The wind blows outside with intense power. Idris is waiting in his room for his parents to return from their work. They'd been gone for longer than expected.
He catches a glimpse from his window of trees moving viciously in the gust, every minute passing by culminating with his restlessness. There isn't much he can do to distract himself.
His older sister is also at work, and the eerie silence inside the house leads him to a fervor to also join into an activity of some sort. That would make it easier for him to escape from the tedious silence he is battling.
He glances at his calendar, already envisioning what the day tomorrow would bring for him. Idris loves to sit in his room and solve puzzle games or play chess. He also has a deep connection with music. He likes to play piano, guitar, and to sing. He had always dreamt of becoming a famous musician.
Eventually, when he notices his parents are still not coming, Idris takes out his rubix cube and his chess board. He learnt how to play chess by himself, since his sister didn't find the board game that exciting and never wanted to play with him. He places the white and black pieces on the board and moves them, calculating the placements of the pieces.
After finishing his chess game, he takes his rubix cube and scrambles it, then solves it in a few minutes. He aspires to be able to have a world record at something, though finishing a chess game by yourself in world record time or solving a rubix cube faster than anybody else didn't really pose to him as the best ideas to enter the world record book. Whatever he wanted to accomplish, he would do it by his own terms, without letting anyone correct him or mention how it should be done. He had always been too stubborn to listen to how others preffered work to be done. He had his own way of learning, of working, which seemed to show results better.
Everybody in the country works in mines to collect materials. This heavy and tiring physical exercise had been implemented for a long time in their country, the regime making it a mandatory task. People who don't participate in this type of labor were usually underpaid and can't afford much. Thus, civilians that work to gather materials in mines have a more decent standard of living.
He decides to get up from his desk to meet with his friend, Rhiannon Davies. Her shift at the coal mine had still not ended, but he had nothing else better to do. All his homework was finished, and all his chores were done. Thus, with nothing else planned, he leaves the house in search for the coal mine Rhiannon is assigned to work at.
He walks down the path to the mine, taking his time to admire the sorroundings. Soon, he arrives to the location his friend works at. He walks inside the mine, taking out his flashlight from his pocket. It provides a bit of visibility, but not enough to notice if there was someone around. He keeps walking forward inside the mine, listening for any sound that would give a sign people are around. Yet, it was silent. He assumes all the workers were probably on a break, otherwise he would have listened to the sounds of multiple pickaxes hitting the walls and of mine carts being pushed around.
Eventually, the battery from his tiny flashlight withers away, and it stops working. All his light source is now completely gone, and he is left in that same eerie silence that he tried to escape from. He hits the flashlight with his right palm a couple of times, but it still doesn't seem to work. After a couple of seconds, he hears footsteps behind him, and he immediately assumes it is his friend.
„What are you doing here?", she asks.
The boy still flinches a little when hearing her voice even if he was aware the girl was behind him.
„I hope I didn't scare you.", Rhiannon says as she turns on her light attached to her helmet. The small source of light reveals her soft childlike features and her braided hair.
„Luckily for me, I heard you coming, Rhia."
„From how far away?"
„Hmm... from... a few meters away?"
„You have the ears of a falcon, I've been telling you that for so long but you never want to admit it."
„Put the blame on music for my good hearing."
„Yeah, surely. You must remember me when you become a famous musician, lad! You made that promise with me!"
Idris chuckles. Afterwards, the girl guides him to the area she was mining in. On the right side of the tunnel were doors with numbers written on them. Those were usually either worker's dorms where they rested or slept or rooms where people placed the materials they gathered to bring them outside the mine for later. The mine Rhiannon is obligized to excavate coal in is much narrower than the one he works at.
He never really liked tight spaces. It wasn't about a certain phobia, it was about a feeling of being trapped and not being able to move much which he didn't like. He associates tight spaces to coertion, whereas bigger spaces mean freedom and liberation.
He takes a look around at the doors on the right. They sometimes step by accident on the trails the mine carts move, and they keep walking forward. The mining space on the left where walls are chipped makes him remember how he'll need to start working tomorrow, too.
His friend eventually brings him to the spot she was using her pickaxe to get the coal out. She tells him not to go anywhere, since he could get lost in the darkness.
The girl mentions that workers were on a break before he came. She saw him go inside the mine, so she followed him to greet him.
Rhia keeps chipping the left wall with her pickaxe to get coal out. She talks with Idris about different subjects, and the two forget all about their tiredness for a little while. Idris also forgets about boredom or silence while he talks with her.
After a little while, the two stop speaking because they hear the sound of airplanes flying very close to them. The sound was really loud, and it made the two look around. Then, they heard the sound of a whistle as it dropped to the ground, and that's when they realized what was coming.
The ground shakes with an impossible force. They both hear a loud boom, and the last thing Idris sees is Rhia's face. Before they know it, the both of them find themselves buried in rocks and dust from the force of the bomb dropping.
Idris wakes up with a lot of pain, but most of it stems from his right leg. He doesn't know how long he's been inside the mine for. He is buried deep in rocks and can't see much except a bit of light escaping through cracks. He coughs from the amount of dust inhaled.
Eventually, he tries to make his way out to the surface. He pushes the rocks and soil off of him, one by one managing to finally stand again. He looks around confused. He doesn't know what happend, all he knows is to yell out Rhia's name.
„Rhia!"
He yells, but she does not respond. He drops down, searching through the rocks and soil to find his friend. His hands kept digging through, trying to find her, but he doesn't.
When he realizes he can't get to her, he stands up and tries to find a way out of the mine. His hands and legs are trembling, and he tries to steady himself while moving forward.
Idris walks around, noticing that the town which he had lived in for so long was now left in ruins. All the houses were destroyed and nothing else was left other than dust and silence.
As he looks around at the collapsed buildings, trying to somehow regulate his shock, he remembers his home. He immediatelly starts running towards his house to assess the damages. He hears a few more bombs being dropped farther in the distance, but he doesn't pay attention, all he needs is to find out what happened to his home. His parents were supposed to come home soon, and he was afraid they got caught inside the house as it collapsed.
When he arrives at the scene, he looks at his house. Barely anything is left of it, some walls are still holding up. Idris yells for his parents, but nobody answers. He walks forward and dips his hands in the rubble. He manages to find an old photo of him and his family which was put in a photo frame. But there is nothing else left of his home.
At that moment, he hears a few soldiers speaking in a foreign language. In front of him is a sight he wished he had not seen in that moment. Bodies of people are all piled up, soldiers still wrapping people and moving them around. Men are dragging bodies from the rubble, but Idris is too afraid to look. He doesn't want to know who the people they are pulling are.
All he does is place the photo in his pocket. He hears a few soldiers screaming at him to come forward. Some of them start to walk towards him, but the boy is uninterested to hear them out. He turns around in a swift motion and runs away.
That's when he realizes his leg in hurt quite badly. It really hurt to walk, not to mention running, but he sprints forward. His goal is to escape from the soldiers once and for all. He doesn't want to see anyone at the moment.
Eventually, he hides behind a still intact part of a wall and listens. When he assumes the men left, he sighs heavily. His hands drop down to the ground. Idris takes a few breaths, trying to discern what just occured. There must have been an airstrike, and he has no idea where his family is located, if they are even alive.
His eyes drop down to his right leg which he tries to move. It had multiple scratches, most of them really deep and large, which need medical attention.
He gets up, using his healthy limbs to balance himself and using the still intact part of a wall to make himself stand up. When he manages to stand up, he walks forward, limping. He doesn't know where he wants to go, but anywhere else other than here is better.