War Within Us

Paper cut.

When a drop of blood landed on my newly written report, I knew I had to write a new one because of the small but very noticeable blood stain that stared back at me. Thought of writing everthing all over again made my headache grow and had me groaning.

Before starting another writing session, I needed a hot cup of coffee so I walked behind the counter to reach for the french press. That’s when I heard the familiar noises but they were even closer to us this time.

After 4 months of living in Kaden, my ears were almost familiar to the deafening sound. My heart skipped a beat as a reflex but it lasted only for a second.

“Where are you?” As I heard another sound I knew all too well, I couldn’t help my lips from forming a smile. She has been living here longer than I have but she was still very much afraid of all these noises.

“In the kitchen. Do you want coffee?” I knew the kind of answer she would give but I still asked.

“I don’t know how you can think of coffee when there is a war out there, literally in our backyard.”

“There is always war. Just because I’m closer to it doesn’t mean I’m gonna stop living my life.”

I put the hot water into the french press and let it sit for a few minutes. While waiting the coffee brew, I faced her. She had that concerned look and was playing with her fingers. I knew she wouldn’t calm down until the noises were gone but that could be tomorrow morning so I prepared myself for a sleepless night.

Esther would probably come to my bed 5 minutes after she left for sleep and since Lee was out of the village for some paperwork, we were alone for the night.

“I’m not telling you to stop living your life but you are not scared of anything. You have no fear. Literally nothing.”

I laughed and it was almost a sad laugh.

She didn’t know how good I was at masking my fear whenever I wanted to. There was no point in trying to explain it to her so I just laughed it out.

“If I’m destined to die out here, I have no power to prevent it, I just accepted it.”

“You are just weird.” After looking out of the window, she came closer to me.“Can you make me a cup too? I don’t think I can sleep tonight.” Knew it.

*-*

We were both on our computers when the knocks sounded from our door. I was so far gone in writing that, it caught me off guard and made me flinch a little. These were not soft knocks, instead it sounded like someone was punching our door.

I was closer to the door so I quickly got up.

“Open up. International Force.”

The only thing I could think of was the password that was given to us before we were sent out here. Without me asking for it, same voice spoke again.

“Lion Wings 0173”

As I heard the same male voice, saying the password that was already on my mind, I opened the door without hesitation.

As soon as the door opened, four bodies invaded the house and in seconds, door was closed again.

I could hear Esther’s shrink in the background as she backed away from everyone but I knew I had to remain calm. This kind of incident never happened to us before but I knew that I had to control the situation as best as I could.

I quietly watched the soldiers. Three of them scattered through the house, silently and quickly checking all the windows, probably looking for whatever made them run here.

All four of them were quite tall and built and that was all I could gather from their appearance aside from their protective gears. Just as I was about to start talking, all the lights in the house were turned on.

“Are you crazy? They’re gonna come here.” Esther’s question mirrored my exact thoughts but I stayed quiet. Soldiers didn’t say anything but the situation was predictable. Forces wouldn’t interact with civilians unless there was an emergency.

“They will search the houses with no lights first. We are just gonna wait here until they pass by.” “The house is clear.”

I didn’t noticed they were searching our house until he said it was clear.“Of course it is clear, we vacumm it every week.” I let out a sigh as I looked back at Esther.

“I was just stress joking. We are the only ones in the house.” She started to look at her feet after shushing herself before I could.

I was waiting for a disappointed expression as I turned to the men but their faces remained dull. I saw one of the soldier’s eyes wandering to my coffee for a brief moment and I tried to offer it as I pointed a hand towards the mug. His eyes turned away from the coffee and they were instantly fixed on his fellow soldier with a slight shake of his head.

I could feel all the eyes on me. Not saying anythingt, I just poured the coffee into the sink and left the mug inside.

After a few seconds, six of us were standing in the middle of our open kitchen that was a part of the living room, looking at nothing. It was beyond awkward and I hated it. After doing some thinking, I decided to ask a question, just to end this weird silence;

“Is there anything we can help with? We would be happy to cooperate.” My question was directed to the person that seemed like their leader since they gravitated to him even with their stance.

“Remembering the password and opening the door was enough of a help.” Hearing his stoic tone, I decided to let it go. I thought maybe they would relax after seeing me continue my work and not focus on them but no. They did not move a muscle as each of them had their eyes on the windows and the door. I could guess that they were still trying to listen in on what was happening outside of the house.

The thing that caught our attention was the loud footsteps wandering around our street. Soldiers slightly backed up to the darkened hallway and their captain moved his fingers, basically telling us to speak. Looking at Esther, I knew she wouldn’t be able to talk unless I started the conversation. I started with the first random thing that came to my mind.

“Have you heard from Lee? He said he would bring some dessert from town. Because of these rules, I haven’t had anything sweet in days. What’s with the curfew and stuff anyways?”

I was already disagreeing with the words that came out of my mouth but I knew those rebels would love to hear us bad mouth the forces. I just hoped they would pass by after hearing us. I could also feel some stares on me but I was too focused on our ‘conversation’ to pay more attention to them.

“He said he will be back in 2 days and will try to sneak some stuff in.” “I really need some sugar in me or else I will lose my mind under all this.”

I was straight up lying at this moment. We didn’t have that much work since we ascribed all the work to Lee. I could hear them talking while passing by our door but I could not fully understand what they were saying. After all of us waited in silence for a solid minute, we were able to relax. By ‘we’, I actually meant ‘I’ could relax. Before sitting down, I heard one of them mumbling but I didn’t pay much attention since I figured it was in a foreign language. They once again scattered through the house in silence. I heard one of them referring to their leader as “Cap” in a low voice. After they’d finished their search, the ‘Cap’ guy asked one last question.

“Do you have a back door?”

*-*

Just like that, they were out of our house. I sighed in frustration as I started to talk to myself.

“I just can’t even focus. My God. Is rudeness something they teach in the army? Like, how can they just leave without even a thanks. Okay, they are in a war and stuff but come on.”

I was tired of thinking about it. I was not the one to complain in a situation like this but since Esther fell asleep on the sofa, I felt like I had to complain for both of us. But really, I couldn’t stop thinking about how they left without even acknowledging us. We could have been too scared to open the door or we might have forgotten the password. I didn’t want a trophy or anything. A thank you would have been enough.

I sighed in defeat, letting myself relax on the chair as my eyelids suddenly felt heavy.I just couldn’t focus on the work I was doing so decided it was best to call it a day.

*-*

Kaden - Village X - 6:00 am

Although I could only get 4 hours of sleep, I was awake at 6 am like an alarm was set in my mind. I left Esther in the living room and started my routine which included a brief breakfast and a short exercise session.

After I was done with all of that, I went out of the house to get some clean water because water was only available from 6am to 3pm on certain days.

I just couldn’t bear my morning mouth smell, so I wanted to get rid of it as fast as possible. The moment I opened the door, I saw a small box sitting beside our door, standing by itself. I looked around for any possible owners but there was no one. So I took the box and as soon as I took it, I saw a note attached to the box.

‘Thank you for the coffee.’

I found it weird to be finding a box that thanked for a coffee I didn’t remember making but as soon as I slowly opened the box and saw the biscuits, everything made sense.

I decided to delay brushing my teeth and got back home.

I couldn’t stop myself from smiling as I studied the box slowly. “It turns out they are not that rude, ha?”

*-*

(2019) Hello there. Hope you liked the first chapter. It is normal to be a little confused about the whole situation but Kaden’s (city) situation will be explained in detail in the upcoming chapters.

(2020) I should also admit the fact that this first chapter was written roughly 3 years ago. I edited it a little more and I present you my first ever chapter of my first story that I’ll “hopefully” finish. I already have 25k words that I have written so I’ll try to divide that into chapters and edit them while I attempt to write new chapters.

(2025) Welp would you look at that. My goodness the fact that I have been trying to write this for the last 8 years is crazy. (starting in 2017, first published 2019) I'll try not to quit this time around guys.

Question of the episode : How is the weather in your town and in which month are you reading this chapter? Love you all and see you next time. Peace -onm