I look around me. Bullets shoot past my head, as if it’s a miracle. But to us, who fight, this is far from miraculous. My friend, Tasha, got shot in the chest. Five times. I have accepted this. Many of my friends have died in this war. Yet, we are only twelve years old. Ever since we were young, we have been told to fight, and die for our country. But, some don’t want to die. Some want to live and see the day when they turn sixty. Some want to see the birth of their own children, when they are adults. Many will never know what those events will be like, for they will not even see the day when they are twenty.

  I am sitting beside Tasha, when a bomb goes off beside us. Metres away. I can’t hear for two minutes, but the adrenaline of the battle, keeps me going. I run up to a building, with only some of the framing left. I grab my rifle, and bring it up to my eye. I take aim on an advancing soldier. I pull the trigger. I feel no remorse for the enemy. To show remorse is a sign of weakness.

  I watch as the soldier goes down, chest bleeding. This is the world we live in, where it’s either fight or die. This is the one rule, everyone has grown up knowing. What every child is trained under. What every kill is for.

  I turn toward Tasha’s body, and what I see makes me freeze. A small child, no older than five, is hunched over her motionless body. I hear nothing for minutes. I just stare. The girl, is weeping for the dead stranger.

  I quickly snap out of my stupor, to find out that an enemy soldier, has his gun pointed at the girl. Without thinking, I run at the soldier, yelling at the girl to run. Then, I hear the ear-splitting bang of a gun. I collapse onto the ground. I can barely see through my tears, as I turn around to see a small body over Tasha. Motionless, with a pool of blood appearing over Tasha.

  I just sit there, for hours, staring. Every bullet shooting past me. This is no luck. When I finally get some sense back, I get up, and walk over to the small body. When I reach it, I sink to the ground with a thud. I grab the small, frail body, and cradle her in my arms. She was a stranger to me, yet she wept for a stranger also. I look at her big, brown eyes, staring up at the sky. She looked somewhat peaceful. When I looked away from her face, i saw her chest, covered with a dark red stain. She was wearing a locket around her neck. I grabbed it, and immediately regretted opening it. Inside, was a picture of a man and a woman. On the other side of the locket was a picture of a baby. This was her family, I thought.

  I looked away from the body, and stared at the same sky she was looking at. I saw smoke, and a blue sky behind. Everything became blurry all of a sudden. I could feel moist tears falling down my cheek. I saw a bird flying in the sky. A small, white bird. A dove. It flew silently over the bloody battlefield.

  I look away from the bird to see a soldier, with a rifle pointed at me. I give the soldier a small smile. He seems stern, and uncaring, as he pulls the trigger of his rifle. The world then turns black.