I was running. Faster than I ever had before. I had to get out of there before I got hurt. Blisters and scrapes could not stop me then. Wind blew my curly chestnut brown hair in my face and behind me, making it a gnarled mess. I didn’t care. It was raining fire, literally. Bombs fell from the sky, blasting everything that dared cross their path into smithereens. I kept running, faster and faster. I had to get away from the treacherous event.

“Danielle!” I heard a weak voice call. The voice was high pitched and squeaky from pain.

I spun around to a sight that would never leave my mind, even if I lived for a hundred years. My little brother was laying about 200 meters away from me. He was bloodied and bruised; his face looked like it had been the battleground of this stupid war instead of New York. His crumpled form made him look miserable, like a cat drowning in a pond. I knew he probably was in misery. It looked like his foot was broken, and I was sure quite a few other bones were broken too.

“No!” I screamed, “Benji hold on!”

I started running, back to the disaster I was just running from. I realized how selfish I was being earlier, running away from my troubles. Forgetting about my brother. How could I forget about Benji? I ran faster, powered by fury filled adrenaline. Benji hadn’t done anything to deserve getting hurt so badly. I was halfway there, I could reach him! I had to get to him, to save him.

Then I saw it. It looked like it was falling in slow motion. I had to get there before it did! I couldn’t let him go when I was so close! But it kept falling, and I kept running. The bomb was going to beat me there. I couldn’t even hold him in my arms one last time.

“I love you Benji!” I shouted. If I couldn’t get to him, then those had to be the last words he heard.

With a monstrous boom, the bomb exploded. It seemed so much worse than all the others. That’s because it was. It landed so close to Benji, right in front of him. His eyes had found mine when it happened. They were scared, but still faithful, as if he hoped I would still get to him in time. Ripples made their way through his body, separating him as they went along. Then a shockwave pushed me down, farther away from Benji. My ears started ringing. Salty tears found their way down my cheek to a shrapnel filled gash. Benji had just been blown to bits in front of my eyes. I couldn’t think anymore, I was numb. All I did was lay there, crying, in a pool of my own blood.

I tried to open my eyes, but when I did, I had to close them tight right away. I saw Benji’s hand. The fingers were broken, and his wrist was oozing blood where it had been severed from the rest of his body.

“No. No,” I whimpered. My strength was fading away, my adrenaline diminishing after it was over. My whole body shook, racked with sobs as I lay there. “BENJI!!!” I screamed. This couldn’t have happened. “HE DIDN’T DO ANYTHING!” I yelled at the world.

I didn’t even have the strength to cry anymore. My whole world had just been shredded apart by a bomb dropped by people who didn’t even know what they had done. They didn’t know the people they were wreaking havoc on. They didn’t know that they had just killed an innocent child. Not just an innocent child; my brother. My only family left.



I woke up at two in the morning, my stomach tied in knots and my mind whirling around like a drunken ballerina. My breathing was hitched and uneven. I looked down at Benji beside me and seeing him asleep and peaceful, not dead or dismembered at all, calmed me down like it usually did. Closing my eyes, I willed my body to relax back into the comfortable couch.

Somehow that nightmare gets me every time. You’d think I’d know it was not actually happening because I’ve had the same dream every night for a long time. It’s just such a vivid, clear picture in my head- the tall gray buildings with smoke and licking flames pouring out the windows instead of light, the rubble on the ground that was stained like a wilting rose (some parts a stale brown and others still a vibrant scarlet), the noiseless sleek black planes shooting by faster than a bullet, while dropping grenades and other disasters. How could I ever imagine something so cruel and sad? Nightmares shouldn’t be so detailed, so crisp and sharp that they couldn’t possibly be anything but real.

I rubbed my eyes and sighed, knowing I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep even though I was tired. I was so tired. All I wanted to do was sleep, but I just couldn’t. I knew that if I tried to sleep, Benji would be there, calling after me, curling up in pain, dying.

Every time I go to sleep I try to think about all the happy memories- the memories of mom, dancing with dad, before he left. Before mom died of the one thing that our advanced society still cannot cure. But it doesn’t help. I still have that terrible nightmare.

I closed my eyes, resting them and my body. I felt like a piece of jello, seeping into our couch, not really able to get up again. How did I do it? How on earth did I get up every day, knowing it was going to be the same cycle over and over again? “Waking up” at 7 in the morning, going to the store and stealing, never talking, never learning, never meeting someone new. Going home and letting Benji think that I was okay, that this world was okay, that we’d be fine.

One day I was going to lie down and not get up. I would let myself sleep with no worries, in peace. But that day was not allowed to come for me until Benji was ready. Until I was ready to let Benji go. I had to stay strong for him, at least until then.

Benji had never seen me cry. I didn’t remember the last time I cried. I was not going to cry in front of him. I was strong, and he needed me to be his rock. He was only twelve years old, why did he have to go through so much?

Our dad left us almost a year ago. I wish it was one of those classic tales where he never said goodbye. But it wasn’t. He came home one day, and he told us he was going to leave us. He had found someone better than us. He didn’t want anything to do with us anymore. All he wanted was to run away from his troubles, to leave us and go for the easy, rich life.

“You don’t understand,” He told me. “You’re too young.”

“I’m older than you think,” I said as I gazed into his eyes, letting him see the knowledge they held. I understood exactly what he was doing. He was leaving us to fend for ourselves, so selfishly, just so he could run off with some beautiful young lady who had daddy’s money.

“You do not understand, honey. This life will be much better for me, and I have to go so that I can keep you safe.” BS! He was lying. I knew my father, and he was lying straight to my face. He wasn’t leaving to keep my family safe! There wasn’t even anything he needed to keep us safe from! If anything, we were probably going to be less safe without him at home!

“You’re leaving us so you don’t have to deal with us!” I shouted at him. “You know something more than me, and you’re afraid of it! All you want is to get away from it before it happens, so you won’t have any responsibilities!”

I could hear his teeth squeak as they clenched together, his jaw muscles twisting and his lips hardening into a fine line. He was not my dad anymore. He was an angry version of himself, and things didn’t go well when Daddy got angry.

“Don’t pretend you know what I’m doing, you little twerp! This is none of your business, and you’re just a stupid little girl tricking herself into thinking she is already grown up!” His face got closer as he spat each word, and it took all of my guts not to flinch. I thought he was going to hit me, and I could tell he thought he was going to also.

My lips were curled up in a snarl as I said the last words I ever spoke to him. “I am older than you! Admit it! You’re the scared little girl, running away from love, from all her problems. You’re that little girl who won’t realize how much of a mistake she made until it’s too late. And who do you think I am? I’m that wise old man who everyone thinks is insane, but he’s really the smartest man on earth. I’m the man who hurts inside, but doesn’t let anyone see it. I’m the one who sticks with his choices until the end, even if the end is the most terrible thing. So why don’t you tell me why you’re leaving? Oh wait, I know. You’re running away from all the things you love because there’s one little bump that will hurt you. It’s going to hurt us too! I may not know what it is yet, but I know it will hurt us, and you’re not going to be around when it does, so that the crash won’t hurt you. You don’t care about us, and you are not my father.”

I wanted him to stop me when I was running to my room. I was wishing he would grab my wrist and say, “I’m so sorry, I was wrong, I’ll never hurt you, please forgive me.” But instead he stood there and took every word I threw at him in swing, not showing any emotion to what I said. He made me feel worthless.

The worst part might not even have been my dad. It could’ve been that my mom was going along with it. I could tell she was sad to see him go by her closed-off expression, but she put up a façade that said she was okay with it and he was allowed to leave without her even being angry with him. She didn’t stand up for me when he was yelling at me. Didn’t even flinch. She made me feel even more worthless.

I wished that had never happened. I wished this ‘Adriayne’ figure never came into my father’s life. I wished I could be a kid still. Why did I have to grow up so fast? Why would Benji have to grow up so fast? It’s not fair!

Keeping up the routine of unfair things in my life, I didn’t find out that my mom had cancer until a week before she died. She kept it a secret from Benji and I for six months after dad left. Was she afraid that we would leave her too?

Rubbing my eyes again, I decided to end my little pity party before the disturbing images of my mom’s disease worked their way into my brain. There was nothing we could do about that now, so why did it matter?

Sometimes I wondered if my nightmares about Benji were because of my father. In the beginning of the dream, I’m running away, forgetting about him. Being selfish. That’s why Benji died, in my dream. Was I like my father? Was I going to let down the ones I love?

No. I was nothing like my father. I was not going to leave people in their time of need. I was not going to leave Benji when he still needed me.

I looked at the clock again. It was still only three in the morning. I shouldn’t have gotten up until seven, so Benji could sleep. But I needed to go outside, to clear my mind.

Slowly, I slid out from under Benji’s side and laid him on the arm rest or our couch. It did not look very comfortable- his head was lolled over the edge and his neck was just hanging their limply. Oh well, he’ll shift in his sleep if he gets too uncomfortable. I was so lucky he was a heavy sleeper.

Walking out the rotting wood door at the front of the abandoned store basement we were living in, I looked down at my wet feet. I didn’t put any shoes on before I left. I liked it better that way when I was running. It felt so free. I started jogging at a slow pace, getting used to the hard cold alleyway ground slapping against my feet.

Faster and faster, I pushed myself. I didn’t feel the pain on the inside, all I felt was the pain on the outside, the pain that was tingling its way through my body.

My feet were getting bruised, my toes were getting stubbed. I stepped on a rock. It didn’t matter; all that mattered was that I was running. My legs strained as they bent and straightened, propelling myself forward, gaining momentum the farther I went. My spine started aching from twisting as my arms pumped by my sides. The air was sharp and cold as I sucked it in. I could feel the burn of that run spreading down my throat and into my chest. My lungs were on fire. My legs were on fire. My feet were on fire. The pounding in my head grew when I didn’t stop- I just kept running.

Running was my escape. When I was running, I couldn’t think about all the pain my heart was feeling. I could only think about the agony that my body was in. It might sound stupid, like so many people have said it, but that’s only because it’s completely true.

I wiped some sweat off my forehead and slowed to a stop, breathing hard. I leaned over and put my hands on my knees. Each breath hurt, individually scraping its way up and down my throat. I spat on the ground, watching the bubbles spread into the little crevices in the pavement. The sweat from my forehead poured into my eyes and dripped to the ground from my eyelashes.

I stood back up straight, trying to slow my ragged breathing. Eventually my ribcage stopped swelling and I got my breathing back into my stomach- where it should be. I swallowed the extra saliva that was building up in my mouth and leaned against the cool door of some random building I had stopped by.

My mind had slowed down and started to swirl with new thoughts again. Was I like my father, running away from my troubles? That was literally what I was doing- running away from the pain. Some might say that made me exactly like my father.

But I disagree. There was a key difference between us. I come back home. Once I’ve run away, I’ve never even thought about never going back. Unlike my father, I was loyal and I didn’t ever want to leave. I was tougher than him, and I didn’t need to go crying for help to him now or ever. I had been living in the store basement for a couple of months, I could do it forever. Or at least until I turned 16, when I could get a job and pretend to be a drop out from school. You’re technically not allowed to drop out until you’re sixteen, which was another reason why Benji and I were hiding.

My mom told us to find our father before she died. She told us to forgive him, that he might have cleared his mind and now he’ll take us in. I don’t forgive and forget as easily as my mom. I think I got that from my father.

On my way back home, I finally let myself think about my mom’s death. In my head, I could see crystal clear images of her in a hospital bed. Her usually beautiful brown locks were chunky and matted, smearing across her forehead with sweat. Her bottom lip was trembling and her usually wide, excited eyes were shut tight in fear and pain. There is no other way to describe it- her face was grey-scaled and sickly. Her eyebrows were furrowed, creating large creases in her otherwise perfect skin.

She looked so helpless. She was always the strongest person in our family, but right then, she was frightened and weak.

The last words she said to me by myself were, “Take care of Benji. Find your father, I know he’ll help. I know you’ll do the right thing for you guys. I love you.”
The last words that she ever spoke to anyone were, “Tell your dad I love him if you ever see him again.” It broke my heart. After all that she had to go through without him, she still loved him and wanted to be with him.

I didn’t want to see my father ever again, but it was her dying wish. I knew I would do it one day, just for her. While I was telling him that she loved him, I’d tell him that I hated him. Those are the words that I wanted to say but never got up the courage to before he left.

When I arrived back at home, I tried to go back to sleep but I couldn’t. So many things were crowding my mind and they wouldn’t stop. So I just sat on my couch, with my eyes closed for the last two hours until I could normally get up.