Sharp blistering bullets shot passed my sensitive ears. Stability was not an option. I ran and ran until my pounding heart could not go on any longer. I began to see my life flashing before my desperate eyes. Evaluating my existence sent an adrenaline rush through my withered body. A jolt of reality hit me as my priorities were set straight; I had to find my family. I ran through the branchy dark woods into the chaotic camp. There were bushes of scorching fire attacking the villagers. I tripped on a large coarse rock and skid my scar filled knee. All that was rushing through my inundated head was,” When is it going to end?” The scary thing was that I didn’t even know if I wanted anything to end. Ending something was usually accompanied by grief and sadness. This confusion and argument in my head was not going to find my family. My stubborn heart and head were not listening to each other. Giving up on both, I decided to follow where my determined legs would take me.

I hurriedly sprinted to the highest building. It wasn’t of those industrial cities I had come from years before. It was almost like an ethereal clay temple now desecrated by treacherous predators. At the entrance of the building I found a flight of stairs drenched with ruthless disgusting blood. A mere splotch of red was not going to stop me from finding my family. They were my oxygen, my light, my shelter, my love, my life.

When I looked outside the small disproportionate window, there were trucks loaded with gunmen armed with tons of civilized weaponry. The voice inside my head asking “When it is going to end?” remained, haunting and taunting me. For a slight second I stood and wondered to myself, actually contemplating the answer to the question and wondering what the end was. Remembering what my social studies teacher had taught me, in order to give something a label, I had to define what it was first. I assumed that the end was always the end to life, physically, but somehow my attitude changed. Just then, I located my cherubic sister down near a small helpless hut. Through the red conflagration and violent noise, all I could observe was her frightened stance. Unfortunately, I saw a man dressed in a soldier’s uniform. He pointed straight directly at her. The metal ran straight through the white hard skull and silently destroyed an innocent childhood and a brilliant future. I could not breathe, I could not even yell out a scream to humiliate the murderer. I stood there motionless, my heart knotted with frustration, anger, and pain.

What was I to do? There was no purpose for me anymore; Life suddenly stopped short and impeded my way through this disastrous event. I did the only thing that came to mind. The rush of wind criticized me as I traveled to my end. Nature yelled at me as I wondered whether this would hurt. I could no longer see the red, the fire, or the bullets. Nor could I locate my loved unfortunate sister. My inert body dropped down on the barren stable ground. Helpless tears rolled down my vegetated bloody body.

My ears rang with strange annoying beeping sounds. Suddenly everything disappeared and my reincarnated eyes opened to find a dim light with a woman looking down to me with worried eyes. It was my wonderful mother who gave me life for the second time. I had a nightmare.

Dream or reality, my life came crashing down when I witnessed the death of my beloved sister. Unfortunately I learned the meaning of the end in a horrible way by giving into my greatest fears. It wasn’t my death or my sister’s death that determined the end. It was the tear in the string that held us together: love. The death of my sister’s life was tantamount to the death of my life because without her, our love for each other would not be complete. I believe everything ended when I lost those who I loved the most.