Before they fall

Victor stared through the window of his apartment. Night had come and most of the city was asleep. It was a moonless night, but a thick layer of clouds denied the city of a view at the stars. In the distance, the wailing sound of sirens alarmed the city of a possible air raid. They faded slowly as he lost himself in his memories.

He liked to visit his memories as they took him back to another time. When life was a lot simpler and less dangerous. It reminded him of how life was before the war began. Before fear had settled in the hearts and minds of everyone. Many of his family and friends had fled the city, hoping to outrun the bombs and bullets. But he had chosen to stay, believing that running away wasn’t a solution.

The sirens stopped.

Victor snapped out of his dream as the city turned silent. Was it over? Or was this just another dream? Looking down from the 27^th floor of his apartment block it seemed as the city had finally found its peace. The threat of war was gone.

But all of a sudden the lights went out. A power outage spread across the city and cloaked it in darkness. In the streets people started to panic and their screams replaced the wailing sirens. Soon everyone in the city would be awake. War had come to the city.

On the 35^th floor Mona tried to fall asleep, but the sound of the sirens kept her awake. Every time she closed her eyes, she could hear their screams again. In the past two weeks she had heard screaming voices in her sleep every night. This time it were her parents, yelling at her to flee. After weeks of trying they had finally been able to get in touch with her aunt. She lived in the city and agreed to take her in, despite the rumors of a growing food shortage. Mona was forced to say goodbye to her parents in the middle of the night as a convoy of refugees made a hurried attempt to flee her hometown. A few hours later the enemy forces invaded the town.

She had been unsuccessful in contacting her parents again and the reports coming from the town weren’t good; there weren't many survivors. Those who did survive got scattered all over the country. The enemy army had razed almost the entire town because it didn’t provide any strategic advantage.

But even in the city she didn’t feel safe as reports claimed the invading army got closer every day. Some reports even claimed that they were already at the outskirts of the city and that an attack would be imminent. The city would fall if they did, there was no doubt about that. The defending army simply wasn’t strong enough to stop an army of that size and the general command had chosen to concentrate their primary defenses on the capital. This way they were hoping to buy enough time to rally enough international support before the entire country would be overrun.

The sirens went silent.

A blackout followed almost immediately. She knew what was about to happen and grabbed the backpack that contained her only possessions. There was no time anymore. There was no more time to wait for her aunt to come back from her supply run, no more time to wait for someone to pick her up and take her to another safe place – not that she believed there were any safe places left.

She ran out the apartment without bothering to close the door. At the same moment, the door on the other side of the hallway opened. The family that lived there had the same idea and had packed their bags for a quick evacuation. The father greeted her quickly. In his arms he carried his sleeping daughter. Behind him, his son followed with a large bag in each of his hands. The boy was about twelve years old and had a confused look in his eyes. Mona gave him a smile and tried to hide her own fear and desperation. He was followed by his mother. She looked like she could start to cry any minute. She looked back at the apartment and Mona realized she was probably saying goodbye to her old life. She had done the same thing when she fled her hometown; she had put her head outside of the car and had looked back at the fading lights while she saying goodbye.

She followed the family through the hallway. She didn’t know anyone in the city besides her aunt, but she would need help if she wanted to flee the city. Noises from other people running around in the building started to emerge. The father frantically pressed the button the call one of the elevators, but it didn’t seem to help much.

“The elevators are out of service.” He sighed. “We’ll have to take the stairs.”

As they descended, the stairwell got more crowded with every turn they made. Mona tried to stay with the family, but got separated when a man the size of an ox crashed through the stairwell door and slammed into her. She fell on her back and hit her head on the stair.  She lost her consciousness for a few minutes, but the man didn’t bother to check on her. He stormed further down the stairwell and enraged several other people. By the time she regained consciousness everyone was gone.

Mona took a moment to catch her breath. There were still more than thirty floors to go and judging by the noise that echoed in the stairwell, there was a lot of chaos down below.

When she was about to get back on her feet, she was greeted by a the hand of stranger.

“Hi, my name is Victor.”

His voice was calm and he didn’t look as nervous as she was. Mona grabbed his hand and Victor pulled her up gently. He took a step forward and looked down over the balcony.

“It doesn’t look good down there.”

“I know, but it’s the only way out.” She replied.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m not going down there to see why everyone is yelling and crying.”

Mona gave him a surprised look. Did he just say he didn’t want to escape?

“I’m going up.” He pointed at the roof. “Do you want to join me?”

Mona hesitated. There was no possibility to escape from the roof, but she wasn’t looking forward to see what was going on at the lower levels either. Her head was still spinning a little from the man crashing into and the family clearly didn’t care much for her. Suddenly a loud bang filled the stairwell; a gunshot went off and people started to scream even louder. She ran after Victor.

“My name is Mona, by the way.” She said right before she was able to catch up with Victor.

“Nice to meet you Mona.”

They had reached the top floor and he held the rooftop door open for her.

A cold wind hit her face as soon as she stepped outside, but she did her best to ignore it. Victor passed her by and walked towards the edge of the roof. He looked calm, as if there wasn’t anything to worry about.

“Shouldn’t we be running away?” She asked.

“I’m done running.” He replied. “I refuse to live the rest of my life in fear.”

“Great for you, but we need to find a way out of the city before ...”

“Before what?” Victor interrupted her. He didn’t sound angry, but rather curious.

“You haven’t heard the news, have you?” He continued. Mona shook her head.

“The enemy has surrounded the city. There’s no way out anymore.”

Mona froze as the last thread of hope slipped through her fingers. Was this the reason why her aunt didn’t return with supplies this evening? Did she find a way out of the city and didn’t tell her about it? She wanted to get angry, but yelling or crying wouldn’t help her much.

“So what are we going to do?” She finally asked

“I guess we could sit here and enjoy the view for a little while.”

Victor invited her to come sit next to him. Mona walked up to him and sat down.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” he asked.

Mona gazed at the city. Covered in complete darkness, the tall skyscrapers looked even more impressive. She closed here eyes and tried to bring back a happy memory.

The image of her parents appeared in her mind. They smiled as they said goodbye for the last time.