We Will See Again

“We Will See Again” is one of the outstanding stories of the first biannual International Short Story Contest 2018 written by Elio Gattuccio, Italy.

We Will See Again

“We will see again", these were the last words I heard from my brother. Everything started in the 1914, when, in a journal that my mum bought, there was wrote on it "AUSTRIA STATES WAR TO SERBIA", this was the start of a cycle. Before only this two countries were fighting, then Russia took part with Serbia against Austria, then Germany came and stated war against Russia and then France, next UK came and attacked Germany, and the same thing did Japan, and at the end the Ottoman Empire came against Russia, within one year nearly all Europe was in war. I am French and France was one of the first countries to go in war, so it was asked from the government that every boy, from 16 years old to 40, so even my brother of 17 years old.

We tried to hide him as long as we could but it was very difficult. Every day some soldiers came to our house and started looking around for my brother. He was hiding inside a tunnel we had in the backyard. It didn't take a lot for the soldiers to find him, in fact, after about 2 months, they discovered where he was. That day I was crying in my bedroom and I could hear from the backyard "TU NE PEUX PAS TE CACHER DE LA GUERRE!!", which means, "you cannot hide from the war", after that phrase I heard my brother screaming and the soldiers hitting him with their guns. Fortunately he did not die, but they brought him to war. Before going, he came towards me, with some tears escaping from his bloody eyes, and he said "We will see again".

I continued crying for days and days. I couldn't sleep anymore, not only because of my brother, but even because of the bombs I could here during the night. My mother and I lived in Paris, and some people told us that Germans were coming toward us, I was so scared. We waited for months and the Germans never came, but there were still bombs around us, but my mother still decided to move, so we went in the northern of Italy. "Fortunately" in 1915 Italy decided to enter in war and started fighting against Austria. Before Italy was winning, we were safe, but after a bit of time Austria stopped Italy and started pushing towards us. After some months Austria invaded our city, started destroying buildings, killing and arresting people. When they came I was in my bed, thinking about many things, until I heard a bomb in front of my house and my mother screaming. I run and I saw from my window some soldiers marching on the streets...but they were not Italians, they had a different suit, they were Austrians. In the middle of this soldiers there was a woman, full of blood, on the floor, she was my mother.

I started crying, but I knew I couldn't scream otherwise they would have killed me, so I decided to hide under my bed while covering my mouth with the hand. After 5 minutes, I heard some footsteps inside the room, I was too scared to see who this person was. Then this mysterious man started talking "hey, vieni, non ti farò male", I assume he saw me, I couldn't understand what he was saying, then he pushed the bed and grabbed my arm, I opened my eyes, he was Italian, he came to rescue me. Then he bought me away, I was dizzy, and said every time the same phrase "where is my mother? Where is she? Mum sorry!" He looked at me but without saying anything, he couldn't understand me.

Then I fainted and I woke up again inside a car, I was dizzy, I didn’t know where to go. I could hear some shot from outside the car and a soldier inside screaming “Put your head down!!”, I closed my eyes one second and after two seconds I opened them again and the only thing I could see was blood. They shot the soldier next to me...he was dead, I fainted again. Then I woke back again in a hospital, alone, my dad was dead, my mother too...and I didn’t have any news from my brother. Now I’m still here, with a broken leg, writing about what happened to me, I wish death is going to come soon.