The sky filled with bombers as the sound of gunfire ripped through the air. The ground shook as numerous tanks rushed into the town as I ran through the streets, watching madness unfold around me. I ran with my heart pounding like it was going to burst through my chest any second. Motorcycles sped past me as I ran. I turned around just as a tank fired a shell just ten feet away from me. The explosion's force knocked me off my feet as I fell, hitting my head on a slab of concrete. Blood dripped onto the ground as I laid on the ground staring at the sky filled with a myriad of planes. My vision slowly became darker until the world had gone black.
Eight hours ago- I picked cabbage in the garden on my knees as my father sat on the porch, watching me with absolute hate in his eyes. I continued to pick potatoes and cabbage from the garden until I fell from my exhaustion. My father saw me lying on the ground. He kicked at my back to get me up as I laid there. "Alexei!" My father yelled. "Go and get some bread for dinner," he said. "Be back before supper or I'll lock you in your room for a week with one meal a day." Not that I got more than one meal a day. Usually, I had one beetroot and a little bit of bread. It wasn't much but it kept me alive. I stood there, in my father's shadow as he stared at me with his annoyed expression. He always thought he was greater than me and better in every way. He had strength and intelligence. Therefore, for most of my life I was told I was worthless by my abusive father. Slowly, I got up as my father stared at me with his furious expression and I started to limp down the dirt road.
I never knew what made my father so angry and bitter. It might had been his job or the fact he was so bereaved about the death of his wife and son. I knew I was not his favorite. He had always liked my brother more than me. My brother wanted to follow in my father's footsteps and serve the country. I like to play music and create art. Of course, we did not have the instruments such as the piano or the stringed instrument known as the guitar. So, I grew up as a percussionist banging on anything I could find. Which annoyed the crap out of my parents. My father always held a firm bias for my brother. He would constantly say that he loved us equally, yet that was not the case. Last October there was a shootout in the neighborhood. My family was walking to the market when it begun. Three out of five made it out alive. My father, me, and my sister.
I walked to a large warehouse where they gave out bread. Ever since the Germans stormed into Russia, we had to start using ration cards. My father says that the Germans wouldn't make it a month fighting against us. I stood there with my ration card, waiting for hours to get my bread. The line inched along slowly. Then suddenly there was yelling in front of me. Some sort of altercation was taking place. Yelling started to echo through the large building. Some guards started running to the front of the line, punching the two men who continued to try to fight even while being punched numerous times in the head. They fought until one of the soldiers punched one of the men out cold. He laid on the ground, for a moment I thought he was knocked out. But the chest did not rise. The man did not move. He was dead.
The whole line (including me) watched as the man was dragged off, struggling against the guards. The body laid lifeless in front of the line. I was speechless. I heard stories of brutality happening across the country, but never have I witnessed a homicide. A guard started walking towards the dead man. He flung a cigarette on to the shoe of a small little girl. She did not speak, she just stood there, frozen, with her head looking down. The guard grabbed the dead man by his arms and started dragging him out of the building. A few more hours went by "Hey, do you know what's going on up there. I've been waiting for hours, and we have barely moved," I said to the man in front of me. "I don't know what's happening, but you should shut the hell up kid. The NKVD is always watching us. Start complaining and you will end up dead by the end of the week." The man said. I started to become quiet. I scanned the room. He was right, there were guards positioned at every entrance to the building. I got my bread two hours later and I slowly walked down the bleak, dirt road, back to my despair.
As I walked, I saw some soldiers at the door of a small Dacha. I watched the two officers yell at the door of the small house, banging on it with the fists. "Dimitri," yelled one of the officers, "get your ass over here with the ram." A small soldier that could not have been more than twenty, started to drag a long, heavy ram over to the captain. The soldiers teased the young soldier as he struggled with the ram. The young private and the other soldier picked up the giant ram. "One, two, three," the captain yelled. The two soldiers slammed the ram against the door knocking it down. They dropped the ram and ran inside with their rifles drawn. Gunfire rang out through the house. I watched in absolute shock as the two soldiers dragged a man, with a bullet wound in his leg, by his arms as he screamed nonsense out of the small house. The two soldiers pulled him to a dark, green truck with the iconic red, Soviet star on the side of the vehicle. The soldiers shoved him into the back of the vehicle and slammed the truck doors closed making his screams become muffled. The soldiers then turned to me, glaring at me, with sinister looks on their faces. I did not dare to look back at them or I would share the same fate as the man in the truck. I continued my walk back home. I did not walk fast, but I didn't walk slow. The NKVD were unpredictable. If you do something they do not like, you may be laying on the street, bleeding from your head.
While I walked home, I faintly heard a small buzzing sound. Slowly it grew louder. I looked to where the sound was coming from until a building exploded right in front of me. Rubble flew at my stomach, tearing the flesh on my chest. I screamed in agony as a violent rumbling shook the ground while tanks drove through the streets of Volkhov. Men charged through the town, some were wearing the brown pants and shirt with the red star on their side hats, while some wore grey pants and shirts with a metal helmet. The two armies clashed making my home a battle ground where blood and bodies covered the black streets. I ran for my life through the battlefield as men fell from gunfire all around me. A tank shot a shell ten feet away from me. The explosion's force knocked me off my feet. I fell, hitting my head on a slab of concrete. I bled onto the concrete as my vision become dark.
I laid on the ground for hours not moving, as giant tanks and motorcycles rode past me. I woke up only to find darkness. I slowly walked around, looking for signs of life. The buildings around me were reduced to rubble. Stumbling, I walked into a warehouse that was miraculously still standing. I looked around in the abandoned building until I saw somebody standing before me. "Hello" I called out, he looked at me and said something I could not understand. He started walking toward me. When he stepped into the moonlight, I saw the menacing look on the man's face. He was not Russian; he was a part of the foreign invaders, the Germans. He stood before me but did not wear what the other soldiers wore. He instead wore a black shirt and black pants with a red armband with a white circle and a weird design around his arm. He said something to me I could not understand. My instincts told me to run while I still could, but I stayed put, cowering in the enemy's shadow. It was no surprise I did not run. I saw his rifle leaning against one of the pillars of the warehouse. Still, I did not run. To my despair, I was born a craven person. He continued to yell at me in a language I could not understand. He turned around and walked outside, yelling to someone off into the distance. He was away from the gun. This was my moment to run, I told myself. I could not be craven. War does not accept people who are scared and weak. If you want to survive, you must earn it. As he stood twenty feet ahead of me, I turned and ran to the door of the building. Never looking back.
I ran through the ruined settlement. "Never stop running," I told myself. The outskirt of town was two miles from where I was. Suddenly, fifty feet behind me stood a young German soldier. He had something in his hand and immediately I knew what it was. He stood with it, pointing the firearm right at my torso. I stood there, frozen, with my eyes drawn to the weapon he held. I saw the fear in the young German's eyes as we stared at each other. He was just as scared as me. He was not like the other soldiers. None of us moved, we never spoke, we just stood there until abruptly, a ball of fire rose into the night sky. The soldier turned toward the explosion and ran toward it. Moments after, the sound of gunfire, rang through the air, and that was my moment to start to run.
I ran from the explosion, stumbling on debris in the road. I ran into a small Slavic house and hid under a table, as gunshots echoed through the town. After twenty minutes, silence had fallen upon Volkhov. I walked outside the building to find nothing but an eerie quiet. I walked through the town, trembling as I walked. I passed a few buildings where parts of them were destroyed. While I walked, I passed a few demolished vehicles on the side of the road, until I saw something laying in the road. It was a girl, in absolute fear of what I might find, I slowly walked over and saw a traumatizing vision much horrible than anything I had ever dreamed over. My sister.
My sister laid before me, in the road. She had a whole in her dark blue shirt, no doubt a bullet hole. There was a stain of red that covered the center of her shirt. I knew what I was going to find if I put my bloody fingers to her neck, yet I carefully checked her pulse. Nothing. She was ice cold. I began to sob in the street over my dead sister. My family was gone. Just six hours ago, me and my sister were together. Now I have lost everything that mattered to me, my home, and my sister.
Suddenly, I heard voices. I did not want to stay and meet the same fate as my little sibling did. "I love you," I whispered, still sobbing. I began to run from the voices, avoiding the same fate my sister met.
I ran through the streets. The only sound around me was the echoing sound of my shoes on the dirt road. I thought to myself, maybe she would wake up from the endless sleep of death and then we would be together and live together and this horrible war would end. Though this was not a children's book. This was war, and war is unforgiving.
After the traumatizing experience I began to walk. Finally, I had reached the edge of town. A giant forest stood in front of me, with the forest's great spruce trees towering over me. I looked back at the destroyed town, knowing this would be the last time I would ever see Volkhov. I looked in front of me at the intimidating forest and stepped into the woodland, leaving civilization.