The door creaked open. ‘Boom, Boom’ my footsteps echoed the four walls. I touched the walls of the living room, dusted over years. Vibrations of life unleased across the living room.

The memories of past blossomed in front of me. I was stuck looking at the ceiling of the hall when someone tapped me on my shoulders.  

It was Salim, the owner of the entire sixty five acres of construction that was going to happen on this land. ‘’ I know how it feels like to visit back your home after twenty years. Take your time. When you feel like done, call me.’’ He left the door without waiting for an answer.

Twenty years ago it happened, it changed me forever. The scent of the old sandalwood soap sprinkled a sense of life to my deserted soul. My trembling feet moved itself across the living room. I saw me there. My mom, beautified in a red dress with her hair dancing in the air running across the hall with the plate of cereal to feed me and I jumping from chair to chair of the dining table. I ran to the place where the dining table was. They both disappeared into ashes. The broken legs remained.

“Why me? Why did you have to take everything I ever had? If you were to take my everything, then why did you give that beautiful past?’’ The only question I ask God. The only answer I am seeking for. The answer I never want to find.

June 1st, 2010 saw the sunrise of adversity. I was packing up my bag to go to school, my mom was at the kitchen making my sister to eat her breakfast and dad had got ready to go to the office. I was walking to my dad when something exploded right in front of me. I was thrown back. My head hit the door and I lay down without any movement. The chandelier fell on top of me. The bulb broke and tore through my hands. I saw my dad lying down in the pool of blood.

I hear the guard of honour by birds. Spring has arrived in full glory. The skies triumph her coming. The mountains and forests wait in joy to bloom. I lay at the same spot where I lay twenty years ago. There were still ashes and broken bits of bulbs. The walls breathe the dead blood. The youthful blood of my sister. I walk up the stairs only to find out that midway the stairs have been burned down. Tears cut through my eyes.

Six days, one hundred forty four hours to gain back consciousness. I opened my eyes with the hope of seeing my parents at the hospital. Instead I saw a couple of doctors and nurses whispering to each other with X rays in their hands. After two days I received the worst news in my life. My family had died in the explosion. I was left alone to live. How did I survive when the strongest people in my life didn’t? My entire body took two years to be back to normal. But my mind hasn’t recovered till now. It was dead twenty years ago. It drowned in the river of grief and got buried far away.

My sister running in the garden and dad chasing her. She screams on the top of her lungs. Dad hides among the bushes, suddenly pops out and throws her up in the air. The garden where flowers and joy bloomed is now a burned land where a building is going to come up. I can still hear her scream in the depths of my heart.

My house, the place where I was the most alive and joyful will be demolished day after tomorrow. I look at every corner of the house, I see me. A joyful, playful me. A living me who was ignorant of the fact that everything that I have will be taken away and I will be left with nothing but sorrow.

This is war. To forget the past and start anew. I looked into my watch. The hands were turning around fast in the anti-clockwise direction. I ran to the window. The sky above was filled with dark clouds. The scent of the sandalwood vanishes into thin air. The air begins to smell of hatred and blood. I hear a faint but evil female voice from behind which said,

‘’ I killed you.’’