Ivan and Kateryna, a young boy and a young girl, two messes of brown hair, and two pairs mud-stained shirts playing in the clearing of a nearby forest. The afternoon sun rays fell golden on the floor of leaves, and the excited screams of the children echoed. Ivan kicks a ball of patched cloth through the trunks of two pine trees, exclaims as Kateryna dives in the wrong direction.
           
            As the ball lands in a bush of brambles, a dark shade covers the clearing.
            “Look! What’s that,” Ivan shouts, pointing at a sleek white aircraft streaking across the sky. More dark shades, one after another, a blink of an eye and it’s replaced by a new one. A shout, two screams, an eruption.
            “Ivan, Kateryna, the Russians,” their mother bursts through the undergrowth, waving her long arms. Her hair still tousled from working in the power plants and her eyes red. “Grandpa is waiting home; we need to leave.”
            The children run toward their mother. Through the thickets and undergrowth. Two pairs of small hands grasped tightly in one big pair. Three pairs of panicking eyes. As another explosion sounds from the nearby village and the anguish of crying voices reaching the running three.
            Kateryna’s eyes swell in tears as a rouge branch whips a gash on her exposed elbow. A stumble and a shout of pain as her fell. Suddenly, a tall, young, uniformed soldier steps out of the shadows of the forest, a grim expression, and raises his sniper towards Kateryna.
            Mother picks up Kateryna with one strong arm and drags Ivan along with her, “Run,” She screams. A bang, and this time, a scream of agony as a bullet clips the right leg of Mother. She writhes in pain and drops Kateryna on her feet, “go… find grandpa,” she wheezes, and turns around, murderous look in her deep grey eyes.
            A shriek. Two pairs of small hands wrapped tightly around one another, two pairs of scrambling feet, and two pairs of tearing eyes. Ivan and Kateryna burst out of the forest, panting and sweating. In front of them are crumbling buildings, flames, charred dirt path. Ivan looks back, seeing branches swaying in the breeze and a line of broken branches beneath them.
            “Brother! Let’s go—” she chokes back a tear, “gramps is waiting at home.”
            They run through the street where broken bodies lie on either side. Smoke rises from the collapsing houses and water hoses spraying continuously by the scrambling firefighters. A turn, a narrow alley, and a river of tainted water trinkles between their bare feet.
            “Grandpa!” Kateryna shouts.
            A man steps out from the shadows of the nearby houses. 70 odd years on his back, but lean muscles lines his open arms as he embraces Kateryna. He raises his head and spots Ivan, leaning against the wall, and looks around. His face fell in disappointment, then dismay, and then anguish as two pair of desperate eyes looks into one wrinkled pair.
            “Come on, the Russians are coming,” Grandpa says heavily.
            Ivan and Kateryna steps through the door frame of the two-bedroom house. The slanted roof allows the sunrays to peek through, as it illuminates a floor of mattresses. Two big, two small, one dusty mattress perch upright against the wall.
            Ivan looks towards his mattress and grabs his schoolbag, stuffing his only other pair of t-shirt and trousers within. He runs to the other room and picks out two cans of beans and a chunk of stale bread.
            “Let’s go now,” Grandpa steps into the kitchens, his eyes red and pained, a duffel bag slung on his bulk shoulders. He grabs on to Kateryna’s wrist and leads her out of the front door. Ivan presses his hands against the stone-cold counter, his eyes scanning the broken wooden hinges of the cabinets. On top of a dusty shelf lie a rubber duck, his 5th birthday present from his mother.
            Ivan stuffs the duck into his bag. Then he yanks the door open and looks out from the shadows down the alley. He sees two smudges in the distance, one small pair of hands held tightly in one large pair. Ivan sprints along the alley as worry fills his eyes. He stops. One glance back, one broken family, and two gloomy rooms of memories.
            Ivan shakes his head and takes a deep breath and runs.