Ryaan's POV

I didn’t sleep much last night.

Maryam was curled up against me, breathing slow and soft, like she used to when everything was okay.

But I couldn’t close my eyes.

Because every time I did, I saw them —

Mama reaching out through smoke.

Baba shouting my name.

Then silence.

Always silence.

---

I think the worst part of war isn’t the noise.

It’s what comes after.

The quiet.

The nothing.

---

This morning, I went to the corner where the women line up for water. I stood there for almost an hour with a plastic bottle.

The line barely moved.

People didn’t talk much.

When they did, it was whispers:

“My cousin didn’t make it.”

“The baby stopped breathing in the night.”

“The bakery was hit.”

I listened.

But I didn’t speak.

Because if I started talking, I think I’d start crying.

And if I start crying…

I don’t know if I’ll stop.

---

Maryam asked again about Mama today.

She said,

“Do you think she’s looking for us?”

I nodded.

Lied again.

My throat felt like it was full of stones.

She handed me her only toy — a broken cloth rabbit.

“You can hold it if you’re sad,” she said.

I wanted to scream.

To yell, “You’re the child! I’m supposed to comfort you!”

But I didn’t.

I just took the rabbit and whispered, “Thank you.”

She didn’t know she saved me in that moment.

---

I feel like I’m splitting into two people.

The real me — Ryaan, the boy who wants his parents.

And the other me — the version Maryam sees.

The strong one.

The brave one.

The liar.

---

I see other boys my age playing with pebbles in the dust, pretending they’re in school.

I can’t join them.

I feel too old already.

Like grief made me grow up overnight.

---

I miss Baba’s voice, deep and calm like the sea.

I miss Mama humming in the kitchen, her soft hands fixing my collar even when it wasn’t crooked.

I miss my name on their lips.

Now no one says it like they did.

It’s strange…

You don’t realize how much love lives in small things.

The packed lunches.

The scolding.

The door creaking open at sunset.

Now the door is gone.

And they’re gone.

And I’m here.

Trying not to fall apart.

---

Tonight I’ll hold Maryam close again.

Tell her a made-up bedtime story.

Smile like everything’s fine.

Because grief?

Grief is a luxury I can’t afford.

Not while she still looks at me like I’m her whole world.

Not while she still believes I can fix this broken sky.

It’s quiet again.

Too quiet.

The kind of silence that feels like it’s holding its breath.

Maryam is asleep beside me, her fingers still clutching the rabbit she gave me.

I watch her chest rise and fall. She looks peaceful.

But I wonder what her dreams look like now.

Do they still have color? Or are they grey like the streets outside?

---

Today I sat behind what used to be the bakery wall.

It’s just a pile of bricks now.

I used to buy bread there on Fridays.

Now there’s no smell, no warmth. Just dust.

And for the first time since this all began, I asked myself the thing I’ve been too scared to ask:

Why?

Why did the planes come?

Why did the missiles fall on my house?

Why did they take my mother’s laugh, my father’s hands, our walls, our kitchen, our garden?

I keep hearing the grown-ups say it’s “war.”

But no one really explains what that word means.

I think war is just a word adults use when they’ve run out of excuses.

A word big enough to hide behind.

A word sharp enough to kill families… but soft enough to fit into a speech.

I don’t understand.

We weren’t soldiers.

We were just us.

We had school bags, not guns.

We had bedtime stories, not bombs.

We had bread and tea and homework and songs.

So why us?

Why our house?

Why Maryam’s blood on my shirt?

---

I heard someone say on the radio today,

“They’re just collateral.”

Collateral.

Like we’re numbers.

Like we’re background noise.

But I’m not noise.

Maryam is not a number.

Mama had favorite songs. Baba loved fishing.

I’m a boy who cheated on math tests and made paper planes when the teacher wasn’t looking.

We were people.

Not collateral.

---

I used to think the world was big and full of good people.

Now it feels small and too full of pain.

Do the people flying the planes know they hit a house with two children inside?

Do they sleep at night?

Do they even wonder who we were?

---

I don’t know who’s right or wrong anymore.

All I know is — we lost.

Not in politics. Not on maps.

But in life.

In the places that matter.

We lost parents.

We lost homes.

We lost a childhood.

---

I wish I could scream this to the sky:

“Stop pretending this is normal!”

Because it’s not.

---

And yet…

Tomorrow, I’ll still wake up.

I’ll still search for food.

I’ll still tell Maryam stories.

I’ll still be strong — even when I don’t want to be.

Because war may have stolen everything…

but it hasn’t taken her.

And as long as she’s alive,

there’s something left worth protecting.

Even in a world that’s forgotten how.

Today I met someone who didn’t look like us.

Didn’t speak like us either, not fully.

He had a small camera hanging from his chest and a notebook in his hand.

He said he was a journalist.

From “outside.”

Outside of here.

Outside of this ruin.

I don’t even know what that means anymore.

---

He came into the shelter, cautious but kind.

The aid workers vouched for him, so people talked — about how many were dead, what was destroyed, what we needed.

He wrote it all down.

He looked at me and asked,

“What’s your name?”

“Ryaan,” I said.

He smiled gently, and said,

“Would you like to tell me your story?”

And for a moment… I didn’t know how.

Because how do you shrink a war into a sentence?

---

I pointed at Maryam playing with two bottle caps like they were dolls.

“She’s seven,” I said.

“She watched our house fall on our parents.”

He went quiet.

Like the words hit something inside him.

He didn’t write that part down.

---

Then I asked him.

The thing that’s been eating me alive.

The thing I scream in my head every night:

“Why?”

“Why did they bomb us?

Why did they kill my mother and father?

Why are we suffering?

Why is no one stopping this?”

He looked at me, and I saw it —

He didn’t have an answer.

His mouth opened. Closed.

His eyes got wet.

He finally whispered,

“I don’t know. I wish I did.”

---

That made me angry.

Not at him.

But at this world.

This massive, connected, noisy world —

and not one person can tell a 13-year-old boy why his parents are gone.

He took my photo.

I didn’t smile.

I didn’t pose.

I just stared into his lens and thought:

“If this reaches your world, will they care? Or just scroll past?”

---

Before he left, he knelt beside me.

“You’re strong,” he said.

But I shook my head.

“I’m tired,” I replied.

“But I have to be strong because she needs me.”

I looked at Maryam.

And then I added,

“Please… tell them we’re not numbers.

Tell them we had a life before this.

Tell them I miss my mom.”

He didn’t speak again.

He just put his hand on my shoulder — and it stayed there longer than it needed to.

---

I don’t know if my words will make it anywhere.

But I hope… maybe someone will read them.

And maybe someone will feel what I feel.

Not pity.

But something deeper.

Truth.

Grief.

Responsibility.

---

Because we don’t need their prayers.

We need them to remember us.

To stop pretending this is normal.

To stop accepting war as background noise.

We were a family.

Now we are a story.

I just hope someone’s still listening.