As I sift through the brittle shards of my memories, I find only shadows and broken edges. Once, there was light—once, I could even dream. Now, those fragile glimmers are gone, like distant stars swallowed by darkness. Every time I sleep, I am dragged back, back to the day that twisted me into this cold, hollow thing, to that hell. And I can never escape it nor would I want to.

I was thirteen, barely on the cusp of understanding the world, and it was supposed to be a day of joy. My father, and my mother—they took the day off, just for me. We were going skiing; I could already picture their smiles as they hit the slopes, laughter echoing through the cold mountain air. They’d worked so hard, and given so much, and I wanted to give them this one small joy, to see them happy. I dreamed about it for days—the crispness of the snow, the way it would crunch under our feet, and the excitement of gliding down that endless white expanse.

But it wasn’t snow I heard that day. It was screams—agonized, terror-filled cries from people who had been my friends, my neighbors. Then came the crackling, hissing roar of flames. Soldiers lined the streets, fire licking up from their torches and flamethrowers, casting grotesque shadows as the flames danced. They laughed, cruel and pitiless, as children, as families, burned.

I remember the moment everything changed. Our neighbor, eyes wide with desperation, knocked on the door, her words tumbling out in a panicked rush. Her brother was trapped under a fallen shelf, his leg pinned and twisted. The paramedics were delayed, and she begged my mother, a nurse, to help. I see my mother’s face, pale but determined, agreeing without a second thought. It was who she was—someone who helped without hesitation. My father went to help my mother try to save the guy. If only they’d known.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

I stayed behind, trying to calm his sister as she dialed the emergency line, clutching the phone with shaking hands. The line crackled with static, and when a voice finally came through, it was like the hollow echo of a faraway place. She asked, again and again, how long until help arrived. The answer hit her like ice: no paramedics were coming.

In our small town of just sixty people, we were isolated, cut off from the busy pulse of the world beyond. It was a place for quiet lives and quiet people, a place where no one had ties beyond the mountains and the endless stretches of empty road. Our world was small and safe—at least, I thought it was. But that day, I learned how wrong I’d been.

That’s how they made it look so easy. The soldiers crept in, invisible and unnoticed, cutting off our phone lines, our radios, our lives. They turned us into a blank spot on the map, severed from anyone who might have noticed our absence. We were utterly alone when they swept through our streets, faceless, unrelenting, each step of their boots a mockery of every peaceful morning we’d taken for granted.

Had we left earlier—had we already been on the road, carving tracks through that untouched snow—maybe things would’ve been different. Maybe the people here, the ones I grew up with, would still be laughing and living their simple lives. Maybe I would be too. Hell, maybe I’d even still be human.

But no. That small choice, that one gesture of kindness, held us back. My mother and father gave up our escape to save a neighbor, and I... I was left with nothing but the memory of how we were betrayed by our own country.