On the Run: Lives that Should’ve Been

Amid the darkest days of Poland, there were lives that should have been, but were ruined by war that ravaged all of Europe.

Disclaimer: While this takes place in World War II on the Eastern front, from the perspective of a Polish fighter, this is not a true to life story of the war. All events and characters in this story are purely fictional, and any resemblances to an actual entity, though inspired by the actions of the Polish, is purely coincidental.

We’re going to die. If not today, then tomorrow.

The roaring sounds of the Luftwaffe echoed across the sky, its loud mighty engines plowing above the already-ruined city. I crouched underneath the window, peering outside. On the streets already filled with rubble were tanks bearing the Iron Cross of Germany, and Nazi soldiers peeking and breaking through every window. Gunshots popped our ears through and through.

I looked at the family we were protecting — they were at the corner of the kitchen, flinching, the ragged mother shielding her child from the horrors outside. I glanced at the German soldiers outside and heard screams and cries of those they’ve shot.

“Mommy, I’m scared,” the son the mother was holding cried on her shoulders.

“Everything is going to be alright, Jakub,” her mother reassured, even though the situation was grim dark outside.

My heart broke when I heard the mother try to reassure her child with hopeful outlooks. My family was slain three years ago, in the hands of the Germans. I wasn’t even there to say goodbye to them — I only found my parents’ dead bodies lying down near the river, bullet wounds on their chests. My younger sister was nowhere to be found. I scurried Warsaw for her, but I couldn’t see her anywhere. I assumed she just died.

I looked near the door and saw a girl who were almost the same age as I was. Like me, Zofia also lost her family when the Germans attacked Warsaw, in a Luftwaffe bombing. She glanced at the poor family in the kitchen, who had nowhere to go but in this building.

However, the situation outside was hopeless. Despite our sufferings, the Germans outside were inflicting more and more pain to our people, setting our buildings — ones that we have cherished for so long — ablaze and flat. The Germans were determined to wipe us out as an ethnicity, as a nation. Although we were prepared to fight with our makeshift weapons, mine being a rifle stolen from a dead German and Zofia’s being a makeshift spear made from a piece of rubble with a knife attached to it, we feared for the safety of these other people, of the ones who couldn’t fight back. Many of us were already traumatized, wishing that the shelling and the bombings would end soon.

Despite us being fighters, members of the Polish resistance, deep inside we are only students, forced to live under these harsh conditions, with the Germans treating us badly. We were supposed to graduate college by now, or at least having a job. But we were only met with bombings of our schools, and every memory that went with it.

We longed to return to school, with my classmates and Zofia, with our dreams and our passion. Instead, it looks like we’re going to die in this house, in this structure that’s so ruined it barely looks like one.

The door next to us banged open, and I knew we were next.

I gestured to the poor family who sought refuge in the kitchen to hide in a safe place, or better yet escape the complex. I knew that with our constant run for our lives and our constant battles to fight back, we weren’t safe anywhere. We couldn’t hide for long, and we had to live a dangerous life, a constant chase for hope in the grim streets of Warsaw.

I broke the window, hoping that the Germans would think that they had already searched this building, and I hid near Zofia, who also had her spear ready.

With a grim look, I glanced and nodded at Zofia, and she nodded back. We both agreed that this may be the end for us. All our memories together flashed within a second — from the first day of class where we met, to when she sat with me in the cafeteria table, to the moment I confessed my feelings for her. At one point, we even said to each other how, after high school, we would marry each other and raise a family, and that I’ll get a good job and become well-accomplished in life.

Before I could even say anything else, the door was kicked open, but with two of us together leaning against the door, we blocked them. However, a German walked past the broken window and immediately pointed at us. Zofia tried to lunge at him, but she was shot dead center in the chest.

“Zofia!” I screamed as her body fell down the ground, and with it all our memories together.

I pointed my rifle at him, but he shot me in my chest. I could only feel immense pain near my wound, and I could feel my blood oozing out of it. I dropped near Zofia, her eyes still dead open.

As my body tried to grasp for the last of its breath, I could only flash back to our memories together, and thought of what should’ve been. We should’ve been living together by now, with wisdom earned from our schooling, getting a good life. Instead, all of that was taken away from us, with the clash between two or three power-hungry leaders.

I looked at where the family was and saw them no longer in the kitchen. I hope they escaped this incident, and get a much better life than we did, which was spent on the run for our lives.

I felt another shock in my chest before everything went black.