It was the first day of a new year. Like every new year's day, broad wings soared in the sky and blossoms of fire bloomed in the distance. Voices were heard everywhere around me as I quickly dove with the gun I was holding still held tight in my hands. I was not going to let it go. Not ever.

It was the day I found you. A little kid the size of my fist, covered in ashes, who I helped out of the ruins of what could have been your home.

Well, it was destroyed. Much like everything else in a ten-meter radius.

Your mother died. Though I didn't know how, it wasn't difficult to guess. Someone might have shot her in the heart and ended her instantly. Or they might have left her there to slowly suffer her very last moments instead of mercifully finishing her off. Or they might have dropped an explosive on a house, and she was buried under the rubble. Either way, the details didn't matter that much to me. Looking into your hollow eyes, I knew she was killed.

Much like everyone else in this cruel place.

She was another name on a miles-long list, another number adding to an already tremendous figure. She was another unfortunate soul in a crowd of millions in hell waiting to be reborn, hopefully in a place where death wasn't an everyday norm. And you were just another victim of war. Motherless. Injured. Crying.

Dying.

All alone.

It should have been the long-awaited first day of a new year, but that had become nothing more than a mere number on a burnt calendar, a few words printed in fading red ink, poking out from the ashy remains of a cabinet somewhere. Days, months, and years—we didn't care about those anymore. Years changed, yet this place never could. Time flew, and so did planes.

Our daily wake-up alarm was the thunder of explosions. Our skies shone bright, not with fireworks, but with bombs. Our weary eyes looked up, wondering when the next airstrike would come. Our hours were spent either fighting or hiding, depending on who we were, though we all had the same question in our minds: how long did I have left? How long could I survive?

A tiny creature like you—as small as an ant and as fragile as glass—wouldn't have long. Black leather boots would crush you with one single step, and guns needed no more than a bullet to shatter you. Smoke would set your two little lungs on fire until you couldn't even let out your last breath. Ashes would paint your face a deadly shade of gray.

Therefore, I handed you a piece of cloth I found in my pocket and some rock-hard, stale bread I managed to get my hands on. It was supposed to be my meal for today, but whatever. "Hungry?"

Of course, you were. Silently, I watched as you politely took the food before walking away.

Quiet footsteps followed me. Then a voice flew over. "Thank you...."

I stopped.

It repeated. "Thank you, sir."

That... wasn't something I encountered frequently nowadays, especially with a blazing gun in my hand and a helmet with an imprinted symbol on my head. It wasn't something I would expect, either.

I had been hearing a lot of shouting. Crouch lower. Clutch tighter. Notice your surroundings; they roared. They collected me as soon as I became a legal adult, gave me a gun, told me briefly where to aim, then drove me to a wrecked land just to kick me out of the jeep alongside a stack of other wide-eyed, baby-faced, naive-looking soldiers barely over the age of sixteen, whose knees trembled like a deer in front of headlights.

All of us were given an order to go for every head wearing a certain symbol and every heart beneath a particular colored shirt, but none were taught any further than to pull a trigger. Inevitably, half were wiped out in a week, some due to explosions, some because of bullets, and some trying to run only to be found bleeding out in a corner hours later. The lucky ones, including me, kind of figured out our way through the day. Survival of the fittest, I guess.

The rules of natural selection were simple and finite. We had a weapon. We had a choice: kill or be killed, and no one actually wanted to die. That was why we familiarize ourselves with the constant resonation of the new world around us: crying, shouting, begging, tears flooding my eyes until we learn to breathe freely underwater, pleas crawling under my skin until we thicken it with an armor of blood. Please spare me. You monster. Burn in hell. Screams pierced our ears until we were deaf to such sounds.

Gratitude, however, was something we didn't get used to. It hit me as a surprise how a note in this neverending symphony of war could be so soft, so tender, so fragile.

After a while, I decided that I couldn't pretend not to notice you following me anymore—you were a terrible stalker, and I was far too experienced. I sat down with my back against the wall and the gun still in my right hand, the other hand gesturing for you to approach.

"Come here," I said.

You slowly settled down two steps apart from me and held out half the food I just gave away.

"You can have it. I don't need that as much as you do." I shook my head.

You insisted.

"Thanks, then." I finally gave up. Swallowing the whole thing in one bite, I told you. "Get some rest. I will take you to the refugee camp tomorrow."

It was not that the place was any safer than the cramped space beneath a fallen wall—to be honest, we both knew fairly well that there wasn't any centimeter of land in this godforsaken area that hadn't blown up a few times—but you nodded, and it was settled.

Without a single warning, you leaned on me. "Thank you so much for saving me." I heard you whisper.

I shocked myself by not trying to shy away.

The instant you laid down on me, memories flooded back, hitting me harder than a shot. It was also on New Year's Eve that the fireworks turned into a wave of burned flesh and black smoke. Explosives were already going off everywhere by the time they collected me.

Yet, they didn't strip me of my choices. I myself had chosen to wear that uniform and take that gun.

I remembered the second I had made my decision. In a passing minute, I had thought of an old neighbor's son, whose cheerful company I did enjoy back in the days when I felt truly alive, whom I lost in the first rain of ashes and bombs, and who cried out the most haunting last words I had ever known. Even years later, sometimes I would still hear his final cry for help in my nightmares. I would wake up panting and trembling like an idiot scared to death. I remembered trying to chase his ghost away. I remembered forcing myself to cover my ears, shut my eyelids, and lock my mind.

I remembered holding onto the weapon as tightly as I could, though I couldn't quite understand why.

I remembered now, looking at you.

The night was cold, especially with my arms exposed to the wind and my coat gone. But it was wrapped around you, who was falling asleep on me, so somehow I felt warm. I carefully traced the scars on your forehead. I ran my hands through your dry, ashy hair.

People said changes couldn't happen overnight. That might have been the case if my life could have been long enough to slowly register them.

However, they picked me up the very day I celebrated turning an adult, and the shining new year's fireworks I had once been in love with were gone in a whirlwind. Suddenly, I was not the same child I had been before, whose only concern had been how high he could make the swing fly and what he would have for dinner that night.

I was not the same person I had been all this time, whose hands had been clutching a gun so tightly my fingers would bleed, whose feet had been running non-stop in a mist of ashes and cries, whose bullets had gone for the hearts of as many people as I could aim.

Once, I had been filled with joy; then, I drowned in fear, and I died. I had too much blood on my hands to touch someone. I had brought death to too many to get a glimpse at life. I had become too familiar with cold, lifeless skin, to the point of forgetting how warm and endearing a living body felt. I had heard screams too painful and ignored too many to be able to listen to a gentle, sweet voice. Yes, I was no different than your mom or every other unarmed corpse buried beneath the ruins. I had been just another victim of war, with my heart ripped right out of my chest. With a wound that deserved to never be healed again.

Yet, now, something else was beating inside me—something even more miraculous than daydreams. I was not the same, no, because I had you.

Because here I was, sitting still in the shadows, with you slightly squeezing my calloused hand. For the first time since this began, I dropped my gun and allowed my bare fingers to reach for another being. As I stayed next to you, I remembered... There was a reason why I let your little footsteps follow after mine—why I looked for a piece of cloth to wipe your tears and clean your face. There was a reason why I was where I chose to be. You thanked me for saving you.

I never thought I could.

Then, here I was, murmuring to you about how I wanted to let you fly to a land far away where I could tuck you in and wish you a good night's sleep. My eyes quietly followed the scratches on your baby cheeks as you dozed off into a dream that I hoped would be brighter than the endless night around you.

Wishes, in this living hell, had been replaced by desperate pleas and tearful prayers, a privilege for the most helpless of souls and the strongest of hearts. In my mind, hope had been a luxury I could never dream of affording. But I realized now that hope was the regular beats I could feel through a small wrist, the human heat radiating through the soft skin, the sound of breathing lightly caressing my hand, the tilted head resting on my thigh, and the closed eyes that would open again to see another daybreak, however wretched as it may be. Hope was you.

It was the first day of a new year. It was when I changed—or was changed—by hope, by you. It was the moment I promised you: you would see those new year's fireworks blooming in a sparkling sky one day. 

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(Writer's notes:

- I am not satisfied with how I (barely) made the character background relevant.

- The characters don't interact enough, it feels forced.

- The ending is absolutely terrible. I will try again later.)