They Stole Our Lives

4| Hassan

DAMASCUS, SYRIA-2016

"Could you explain yourself?" Hassan asks, closing the door behind him as he looks at Muhammad. "What was that all about?"

Muhammad looks out the window, a hint of remorse seen in his face. His hands were threaded together, guilty as charged for his actions.

"I'm sorry." He mutters, yet in complete denial of eye contact or the mere thought of facing his consequences.

Hassan sits by his side, letting the silence take over the distance between them. Although merely a few inches away from each other, it had felt as if they were continents away. As if they had been yearning for an understanding that had never existed, a false feeling.

"That's all you're willing to say?" Asks Hassan. "You're not going to even acknowledge your actions?"

Watching the seconds tick, bleeding into their ambience, Hassan wonders about all the things that might've led his brother into committing such ruthless actions. Into doing everything Hassan has taught him to dread.

"You know?" Muhammed starts. "It's honestly not my fault there's nothing good left anymore."

He feels his heart sink, deep down.

"It's not my fault nobody understands the fact that it's over, there's not a life after this." Muhammed gets on his feet, his voice cracking at the end of every word before he begins to let the venom spew out of his insides. Hot tears spring from his eyes, trailing down his restless face as he watches his brother with bewildered eyes.

Hassan doesn't utter a single word, instead, he watches the ground, biting his mouth shut to prevent anything from leaving.

"Now you won't look at me, huh? Because you know I'm right. There's nothing left, Hassan, it's killing me."

"What do you want me to do? I can't do anything." Hassan tells him in return.

Muhammad sighs heavily, his face buried in his cold palms. "We're just a couple of kids, of course, we have no power in this world." He says. "Damn this whole world, man." He says, breaking into tears as he manages to get onto the ground.

"Damn everything that's happened to us because nobody, not a single soul deserved this." He sobs, completely letting himself become smothered in the tears. Every tear he's shed, he pours his soul into. With every drop of his soul, he pours, a piece of Hassan's heartbreaks.

It breaks them until nothing is left.

A sharp shriek breaks into the atmosphere, alarming both siblings into the reality of this world.

Muhammed looks at Hassan in absolute fear, his eyes looking as if his heart had just beaten to an abrupt stop. "What was that?" He asks with a small voice.

Hassan's eyes scan the room, landing on Muhammad unbeknownst. "Something happened." He starts. "I don't know."

They walk fast, speeding to the living room with everything feeling surreal. They're faced by Yara's completely destructed expression and their mother's head laying low.

"Yara?" Muhammad manages to let out a word.

"Muhammad I think he's gone." She says, stumbling on her words. "Our father's workplace was struck down. They say everything's gone, you do know what that means...don't you?"

Hassan looks at his brother cupping his mouth, his eyes falling onto his feet. "Let's not go there yet. Everything will be okay." He says, gathering the younger children around.

"Yara, hayati,¹ watch over the family, I have to go see what's going on there." He orders, scrambling to get going on his feet. "If anything happens, you leave right away, no second thoughts whatsoever, got it?"

He aches at the realization of the reality they had been caught up in. A reality where anything suspicious drives them out of their homes, empty-handed and destructed.

"Got it." She mutters quietly, barely holding onto the little bit of hope left.

The outside was nothing better than the inside. People were unbothered by the rubble and deadly situations, accompanied by all the blood one could witness at every corner. Everywhere he turned, something was excruciating to witness, everyplace around him wasn't home anymore.

The ash and smoke disguised as air visit his lungs, circulating rapidly inside him as it left its filthy remnants to taint him forever. He'll never forget its smell, most importantly he won't forget the fact he's gotten used to it as the smell of death.

This is what the tragedy of a life they've acquired reek of, heartbreakingly deadly, unusual but usual. When one learns to live with a mistake, or when someone grows up in a house of fire, they'll assume the world is a mistake, a masterpiece of arson.

But it isn't. They'll never know any better either.

"Baba², where are you? Where could you possibly be?" He asks himself, the hope inside him slowly evaporating into the deadly atmosphere.

It all hits him when he beholds the rubble right before his eyes. The mess of a place he had once known as some type of second home. He grew up visiting those walls after-school, sometimes early in the morning on weekends. Little did he know the last time he had visited this building would be his very last.

The crowd gathered, burrowing the rocks and wreckage in search of their loved ones, people they had once seen alive and breathing. "No, this can't be. This can't be." He begins to absorb the reality, channelling it into well-awaited teardrops.

"Hassan, baba, I'm right here." His father's voice fills his ears. He turns back quickly only to see his father rested on the ground with an injured arm. "I made it, baba, don't you cry." He says, groaning as he slowly gets on his feet.

"You're alive. You're living and breathing!" Hassan's face lights up as he tightly hugs his father. His heart sinks to the bottom at the idea of the situation they're caught up in, with his father alive but never the same.

"Yes, I'm living and breathing, right before your eyes." He let's go of Hassan with a content look. "Everybody home will be overjoyed at this news."

The truth is, everybody will feel a sense of temporary joy, given this is Syria, nothing's going to ever stay the same. Especially in a state of euphoria.