Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction Group 3 - 2017 | Page 129

"The Japanese have conquered the outer walls, they are coming," the old woman whispered, as if scared someone
would overhear her.
Then as if on cue, the screams of foreign words, came to his ears. The gun shots pierced the dead air. People ran, the
streets were complete chaos, with flailing arms and shoving bodies.
His mother pulled him away from the crowd, away from the markets and led him into their home.
He remembered her words, "Hide in the cellar. Don't come out okay?"
He had cried, tears rolling down his face, yearning for her to come back. She pulled him into her arms, humming a
melody under her breath, lulling him into sweet slumber.
"Don't worry. If you count to one hundred, I will come back."
"One, two, three..." He counted putting the corresponding fingers up slowly.
"Goodbye, my boy," She touched him on the forehead gently and tucked his stray hair behind his ears. The pattering
sound of her footsteps echoed in his head, her long shadow, cast on the floor. She turned and stopped in her tracks,
smiling as if nothing could ever be wrong.
He smiled back, waving his hands frantically, hoping that she would come back. Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two.
The screams upstairs were getting louder as he placed his hands over his ears, trying to block out the piercing sounds.
He crouched down and curled up into a ball. Fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five. The counting made him lose track of
time and place, it was soothing, a gentle lullaby. Seventy, seventy-one. The counting was a way to forget- sometimes,
he had to remind himself to breath. Ninety-nine, one hundred, why? Why? Why isn’t she back yet? Why? A wave of
panic washed within him.
It was at that moment that he knew, he knew the melancholy of separation, the feeling his mother had felt. It felt like
the feeling had always been inside of him, waiting to be discovered.
The door creaked as he slowly pried it open, peering out cautiously. The silence filled his ears was haunting, a broken
record repeating the same tune, over and over again. He walked out to the streets, gripping a nearby lamppost, it was
wet. Ans when he pulled the hands back, he noticed they were stained with blood. He stared at his crimson hands,
shaking, tears hitting the ground in droplets. The bodies lay there dead, silent, eyes rolled to the back of their heads,
they were dolls broken by the cruel hands of humanity. Their blood splashed all over, the Chinese flag torn and tinted
with hints of blood. The new flag waved unwaveringly amongst the pile of bodies- a white cloth with a round stain