I'll Bring A War

It’s dark when I wake up. When sleep fails me after trying for what seems like hours I get up. Slinking out of my sleeping bag and creeping out of camp as quietly as I can as to not wake anyone, I reach the end of the dunes and watch the night. I sit on the ground and look up at the sky. With no pollution in the middle of the desert, the sky shines like a million fireflies. I even see a few shooting stars.

“Make a wish,” a voice says behind me and I jump. “It’s okay Kiera, it’s only me, Andy,” he says it urgently. What happened earlier? I decide to ask him, all I remember is Izzy’s body and Ali’s eyes in that shadow soldiers. I shudder at the thought. After that someone talking to me whilst I was sick, after that I tried to run and when they caught me again I couldn’t breathe and then, “Did I pass out?”
“Out cold, have been for hours.” He replies.
“Was it real?” I asked him, differentiating between dreams and reality was getting harder and harder. “It was just a dream," he confirms before a silence waves over us, “I’m sorry you were there for so long.”
“It’s my fault” I laugh at him, “I wanted to stay for the kids. It would have been only a couple more weeks.” I sigh as sadness fills me, all I can do is pray for their safety and hope that when we attack that it’ll be successful. Andy puts one arm around me as we sit and watch the city of stars above us.

“Andy?”
“Yes Kiera.”
“What do they do to them?” My voice comes out shaking.
“I really don’t even want to think about it,” Andy replies sorrowfully, “No one has escaped so far, and everyone knows how we got loads of them out those years ago. But we haven’t been able to break in again since then, we tried a few times and each time we got in but before we could get anyone out we had to run. We lost many of our people in those attacks and deciding that we couldn’t risk any more lives we’ve been preparing since then and recruiting from the south. The people we got out that time had marks and scars all over their body and although many of them have gotten almost back to who they were before, some people never recovered.” I gulp at the thought of Ali in the Temple of F.E.A.R; hopefully they kept him until last. However, grudgingly knowing Ali I knew that he would most probably get himself in trouble beforehand, standing up for something or someone. There will never come a day where I don’t admire my brother. Andy’s grip around me tightens and I realise that I’m crying. I haven’t cried as much as I have in the past few days ever. It’s like the years of running has finally caught up with me now my partner in crime is gone.

The next time I wake up I hear Andy’s soft voice singing next to me. It is peaceful and melodic in the torturous desert and I feel myself relaxing into his embrace and falling asleep.
When I wake up it is morning. The routine is the same. We eat, pack up camp and set off. Today I am more talkative, despite the events of last night and it seems to pass much quicker too. I feel like I could carry on walking when darkness settles and Jinxx tells me that we’re going to set up camp for the night. I fall asleep quickly, but the same gory images of bodies and uncomfortable encounters with shadow soldiers wake me up once again. I spend the rest of the night lying awake in my sleeping bag. The next day drags by and I am grateful for the breaks we take and when dusk comes the thought of setting up camp picks up my mood. That night we pile into a cave, it’s cramped but at least we are warm.

A scream makes me sit bolt upright in my sleep...

Notes

Thought that's a pretty successful start for the first day:) Hope everyone likes it, any feedback or general comments appreciated.