A Battlefield

I am struggling to express myself right now or introduce my thoughts in a coherent manner, so I may as well just start off without any introduction.

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She knew there was a threat coming, but she did not know the form that it would take, nor what manner in which it would arrive, nor when it would arrive. She only knew that the threat was alive and coming closer. In the first hours of that morning, she knew "when" had arrived because there was silence from the other side. Truly, the silence before the storm.

The hours that followed were filled with dread and panicked calls to command centres asking for help in whatever form was available. The other side had finally asked one simple request, which she knew meant the end. And she waited, unable to flee from the coming storm and hoping that something would happen to possibly avert disaster, but time sped her towards a darkness that she had prayed against for weeks.

She watched the darkness approach, unable to believe the enormity and reality of it. Every muscle in her body screamed for her to flee from this storm, but the darkness held her tight and she had nowhere to run. Her fists pounded at the darkness til she was exhausted, but it was unmoving and silent in the face of her pleas for mercy or more time.

And then the bomb fell, shattering the darkness and revealing the victims. In the brilliance of the blast, she could see the outcome and the carnage for an instant before clouds of smoke engulfed the vision and left her choking for breath. Flames ate her bones and sought to burn her heart, turning water droplets into steam before they could touch her and bring salvation or healing.

As the weeks passed, the flames were subdued but their presence remained, smoldering among the victims and occasionally grabbing at her heart again. They were still hungry, but now streams of water were flowing in to douse them and protect her vulnerability. But she couldn't see the one who provided these streams because the smoke obscured her vision. When it cleared momentarily, she could finally see the victims and, in those moments, she fell into the flames' grasps again.

The victims littered the area where the bomb had fallen, creating a battlefield where no war had been fought. Hopes, dreams, friends, family had all been lost in the blast and lay in pieces, surrounding her. Flames created a barrier between her and these victims, burning her every time she reached to put them back together. And so she wandered the battlefield, lost in the haze that made everything grey and fought to understand and to accept.

And the silence from the other side continued, changing only in its magnitude. It was everywhere and in everything, because the other side was gone. She could not find an enemy to fight or rail against; she was forced to accept the totality of what the bomb had done in her life and future. She was forced to accept.
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I apologize for the incoherency and spelling or grammatical errors. I tend to write with my eyes closed and rarely edit things. It makes it more of a catharsis if I just let it come out "as is."

-Elisa.