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Writer's pictureAstha Goswami

If I was one of the victims of Ukraine-Russia War

I can barely sleep at nights since the war started and even after I came out from the Poland border on March 3rd. And I have heard, seen, experienced things I'd never be able to erase from my memory and today when I'm in my family home in India with my loved ones.. after days of anxiousness, I could finally catch couple hours of sleep in the afternoon and had a blurry dream about 'what would have happened if I was one of the victims of Ukraine-Russia War' . I woke up screaming my mother's name who was not around, so I wrote a piece of my dream as below:




In dream.. It's about a week after war begun.. and we just came out of our underground bunkers to get the necessaties for tonight's dinner . This was a room full of at least 45-50 people picking out things from their own bags, talking to each other about what can we do for tonight's sleeping turn. Someone have to be awake in case something happens to alarm up everyone .. it's about 4pm and in this room full of women and kids who are discussing the struggles of their relatives, whom they have been communicating with, over phones the whole day. In the middle of this huge crowd and their unsynchronized voices, there's just one familiar face I see across the room , my mother who is walking towards me bringing me a bottle of water I requested her for . ( In reality, she was not with me in Ukraine but in this dream she was). Suddenly I felt the ground shaking again, we all got alarmed thinking something has happened very very close to our building. Everyone's breathe is on hold and we all are looking at each other and then towards the ceiling, afraid of what's happening. There are couple of religious women in the room who have already started ranting their respective god's name . I looked at every corner, at every face, searching for my mother but i can't see her anymore. I'm hiding under a table with 2 other girls of my age who are crying and repeating that they don't wanna die. I'm panicked but i don't wanna loose my control from myself before finding my mother. She needs to see me strong . I have to be strong for her. All this happened so quick, within a minute, the ceiling of the room started tearing up from the corner and we could see the sky in between the flames covering the ceiling ..the ground and walls are unimaginably hot and shivering. Our death is so so close and everyone is screaming their lungs out, trying to find any way to come out alive from that room. Couple of women deliberately ran towards the exit door which is half in flames and the edge of the ground, on the other side of the door, is already burning with the fallen wooden frame. I still couldn't see my mother's face so I started screaming to find her. Now in my head, i know I'm dying and all I want, is just to see her face before I do. I'm screaming "ma, where are you" several times and i heard her," Astha, I'm here!" I'm relieved and I saw in the direction of the voice and she is holding a girl of about 4-5 years in her lap.. She's crying but trying to calm the child down. I don't know if i should be happy to see that brave women or should I cry coz we are probably seeing each other for the last time . I looked around the room once more and realised there's a hard glass window across the room . I grabbed my mother's hand and pulled her towards myself and ran into the window, hoping it'd break , so we could at least touch a safe ground. After 3 hard back pushes into the glass and the bleeding left arm, finally the glass broke but I lost my mother's hand grip. At this point, I'm blank in my mind, i have lost my voice to scream anymore and in a quick second, I saw a huge crowd of women running towards that window to save themselves. I'm pushed off the edge and for a second I saw her face and I screamed "Maa". This is all what happens when it comes to you, this is what I'm feeling right now is, the fear I was living with, for last so many days, Is this it?? And all I'm thinking of right at this moment is .. is there still a hope to be saved? Will I see my mother again? Am I falling or Am I floating i don't know, I haven't had a breath of fresh air since last 20 minutes of this rush and my heart felt like it just stopped when i was in the middle of the air ... I haven't even touched the ground yet. Is this the end of my story??

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