The Kids Will Play

What dark games will they find in the shadows of war?

Illustration by Shane Bzdok

It was a small sound that forcefully exhumed me from the deepest sleep I’ve ever known.

I lay perfectly still, listening. Minutes pass and the gravity of slumber begins to drag me back under when I hear it again. A pebble against glass. Then another.

I leave the comfort of my bed and for once, I am not freezing. The house is always so frigid at night, but not this night.

I go to the window and notice one of the panes is cracked and the other three are busted out completely. I look around my room and find glass and debris everywhere. Surely more damage than what a small pebble could inflict. A whistling wind directs my gaze upward. The ceiling is gone. Only splintered rafters remain, giving way to a full moon nestled among a blanket of stars.

Another pebble strikes the lone pane of glass.

I go to the window and look down on the street below. In the middle of the road stands a tall, thin girl wearing a white nightgown that glows in the moon’s light. Her face is hidden by shadow and a mess of black hair. The girl waves her long, pale arms, beckoning me to join her.

Now? In the middle of the night?

I’ve never snuck out before. My parents would be furious. But tonight is different. Tonight, I’m not so worried about what my parents will think.

I nod to the girl and leave my room but pause at the top of the stairs. At the end of the hall is my parents’ room. Their door is ajar and tilted at a severe angle, hanging off-kilter from a single hinge.

I mustn’t make a sound. I don’t want to disturb them.

I am forced to jump a few missing steps to descend to the first floor where I see the common room is in shambles. The west wall is destroyed. It looks like a giant, gaping mouth, the remnants of its meal sit in piles of rubble and shattered furniture in the middle of our home.

“Hurry,” comes a whispery voice from outside. “We cannot wait much longer.”

I navigate the rubble and exit my home through the opening in the wall. The girl is still waiting. She smiles when I approach her. Even though I’m close to her now, I struggle to make out her features. Her face is soft, blurry even. It must be the moonlight.

“Hello, Petro, we are glad you heard our call. We were worried you might not wake,” she slurs, the words run together.

“How do you know my name? Who else is with you?”

“My friends,” she says as she extends a willowy arm and uncurls a thin, bony finger, pointing somewhere behind me.

I turn and see a group of other kids of different ages. Their faces have the same softness, the same blurry look, some more blurry than others.

The smallest of the group, a young girl with wild hair, steps forward. She is carrying a stuffed bear. She grabs my hand and tugs. “Follow me,” she says.

“Where are we going?”

“To look for fun.”

I glance back at my home where my parents are sleeping.

“I don’t think I can go. It’s late. I should go back to bed.”

“Come play with us, Petro. We will have the most fun,” they all whisper in unison.

Me? Why do they want me so badly? No one ever wants me to be a part of anything. It’s nice to be wanted. Is this what it’s like to have friends?

“Okay, I will come with you.” The smudge that is the girl’s mouth widens into a smile.

Her grip tightens on my hand as the other kids surround me. There is a glint of light in their blurry eyes now, a look of hunger and excitement. A look of mischief.

“Follow us,” they whisper as one.

And then we’re running. I’m lifted off my feet and pulled along with them as we fly through the streets, running as a pack. They laugh and scream at the night. Some of them howl at the moon and I can’t help but join them. I raise my head back and howl, too.

Oh, this freedom! I never knew it could be like this.

A few of the kids break from the pack. I see them disappear down alleyways and reappear on top of giant piles of rubble. I see them on rooftops and in windows of burned-out buildings. They wave at me, and I wave back.

I know their names, now. Somehow, I know their names. Daryna is the girl with the bear.

We run wild through the streets, jumping over giant holes in the ground. We tear through the avenues until we suddenly come upon a threatening mass of metal seated on treads and planted solidly in the middle of the road. A group of invading soldiers are sleeping not far from the tank, forming a ring around a dying fire. Dozens of empty beer bottles are strewn about.

“Fun,” whispers Daryna, her blurry eyes fixed on the slumbering men. “Fun,” they all whisper in unison, me included.

An empty wine bottle sits atop a wood crate near one of the soldiers.

“Make fun,” Daryna points to the bottle. All their blurry faces turn and look expectantly in my direction.

“I…I don’t understand.”

Kateryna, the girl in the white nightgown, informs me I have been dead only a few days and that, unlike the rest of them, I still possess the ability to affect the material world.

“Make fun,” they repeat.

I will show my new friends I am useful. I go to the bottle, not confident I can move it but when I push, the bottle wobbles and falls, shattering on the ground. The drunken men stir but do not wake.

I feel my friends’ delight, their approval. They encourage me to make more fun so I lift a shard of the broken glass and move it toward the bare throat of one of the invaders.

I will do it for them. I will do it for my new friends. We have the most fun.

Daryna hugs her bear tightly in anticipation.

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