Short Stories

The Raid

                I wake up groggily in the morning, every morning no matter where I am. I stood up from my cot knowing how important today is. I change quickly, and finish as soon as my commander stepped into my tent. “Today's the day!” He said with a sorrowful expression on his face. No matter how many times we do this it’s never a happy time. People think going to war people get away with murder, that we enjoy being the pawns, killing for our superiors.

                I walk out with my commander, I walk calmly over and climb into the car that will take me to the drop off point. I am with two other soldiers, Charles, and Lewis. We ride in silence, knowing what we are about to. We arrive at our drop point, the middle of a forest. We know exactly where the enemy camp is, we have been searching for weeks.

                We creep through the forest, studying our surroundings cautious of every dry, dead leaf, and every twig coating the ground. I lead the team over to where the camp is. We are expected to take out any enemy peoples that are at this camp. We see the bright colors of the enemy flag, the camp is in sight. I motion to my soldiers in towards the camp. As we got within ten feet we notice the spooky silence hanging in the air.

                “Where are they mam?” Lewis asks, giving up on being silent. I give up as well, “I have no clue.” I state, as we all start to search camp. We walk together scared to split up. We search one tent at a time. We get through the entire camp and there is no one in any of the tents. We are now talking about what we are going to do, and I see something in the corner of my eye run by. I run after the thing, I was gaining speed. I reach out and catch the little girl. She has long brown hair and pale white skin. I pick her up and carry her back to Lewis and Charles, she doesn't even make a sound. I carefully place her feet back on the ground. She smiles up at me and I bend down to talk with her. “What's your name?” I ask the girl. She appears to be ten, but she is so skinny, her belly moans before she can even get a word out.

                 I tell my men to watch the girl while I search the tents around us for bread the girl could have. I find a large loaf of bread to give to the girl. Her eyes widened as I handed her the bread, once she is finished I ask her name again. “My name is Piper.” The young girl tells me as she smiles from ear to ear. “Where are you from?” I ask, she looks at her shoes as she mutters, “America. I ran away to go find my brother who is in the army. The Rebels took me.” I grab her hand and tell her to come with me. She agrees as we walk off, not knowing where we are going she asked lots of questions. I could never kill this girl even I she was on the enemy side.

                 Face it in a world war, there are tons of countries pitted against each other. I look at the girl for a moment and see me standing there, the brave little girl who stood up to the bullies in school. We take her back to camp, and I walk straight to the food tent I take a bowl of soup to the little girl. We track down her parents. As we wait for her parents to call back I ask the girl questions.

                 Piper has a huge smile on her face all the time. Even while I interrogate her. I ask her where everyone in the camp went. She looks me in the eye and smiles telling me of how they forgot her there three days ago. Just as I finish questioning her Lewis walks in with who I presume are Piper’s parents. They look so relieved to see Piper. Although Piper gets pretty ecstatic too when her brother walks into the tent.