I remember everything was calm except for the woman. She was unhappy, screaming, her face twisted into a grimace. Nobody reacted. Nobody turned to look. From behind the gate, she screamed, but the people – I remember, they don’t listen to her, they can’t see her. I can hear the creaking of the swing, the chatter of the people, and the laughter and happiness all around. The sun glared down from the sky.
Shortly after this, everything changed, as quickly as a blink of an eye.
I heard a whizz, then another, something zinged past me and into the ground, moving my hair slightly, leaving a pothole behind, a gap where ground used to be. The sky went dark, blackness overwhelmed me, and the bright colours were extinguished.
I could hear the happy laughter become panicked screams, the children whimper and cry for comfort. When the smoke lifted, when I could see again, the world had changed permanently. Broken bits of metal now hung where the swing used to be. The seesaw was bent out of shape, held down at either end by two fiery boulders. The green of the grass had been destroyed, replaced by smoke and mud and bits of bodies. I stumbled over a red coat, empty.
The woman who had been shouting earlier, was now huddled over a small figure. Who was it? I didn’t know, I couldn’t see. I saw that her clothes had been torn, her hair singed, her manicured nails ruined. She was unaware, crying, screaming. Nobody else had made it apart from us. She looked up, our eyes met, I collapsed.
The next time I awoke, I couldn’t move. All I could see was a white, tiled, sterile ceiling. I could hear people walking, machines beeping, curtains being moved. I didn’t know where I was. I started panicking, tried to speak but couldn’t – what on earth had happened? I struggled to remember how I had gotten there.
