The city is unrecognizable. I walk through the ruins, my feet dragging against the dirt and debris that litter the ground. The air is thick with smoke, heavy with the scent of burning flesh and rotting corpses. The sky is a muted gray, the sun hidden behind layers of dust and destruction. There is no warmth here, no light. Only shadows. Only death. The streets that once held laughter and life are now graveyards of shattered glass and broken dreams. Buildings lean against each other like weary soldiers, their walls scarred and punctured by bullets. Some have crumbled entirely, reduced to nothing but piles of rubble, burying whatever remnants of the past lay beneath them. I pass an abandoned playground. The swings hang motionless, the chains rusted and bent. The slide is half-buried in the dirt, its metal twisted and melted from the heat of an explosion. A doll lies face down in the mud, its once bright eyes now gone. A memory flickers in the back of my mind—laughter, small hands grasping the bars of the jungle gym, a mother calling out a name. But the memory is distant, like something I imagined rather than something I lived. I blink, and the silence swallows it whole. I keep walking. People move like ghosts through the wreckage, their faces gaunt, their eyes hollow. They don't speak. They barely breathe. I watch them from a distance, taking in the way they clutch at their ribs, the way their fingers tremble as they search for scraps of food in the dirt. There is no kindness left here. No humanity. Just survival. Just suffering. A child sits on the steps of what was once a bakery. His clothes are too large for his frail frame, his cheeks sunken. He doesn't cry. He doesn't move. He just stares at the ground, as if waiting for it to swallow him whole. I should feel something. Pity, sorrow, anger. But I don't. I'm too tired. Too empty. I pass a group of men huddled around a makeshift fire, their voices hushed, their eyes darting around like frightened animals. One of them clutches a bloodstained cloth to his arm, his face twisted in pain. Another sharpens a knife with slow, deliberate strokes, his expression unreadable. I don't stop. I don't ask questions. There's no point. Everyone here has lost something. Everyone here is broken. The sound of boots against pavement makes me freeze. Soldiers. I duck behind the crumbling remains of a wall, pressing myself against the cold stone. My breath is shallow, my heart a steady thud in my ears. They pass by, their uniforms stained with dirt and blood, their rifles slung carelessly over their shoulders. They laugh. One of them spits onto the ground, muttering something under his breath. Another wipes a hand across his brow, his fingers smearing something red across his cheek. I should wait. I should turn and go the other way. But then I hear it. A scream. Not the kind that fades into the background of war, not the kind that blends into the symphony of suffering that plays on an endless loop in this ruined world. This scream is different. This scream is raw. This scream is agony. I don't want to look. But I do. She is on her knees, her face streaked with tears and dirt. Her hands are bound behind her back, her body shaking with violent sobs. The soldiers surround her, their expressions twisted with something dark, something monstrous. One of them kneels before her, gripping her chin with rough fingers, forcing her to look at him. He says something I can't hear, but she shakes her head. He hits her and plays with her body. She crumples to the ground, her body curling in on itself. One of the soldiers laughs. Another nudges her with his boot. She doesn't move. A part of me wants to turn away. To pretend I didn't see. To pretend I don't know what's about to happen. But I can't move. My feet are rooted to the ground, my body frozen in place. She looks up, her eyes meeting mine for the briefest of moments. And I see it. The fear. The resignation. The betrayal. The understanding that no one is coming to save her. That this is how her story ends. And then they drag her away. I don't follow. I don't stay. I just keep walking. The world is cruel. I've known that for a long time. But some things are worse than cruelty. Some things are so vile, so sickening, that they don't even feel real. But this is real. This is the world I live in. I keep my head down, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. The wind howls through the broken buildings, carrying the echoes of her screams, the scent of decay. I don't think about the woman. I don't think about what happened to her. Because if I do, I might never stop thinking about it. I walk for hours. Maybe longer. My legs ache, my body heavy with exhaustion. I don't know where I'm going. There's nowhere to go. Nowhere that isn't touched by this endless, senseless destruction. Then I hear it. A sound that doesn't belong in this world. A sound that shouldn't exist in a place like this. A lullaby. It's faint, carried on the wind like a whisper. Soft. Gentle. So out of place that for a moment, I think I'm imagining it. But it's real. It's real, and it's coming from somewhere close. I follow the sound, my steps slow, hesitant. The melody is sad, almost mournful, but there is something comforting about it, something that tugs at the frayed edges of my soul. The sound leads me to a warehouse, its walls scarred with bullet holes, its windows shattered. The entrance is slightly open, a sliver of darkness waiting beyond it. I hesitate. The song continues. I take a step forward. Then another. The world behind me is nothing but ruins and living corpses, but this song… this song is something else, it's like the sun who hasn't shined for a long time. It's something I can't explain. And so, I walk toward it. Toward whatever waits for me inside.
