about the war, about the destruction. About the fact that it's easier now, in a way. I don't have to go to school anymore. I don't have to wear the mask anymore. That stupid, suffocating mask that's always been a part of me. The mask I wore to pretend that everything was fine, that I was okay, that I had it all together. But I didn't. I never did. I wasn't okay. I wasn't fine. And now, I don't have to pretend anymore. But I don't feel free. I don't feel like I've escaped. I feel like I've been left behind, like I'm still here, still stuck in this wreckage. But there's no one left to save me. There's no one left to even care. My mother… I don't even know if she knew how much I needed her. I don't know if she ever understood how much I depended on her to hold me together. But now she's gone, and I'm left with nothing. Nothing. I wonder if she knew she was going to die. I wonder if she had a moment, just one moment, where she realized that there was nothing more she could do, nothing more she could give me. Maybe she knew, and that's why she was always so distant, so cold. Maybe she was just waiting for it to be over. But I didn't want her to go. I didn't want to be alone. I didn't want to face this world without her. I stare at the walls around me. The shattered remnants of our lives. The dust from the collapse still hangs in the air, a reminder of everything we lost, of everything we'll never get back. The silence is unbearable now. But then, through the haze, I hear something. A soft, distant sound. A gun. It's faint, almost like a dream, but it's there. It's real. It cuts through the silence like a knife, and I'm torn between wanting to escape from it and wanting to stay where I am and wait for my end. But I can't stay here. I have the chance to live. I push myself forward, one step at a time. My legs feel heavy, like I'm wading through mud. But I have to go. I have to continue walking, to witness the state our world is in. Because maybe, just maybe, this is the sign I've been waiting for to finally get out.
