The Killing

(From the perspective of Tom)

It was a strangely warm night in Syria but I still was worried about what the future had in store for me.

I was frightened, scared anything but happy. I couldn’t tell anyone, I would look stupid. All I could remember about that night was ‘the killing’. I was confused, how could I forget a whole night of my life? My brain had gone into overdrive but before I knew it I was falling asleep again in a cold and dirty hospital bed...

I had a memory of nothing apart from that tragic event that I had caused. The pain…the blood…the noise. The noise was like screams over and over again in my head  but it i only shot that one horrible moment. The worst bit of it is that I don’t feel guilty! My thoughts are bundled up in my head and I can’t think properly because my head hurts so much!

The killing was something I had never experienced before and I wasn’t sure if I wanted the experience of hurting another human being again. I wouldn’t call myself I human, but a BEAST!!!

I wake up to see myself greeted by an old lady in a white coat. She gives me a glass of filthy water and asks me if I’m ok, in a strong, foreign accent. I was glad I was safe (for the moment) but I still had a gut instinct I was being watched all the time. Obviously I say yes, I had been starved of water the past couple of days; I don’t want to be stuck in this dump any longer. I wanted to run…

The old lady in the white coat tells me to go back to sleep but I don’t want to remember. My heart starts racing at the thought of it. I start to sweat, the darkness pulling me in every couple of seconds like a tug of war that I knew I couldn't win…

By now I was beginning to realise what a horrible thing I had done. How I had been forced into something I didn’t want to do. I was still a beast though. I didn’t have to shoot.

Sometime after,I woke up to find dozens of people around me, then, as I began to recollect my thoughts, the people started to fire questions at me in Arabic. I didn’t know what to do I sat startled by the utter madness that was going on around me. I felt really claustrophobic as more and more people start gathering from nowhere. Why me? Had they found out? Then out of the blue a man appeared with a white lab coat on. He spoke English:

“Get out of here before it happens again” he muttered to the gathering as he pushed me towards the door. I was bewildered but before I could speak he shoved me out of a big black door into a jeep with the letters TAP stamped on it. I had no time to think. Something cold and hard hit me on the head…

They had found me when I least expected it. I wondered who had told them but that wasn’t the priority right now. My hands and feet had been tied with cloth and my mouth had been covered in cloth too so I couldn’t speak.  I was worried. Worried for my life. I had to remember, I had to remember everything. As I looked out of the window I finally started to realise how much of a war zone Homs had become and how much of a disaster area it was going to be. It was dry and hot but it didn’t look like the anonymous group in the front were going anywhere fast. I had time to think. I looked out of the window only to see a village of people living in absolute starvation living a life in little humps of sand with handmade houses caved out of them. I called them beehive houses. That’s when it clicked. Why I was here, why my life had destroyed me…

I had grown up in Homs, lived in Homs and now I was going to die in Homs. When I was young I had a life ruled by religion until that horrific night that changed everything. I was only small but I could remember the gunshot and waking up in my auntie’s arms. My family died that day. I felt like I was on my own a lot of the time when she was out but I loved living with my auntie. I had freedom. I had courage. That wonderful life I lived with my auntie didn’t last for as long as I thought though.

The jeep came to a stop. It was the dead of night. I could hear people clambering out of the front seat but couldn’t see a thing. There was noise all around me. The loud shouts from outside were giving me a headache. I was sweating so hard I felt dizzy. It was still ever so hot. I heard a cry of help not far away. Then a shadowed figure opened the door that barred me from the outside world. My heart was racing so fast I thought it was going to burst out of my chest. I could hardly make out a thing because of the pool of darkness that surrounded me. Then when I least expected it, a women appeared on the other side of the window. I could just make out the fact that the women or girl was badly beaten but she was strangely familiar all the same. Then I saw her eyes; dark and cold like no life was left in her. She looked at me……. and then I remembered. It couldn’t be. My head was spinning. Was it her?

(From the perspective of Marla)

Was it him? The man I had least expected to see at this very moment. The rage was building up inside me like a bomb about to explode. I wanted to kill him but he looked so lost. I felt almost sorry for him but I shouldn’t. He did this to me!!!

I was cold, my hands were sore. My back felt like it was going to crumble into a million pieces because I had been whipped so much. My life had been ruined by a man. A man so innocent you would never think he would do such a horrific thing to a girl with a good life ahead of her. I knew I would be on my death bed soon enough but I didn’t care. Admittedly I would rather be dead than in this place.

They took him out of that jeep like he was a dead animal; they obviously didn’t care what happened to him. The strangers in weird uniforms were beginning to frighten me. They dragged him along the floor next to me. We both crouched on our hands and knees and prayed for survival. I didn’t know if the men were still there. I hoped with all my heart that this was just a very bad dream and I would wake up next to my mum in England. I wondered what she would be thinking right now…… I longed for her to give me a hug and tell me it was all going to be fine but deep inside I knew whatever happened my life would never be the same again.  It felt like hours before one of the men brought out a gun. I knew it was over. I stood motionless waiting for a bang to tell me that it was the end. The end of a life that had barely started….