Ryaan's POV

The sky looked like it had given up today.

Gray, low, heavy — like it wanted to cry, but couldn’t.

Maryam was coughing again. I gave her the last two sips of clean water we had.

She didn’t argue.

She just said, “You’ll find more. You always do.”

But I didn’t know if I would.

So I left again, walked further than usual. Past buildings I’d never entered, past roads half-eaten by bombs.

That’s when I saw him.

A small boy, maybe five — maybe less — sitting on a step of a collapsed apartment building.

He had dust in his hair, dried blood on his knee, and something like silence wrapped around him.

No crying. No calling for anyone.

Just… sitting.

Still.

---

I asked his name.

He didn’t answer.

I asked where his parents were.

He looked at me, blinked slowly, and then looked away.

That silence said more than any words.

He didn’t have anyone left to speak for.

---

I gave him a piece of stale bread from my pocket.

He held it in his lap. Didn’t eat it right away.

Like he needed permission from someone who wasn’t there.

I sat beside him, even though there were shards of glass all around.

He looked so small in that moment —

not just in size,

but in the way the world had already abandoned him.

---

When I asked again gently, he finally whispered something.

Not his name.

Just:

“The building fell.”

That’s all.

And it told me everything.

---

I don’t think he even knew what had happened.

I think his brain just shut down, to protect him from the truth.

He didn’t ask where I came from.

Didn’t ask who I was.

He just leaned his head against my arm like he’d known me forever.

And suddenly, I felt it.

This pressure in my chest.

This war didn’t just take my parents.

It took his too.

It took so many.

There are too many children with no hands left to hold.

Too many with no names remembered.

---

I carried him back to the shelter.

He didn’t cry once.

Maryam gave him the rabbit.

She said,

“It helped my brother. Maybe it can help you too.”

And for the first time since I found him,

he nodded.

---

I sat alone tonight, writing this.

And I realized something:

Up until now, I thought I was barely surviving.

But today made me understand…

I’m also someone else’s shelter.

To Maryam.

To this boy.

To anyone left behind.

Even if I’m broken inside,

even if I carry more grief than my heart can hold,

I still have something to give.

That matters.

---

The boy doesn’t speak much.

Still won’t tell us his name.

But tomorrow, I’ll ask again — gently.

Not because I need to know it…

But because he needs someone to want to.

Maryam fell asleep early tonight.

She’s been quiet all day — the kind of quiet that feels like sadness wrapped in skin.

The little boy still won’t say his name.

But he clings to her now. Like she’s the only soft thing left in the world.

Maybe she is.

---

I tried to eat a piece of bread someone gave us, but I couldn’t swallow it.

It felt like ash in my mouth.

I wasn’t even hungry.

I just felt… empty.

Like everything inside me had burned up.

So I sat by the shelter wall, alone.

Dust on my shoes.

My hands shaking for no reason.

And then it hit me.

This memory.

So fast it nearly knocked the air out of me.

---

Mama.

Her voice.

Smiling. Teasing. Soft.

“Ryaan, if you don’t eat your sabzi, I’m going to run away and leave you here.”

She’d say it with that half-laugh in her voice, holding the spoon out like a threat.

I’d pout. Cross my arms.

And she’d pretend to walk away.

I’d always shout, “No! No! I’ll eat it!”

And she’d turn back, smiling, victorious, kissing my forehead.

It was a game.

A silly little trick.

Her way of making me eat.

But now—

Now I can’t stop hearing it.

“I’ll go away.”

And this time…

She did.

---

I started crying before I even realized.

The kind of crying that comes from the bones.

Not loud.

Just leaking pain from a place too deep to name.

I pressed my forehead to my knees and whispered,

“I’m eating now, Mama… I’m eating… please come back.”

I don’t know if anyone heard me.

I didn’t care.

---

I would give anything to feel her hands on my face again.

To smell her cooking.

To hear her ask if I washed behind my ears.

Even her scolding. I miss that too.

Her love was everywhere — in things I didn’t even notice then.

Now I notice.

Now I remember everything.

Too late.

---

War doesn’t just steal people.

It steals the little things they left behind.

The sound of their voice.

The scent of their clothes.

The warmth of their hug.

Until you’re left with shadows that no one else can see.

---

I wiped my face before Maryam woke up.

I have to be her strength.

Even when I’m crumbling.

Even when the memories turn into knives.

---

But tonight, I let myself cry.

Just for a little while.

Because I miss her.

Because I didn’t eat my sabzi that day.

Because part of me still waits for her to walk back through the door and say,

“I was only kidding.”

But she won’t.

And I know that.

---

Still… I’ll eat tomorrow.

Because she would want me to.

Because I have to take care of Maryam.

Because the boy with no name needs me now, too.

But God…

I miss her so much.