He tripped over a brick and braced his fall against the loamy dirt and winter bramble. Blood spurted from his side where he’d been hit and he quickly put a hand to his blood - crusted sweater. Had anyone followed? The young man could hear echoes - a woman’s sudden angst, a dog’s futile yowl from the rubble and destruction, and an ear ringing siren.The siren had started at dawn.

Run! He told himself. You are a fugitive. Get up now! Shots fired out. He could not move. He cowered and glanced back at the city behind him and the forest’s edge ahead. Get up!  And he scrabbled at the dirt and stone, righted himself and madly ran through a thin forested area, which helped distance the sounds of gunfire and missile drops.

One tree, next tree, he stood like a tree, he was a tree - tall, thin - and petrified of being caught behind a tree he bolted through brush, mangled rubbish - discarded toys, tires, a dismembered hand, a shoe, a torn work shirt like a flag on a branch; he ran until he reached a clearing where he came upon an abandoned town. His lips were parched, he could no longer lick them. His stomach growled with hunger pangs and his eyes were wild, rabid, desperate to eat anything he could find. The apartment buildings he left behind had been bombed, gutted into heaps of brick and twisted wire. Now houses appeared like concave milk cartons along the road of abandoned cars, twisted bicycles, bodies prostrate in wet mud. Suddenly, an angry dog bared its teeth in a yard he avoided. Run!

            A sunless sky stretched across the horizon --  scattered with gray fisted - clouds. Cold crosswinds knifed his wet sweater and the holes in his combat boots. Stumbling, falling, the sounds of gunfire diminished into the late afternoon. Where was he now? Which direction had he gone? BOOM! He collapsed to his knees at the sound of a missile drop.He cowered for an eternity then slowly lifted himself to get a better look at the lone house in the fields beyond, where people could be hiding too, maybe watching him from the end of a rifle. He crouched behind a car and waited. Silence.

Long grass waved to and fro and he entered a large field at his own peril. As he neared a house on an acreage, he could make out broken fencing, a hoe and shovel tossed aside as if harvest - interrupted. What was this? Not white stones, but potatoes and onions! He salivated at the thought of a bowl of steaming potato soup before he crouched behind the fencing and waited for movement. Nothing.

As he contemplated entering the old farm house, he heard a voice coming from somewhere. A sweet voice of a child singing softly. He neared the house and wall - flattened himself before carefully rounding the corner where he stopped abruptly at the sight of a child wearing a pink parka. Her feet dangled and slowly dragged the soil as she swung with her back to the house. Hopeful, he keenly listened to her Ukrainian tune, but all he knew was Russian.

Cecile Sarruf writes fiction and narrative nonfiction. Cecile focuses on cultural crossroads and the socio-political. Her work can be found in online literary journals, like https://www.foliateoak.com, as well as in print through Amazon. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University, Los Angeles, and lives in Southern California.