My shoulders are subconsciously tense, the unsettling noises of wails and anguished yells travelling through the large open space. Yet my heavy breathing is loud in my ears, and it feels like each step I take sends echoing cracks from under my shoes.
Shadows of moving bodies are seen in the distance, making me subconsciously hide behind piles of rubble and mangled bodies. My tiny hands clutch tightly to the thin fabric of my shirt, and a familiar melody is quietly muttered under my breath. The comfort of my mother's voice plays in my head like a distant dream as I recall the countless times of her singing the song to me in the comfort of my bedroom as she brushes my hair.
I soon pass the people who remain still standing, each one too focused on fighting another for their lives to notice a 5 year old wandering down the bridge. In the midst of my eyes flitting around the expanse of the street, I hear the yell of a woman farther ahead of me. She sounds like my mom.
With my heart beating rapidly in my chest I speed up my previously timid steps. Whipping through the smoke almost without care makes my lungs ache and whine. But the distorted figures are getting clearer, one of them is landing a punch on the other's face, the latter swings and hits the person square in the abdomen making them stumble back. Then during that person's moment of weakness, the other pulls out the gun from their holdster with great precision and speed.
It's in that moment when I can now clearly see my mom hunched over clutching her stomach. The person standing menacingly before her extends their arm out in front of them, the barrel of their gun aimed right between the space between her eyebrows.
...
The sound is deafening, but nothing compares to the thud of her body hitting the harsh ground beneath her. The image her falling flashes before my eyes yet it feels like it lasts a lifetime as the towering perpetrator walks off carelessly without another thought.
I barely register reaching her body, gut wrenching screams and harsh coughs ripping from my throat. Or her blood on my hands and beneath my knees as it pools around her head, or the scorching heat of a growing fire encircling us. Or the feeling of strong rough hands pulling me away into their arms as I fight to look into her eyes. To search for any sort of light that might tell me she miraculously survived, and that I'll get to hear her soft voice singing to me as she embraces me in her gentle arms.
