The harsh morning light, filtered weakly through the rubble above, stung my eyes as I adjusted to consciousness. My vision, thankfully, had returned, but the world still seemed to swim slightly. I sat up, the rough concrete floor cold beneath me. My phone screen blinked 5:00 AM exactly. The silence was heavy, broken only by the soft breathing of Keith and Austyn, still nestled in their makeshift bed.
My fingers instinctively traced the worn surface of my phone, settling on the familiar lock screen. It was a photo from my twelfth birthday, a snapshot of a family that felt both achingly real and impossibly distant. Mom's smile was wide, dad's arm was draped around her shoulders, and Keith and Austyn, usually bickering siblings, were beaming, their faces smudged with cake. It was a memory of wholeness, a stark contrast to the fractured reality of now.
I swiped to another picture, a solo image of Dad. He looked stern, as he often did, but there was a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his lips. I felt…nothing. Not anger, not sadness, just a hollow echo where grief should have been. The news of the attack, the one that likely claimed his life, had left me emotionally vacant. My heart was a stone, and I hated it. Yet, the military knowledge he crammed into my young mind, the drills and survival tactics, were now my only compass in this ravaged world.
I closed my phone, a cold, metallic click in the quiet, and stood up. This alcove, a random choice made in the darkness the night before, was adequate for now. I'd used touch, feeling for stability and protection, the way dad had taught me. My senses were sharper now, attuned to potential threats.
"Kira Nicolette Limcuando."
The voice startled me, rasping and unfamiliar, pulling me from my thoughts. I turned, my vision still slightly skewed, and saw a figure emerge from the deeper shadows of the alcove. He was taller than I'd remembered, a lean silhouette coalescing into the face of a man.
"Eron, Eron Henriqua Nallos," he introduced himself, his hand extending towards me. "Your brother woke up during the night, confused. We chatted a bit. That's how I knew your name."
This was the stranger I'd saved, also… the one who had saved me, a fragile alliance forged in desperation. Was he a boon or a burden? Time would tell.
"How quiet you are," he said, the words echoing slightly in the small, makeshift shelter.
"You have to get used to it. We'll be stuck here for a while," I replied, my vision clearing enough to register his features. Lean, I thought, observant. Useful, if we survive the upcoming threat. Competition would come eventually, for resources, for safe passage, for everything. For now, I'd tolerate his presence. He'd serve a purpose, until he didn't.
My mind started churning, formulating plans, escape routes, strategies for survival. The most pressing was Nana Esma. I didn't know if she had survived the bombing, but I had to try to get to her – dead or alive. Then, we were getting out of this country. As for Eron, we'd stick together for now, a temporary partnership born of necessity. I figured he had his own family he was trying to reach. We would part ways eventually.
A while later, a small sob punctuated the still air. Keith was waking, Austyn nestled against him, still clinging to Keith's jacket. He looked around at the destroyed building, his face crumpling as confusion overtook his drowsiness. "I want to go to Nana's," he mumbled, his voice thick with sleep.
The audacity of it, how could he even say that, it was like a slap in the face, yet logically I knew it wasn't his fault. The familiar bitterness surged within me, the same mixture of love and resentment I'd always felt. Keith, the same boy who, because of his disorder, caused Nana's blindness, the same reason I dropped out. I hated him, and I hated myself for hating him, and for not being able to protect him.
It had started small. Pens, coins, then it escalated, stealing things that didn't belong. I would spend hours trying to figure out his motives asking the same questions over and over, "Why did you do that?" and his replies would be either "I wanted to buy food", "My friends would beat me if I do", "There are voices in my head" or "You love Austyn more than me." I dealt with the friends he claimed were threatening him, and made sure to treat him the same way I treated Austyn, yet it didn't stop. It was like an itch he couldn't scratch.
I remembered the slap—the only time I ever hit him out of anger. It was when I found out he'd stolen the money I'd been saving for a music box, something small, something mine. I hated that moment. Hated that it came to that. But even then, he didn't stop.
Next, he took the money our parents had scraped together for my schooling—the one thing that might've changed our lives. That was when the first real crack in our family appeared. I started seeing how fragile everything really was.
There had already been secrets—like the affair my mom had when I was little, the one she thought we didn't know about. The same kind of betrayal my dad later repeated, like some terrible cycle. And maybe it's because of all that that Keith's stealing hit harder. It wasn't just money—he was chipping away at what little we had left of trust, of hope.
Then he used our dad's hidden stash—the one meant for Nana's eye surgery. Every cent. And because of that, Nana lost her sight for good.
That was when Dad snapped. He hit Keith, and Keith—he always talked back, always had to push. It just made things worse. He couldn't see how much damage he was doing, how close we were to falling apart. And I think that's why I started to hate him. Not just for what he did—but for how blind he was to it all.
And I hated myself too—for not stepping in sooner. For letting it all happen, one quiet failure at a time.
The words "I want to go to Nana's" hung in the air. Their simplicity mocks the complicated mess of our lives.