First, the pain. An unceasing, intolerable throb. Next, the smell of dust. Finally, nothing.

When he comes to, he finds himself staring up at a girl’s face. His eyes jolt open so quickly that she recoils in surprise and steps back. He is lying on a hard bed in a small, austere room.

He looks down, taking in the heavy boots on his feet, his grey uniform and battered pants. A cloth bearing a damp, dark stain is wrapped around his right leg.

Shifting his head to the side, he can see an antique dresser beneath a window. The curtains are pulled to the side, allowing silky sunlight to filter in.

The girl has retreated to a chair by the dresser, observing him carefully. She is short, with dark hair and a small nose.

“Where did you come from?” she asks.

He blinks several times.

“You’re a soldier, right?”

He tries to sit up but he feels a sharp sting and relaxes, clutching his side. He coughs, his mouth dry as a tomb, and the girl’s wary gaze melts slightly.

She thinks for a moment. Then, having made up her mind, she rises to her feet and exits the room before returning with a glass of water. He smiles as she hands it to him and gulps it down eagerly.

“You’re dressed like a soldier, but not like one of ours. And you don’t have a gun.”

He nods.

“Grandpa said it wouldn’t be right to leave you out there alone.”

“Grandpa?” he manages.

“Well, he’s out right now, but he told me to keep an eye on you.”

He nods again.

“Don’t worry, I’m friendly. At least, that’s what my brother used to tell me. But he’s gone off to fight in the war. He said it was for our country, that he would make us all proud one day. Maybe you saw him.”

“If I did, I wouldn’t remember. I don’t even know how I survived,” he says.

The words hang in the air, waiting for their echo.

“All I am certain of?”

He pauses to take another breath.

“All I am certain of is this war. I was sent here to fight in the war.”

“What is it like?” she asks.

Even in the quiet of his shelter, fragments of noise echo in his skull, piercing gunshots and stern men barking orders. When he closes his eyes, he returns to the chaos.

Surrounded by rubble, he leaps forth as the earth explodes behind him. He runs and runs and runs. He runs until his legs are cinder blocks, until he breathes in fire each time he inhales. He runs. He runs. He stops.

Out of fatigue, perhaps; his body could not bear the strain. Or otherwise, he simply decides to give in. To accept the futility of it all. Either way, he is frozen in place, his brain helplessly trying and failing to comprehend the carnage.

At some point, he grows uncertain whether his body is his own anymore, for it feels as if all life has been drained from him and his very essence has drifted apart. His limbs melt into shadow, and he becomes a spectator to his own demise.

“Hey, are you okay?”

She steps toward him and forcefully jostles his shoulder. His eyes flutter open. She sits back down.

“What’s the point of this fighting?” she asks.

He rubs his temples to focus.

“We fight so that one side will win and the other will lose. When that happens, the fighting is over and everything returns to normal.”

“But people die. They are bound to kill or be killed. Good people, like my brother.”

“Sometimes fighting, killing is necessary for the sake of peace.”

Her brow furrows. She chews on her lip absent-mindedly.

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

He takes a deep breath and releases it with a heavy sigh.

“I didn’t know how bad it would be until I saw it with my own eyes. They don’t know it either. The ones who send us out here. They aren’t the ones who have to suffer.”

“Why can’t people get along with each other?”

He stares into empty space, searching for an answer. Dying light spills onto the wooden floorboards.

“Each of us wants something different, you see. Success, fulfillment. Wealth, power. Humans are unique that way.

I think the reason we fight is that we can’t understand each other. We don’t want to. We’re afraid that if we look past ideas of doing right and wrong, status and loyalties, we’ll find that we are not so different after all. We forget that we are capable of making mistakes. Or we do the wrong things for the right reasons. Imagine what the world would be like if we could see through someone else’s eyes. Maybe then, we would not let hatred rule us. We would tolerate and respect.”

“I wish there was a place like that,” she says. “Where the people do not fight. If we lived there, my brother wouldn’t have left. I just want to see him again.”

As tears begin to well up in her eyes, her lips pull together into a sheepish grin.

“At first I thought you might be wicked, like the teachers say at school. But you’re not so bad.”

He chuckles.

Somewhere in the distance, a door opens and a deep voice calls out. The sound is carried to the ears of the girl and the soldier in their small, austere room. She glances at him apologetically and hurries out the door.

The second time, he awakens in a daze. The curtains still parted, he peers through the window into the cloudless night. A crystal moon gleams upon the torn world.

The girl has returned to her place, sitting on the chair by the dresser. Her head is hung low, her eyes are closed, and her breathing is soft and shallow. This, he realises, is a different kind of peace. One he has not felt for a very long time.

He lies back down, craving a lasting rest. In his dreams he is on a journey to a far-off land, a place without strife, where he will be safe. Where a girl and her brother are free to laugh and dance. Where the people are not afraid to understand, to forgive, to love.

He has a long way to go.