No one had anywhere to go; most people didn’t have a cellar. We invited our neighbors to stay in ours as long as they needed to, we just asked if they could provide us some food.

There were five families packed into the cramped space by the time we should’ve been asleep, and the stack of blankets and towels were being shared by everyone.

Our house was destroyed, and we were the lucky ones.

Turns out, a lot of people had died in the explosions. The people who’d been outside, and people who’d just been sitting inside their homes.

I didn’t know why I’d thought no one had died; it seemed stupid now. The harm this war had put onto our city had done more than anyone could think.

The wall was in ruins, and we weren’t safe.

I may not have known what was beyond the wall, but I knew it was bad. I knew it’d killed Tony, and I knew it would kill anyone who passed the boundary.

Why didn’t it just come inside and kill the people inside the city, instead of hiding beyond the wall?