It was a rusty, old train station. The walls were filthy and smoke filled the entire place. Trains were abundant and people were everywhere. As I arrived, I saw many wives and children waving their hands and crying their heads out until their tears were dry. All men ages 18-60 had to stay and fight so many families had to separate to survive. I never saw the appeal of families so I didn’t marry or have kids. It did fill me with emotions though to see families hugging each other for what was supposedly the final time they would see each other. I was reminded of my mom and dad. Quickly, I walked away before any tears came out. I stood in a huge line while the train manager signed people’s tickets.

“Tickets please!” she said to me when it was my turn. “Show me your tickets”.

“Here you go,” I said, handing her my ticket. 

“Going to Poland, I see. Well, good luck out there. Some people there don’t have the kindest souls.”

“I know,” I said. “But I don’t know anywhere else to go. Poland is the only place I know my friends are.”

“Well, suit yourself. Just be careful out there.”

“Okay, I will,” I proclaimed.

“Hurry up!” shouted someone behind me.

“Sorry, gotta go!” I said to the manager while I ran into the train.

The train was pretty packed with children and women. I decided to stand up and wait for a chair to be empty so I could sit in it. Minutes passed. Then hours. I had almost given up hope when a woman decided to take her child into a different train car since he was causing too much trouble. I pounced on the opportunity and strutted to the empty seat before anyone could take it. 

“Finally,” I thought. “I’m so tired. I’ll just take a little nap.”

I sat down and decided to take a nap for maybe an hour. 

… 

3 hours later I woke up to alarms ringing. One of the cars was on fire! The air was humid and filled with black smoke. I constantly coughed up smoke. The alarms were blaring non stop as loud as sirens. The officer on the loudspeaker in the car was warning everyone to stay calm. The train was hit by a missile. However, everyone was not calm. Everyone was screaming and running all over the place. Many families had already got all their stuff and jumped off the train. By the time I woke up, most people had left the train. 

“Don’t panic,” I thought to myself. “Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t pa-aaaaaaAAAHHHHH,” I suddenly yelled. I jumped out of my seat and grabbed all my stuff. 

“Do I have everything?” I thought. “Did something drop out?”

The fire was getting bigger by the second. It had now entered my car and was rapidly approaching me. 

“No time for checking,” I said to myself. “Jump!”

I had never jumped out of a train before because why would I, so I crashed on the side of the tracks.

*CRACK

I felt some of my bones crack and then I felt an unbearable pain. It felt like I got punched in the gut and run over by a car. I screamed as loud as I could, tears flowing down my face. I saw the train zoom past me and head off into the distance, still on fire. I decided to sit down and take a deep breath. I couldn’t walk as much as a step. I began to slowly close my eyes, waiting for my final moments.

“Hey look!” someone exclaimed. “Someone’s here!”

A bunch of rescue workers suddenly hustled to where I was sitting and carried me to a stand. I was saved.

“Thank you,” I barely croaked.

“There’s no need to thank us,” the worker said.

They all carried me to an underground bunker and put me on a bed. I decided to sleep there till the next morning. When I woke up, I thanked them for taking care of me and went off to Poland.

It took several days to reach Poland from where I was. I rested in many shelters and met some very kind people. The day before I arrived in Poland. A tiny child gave me some biscuits to eat. They were soggy and a bit disgusting, but it was more than enough for me.

When I arrived in Poland, I took one sniff of the air and stood there in shock. It was beautiful. Certainly not perfect, but a lot better than Ukraine’s air. After the initial shock, I immediately started to ask if anyone would let me in because I had no Polish money. No one would let me in though. Many people just waved me off or stared at me uneasily. It turns out that Ukraine had originally attacked Poland and many Polish people still hadn’t forgiven the Ukrainians.

“Won’t anyone let me in?” I cried.

“Oh, hello there,” a voice said.

It was a young woman who was around my age. She happened to be speaking my language. She had a gracious face and blond hair. She smelled like lavender and wore a thick white coat and jeans. She offered her hand to me.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“It is uhhh,” I said. For some reason, I couldn’t remember my name. My cheeks started to blush.

“Uhhh? What a unique name.”

“Hah!” I laughed. “You’re funny.”

“Thank you, uhhh.”

“It is my pleasure. But my real name is Yeva. How do you speak such perfect Ukrainian?”

She said, “My name is Maria. It means joy. I know Ukrainian so well because one of my parents was from Ukraine.”

“Oh, very interesting Maria,”  said. “Anyway, thanks for helping me. I have to find a place to sleep.”

“I have some beds at my house if that is okay with you. It’s fine if you don’t want to co-”

“Of course, I’ll come!” I shouted. Everyone started to look at us. I started blushing even harder.

“Here, take my hand,” she said.

She grabbed my hand (to my delight) and took me to her house.

I thought of my mom and dad as I smelled the air and looked at the back of Maria’s head. I had a feeling they would be able to rest easily now, with their daughter being able to breathe the air that they thought she deserved. And now seeing everything in front of me, I felt like I was free. I felt like I was home. I could now breathe. 

The end.

Dear reader,

Hello! My name is Ivan Lee. I’m a teenager who lives in New York. I love video games and animations. If you’re reading this, I bet you have already read my refugee story. I wrote this story for my English class. This assignment was to research about a refugee crisis. I chose the Ukraine vs Russia crisis happening right now because it seemed like an appropriate thing to do. What started as that led me down a huge rabbit hole. Many Ukrainians were put into cruel and unfair situations. Many of them were kept in shelters underground to hide from missiles. They had to travel far and wide with little money to get to the places they would have to go to and sometimes they weren’t even accepted into the places they traveled so far to get to. The crisis is unbearable to read about, let alone experience, so I wrote my project based on that. My story was based on the book Refugee by Alan Gratz. The book is about three different refugees from three different time periods. All of the refugees are trying to get somewhere safe. The book shows the difficult parts of their journeys but also shows some good parts. I wanted to imitate that style of writing in my short story and began to write. I got help from my teachers and family members along the way. When I was done, I revised my story until I thought it was good. I want people to understand how hard these refugees' lives are and how they could do something about it. Hopefully you donate to a good charity to help the refugees in Ukraine. It would mean so much and it could really help them. I thank you for reading my story. 

Resources I used to study:

 Gale in context High school: Gale in context high school link

Articles I used from the link above (All of them in google doc form): 

1.   ukraine war migration crisis.

2.  Data on Science Discussed by Researchers at Uniwersytet Rzeszowski (Polish support for refugees from Ukraine in the face of war in 2022 - selected aspects).

3.  Latest pictures from Ukraine: Half a million refugees flee Russian invasion; The EU says up to seven million civilians could try to leave the war-torn nation as Vladimir Putin continues his assault.

4.  In Poland, refugees from Ukraine escape the danger, but not the war.

5.  Four ways the world has changed since Russia invaded Ukraine.

6.  In east Ukraine, life was impossibly hard even before the horrors of war; With food and medicine scarce, grim situation in Kommunar, near Donetsk, seems likely to play into hands of Russian rebels