The Ruins of War

By Junnifer Ngo
Among the debris of a crumbling city where homes and buildings
were seared away by yet another furious battle, one man stands as
silent as the dead, though he is one of the scarce survivors. The man
cannot hear the wailing, screaming or chaos around him. To this man,
the world is as silent as he is. The world is frozen to this man
despite the many people running around to find their loved ones or to
help another. Only to this man, the world stands still. A body
covered by a white sheet, lies before him. The man dares not to move
away, nor look away because he hopes that this is all nothing more
than a joke. However, this man is a coward and wishes not to see the
body underneath the white sheet because he knows this is not a morbid
hoax.
Doctor, someone calls out to the man.
The man shakes himself out of his daze and grunts out in
acknowledgement.
There are about two hundred injured from the nuclear bombs with
third degree burns and about three hundred with second. Some were
close enough to the bomb that their clothes were burned into their
skin and the others are either missing or dead. Also, there seems to
be a severely low white blood count in all our patients.
I see, the man duly replies.
The man lets out a weary breath before bending down to the body.
His hand is shaking, but the man forces himself to grasp the white
sheet. Gasping in another breath, the man squeezes his eyes shut
before tugging the sheet off. He lets out his breath as he opens his
eyes. The corpse of a little girl lies under the sheet. Her dress
was burned into rags, but the polkadots were singed into her skin from
the heat of the bomb. The man wants to deny that he knew this body,
but the slightly melted locket around her neck made it impossible.
The delicate neck of the corpse bore a silver heart shaped locket with
faded, engraved words covered by the melted metal. The man reaches
towards the necklace with quivering hands, fearful to press down on
the button that would swing open the locket. His hands violently
shakes, more than they were during the panic, more than they had when
his daughter was wrenched out of his hands in the sea of frantic
people.
It seems like an eternity until the man finally presses his
finger down and the locket swings open. There is a lump the man can
not swallow, as if sand fills in his throat, as he stares at the
locket in his trembling hands. Inside, a picture of a little girl
perched on the mans shoulder with a grinning face was placed on one
side. The man bit his lip to hold in his collecting tears before
glancing over at the other picture. Next to the first picture was one

of the little girl snuggled on her mothers lap, with her little hands
and awing eyes on her mothers bulging stomach. The man snaps out of
his mourning daze as his eyes linger on the mothers protruding
stomach.
He jolts from the wreckage, sprinting towards the crumbling
building that was once a hospital. As the man hikes up the stairs,
the rubble threatens to trip him and pull him back down but the man
does not falter despite his blurred vision. He plants firm steps as
he rushes up the stairs to the third flight, down the hall into the
labor and delivery ward. Although dusty, dirty and unsanitary - now a
place where no one would want to give birth in - doctors and nurses
alike rush around the ward to help the women in pain. The man does
not stop to help his fellow co-workers, but rushes to his wifes side.
Her face is coated in sweat as she glances over to the man in her
hospital bed. With hair in a tangled mess and weary eyes filled with
tears, she almost seems to be a completely different person from the
bright mother grinning in the locket. She lets out groans of pain and
puffs her flushed cheeks in and out. A doctor is at the foot of the
bed, encouraging her with words of comfort and excitement. With his
free hand, the man strokes her hair, whispering words of love and
reassurance.
Time ticks by, filled with the sounds of her moan of pain and
agony, until finally, the first cries of happiness sound out. The man
cradles his newborn son, ignoring the faces of horror and disgust
plastered on the nurse and doctors face. The wailing newborn kicks
his legs, which was far too short for his body. With his fragile
wobbling body, the infant tries to grab onto the man with his three,
little stubs of arms.
The bomb they dropped was a nuclear bomb and it seems like the
shockwave of hyper-energetic radiation contained photons strong enough
to penetrate human cells, the doctor explains, his revulsed eyes on
the child in the mans arms.
Did it cause genetic damage? the man hesitantly asks.
Yes. The damage caused the genes to build up improperly giving
your son his deforms legs and third arm. We wont know if the damage
affected only his physical features or if it also damaged his brain
until we perform some tests.
The man meekly nods and carries the wailing child over to his
wife, where she smiles warmly at her baby. She holds her newborn
child in her arms and slips her hands within his. The man embraces
his family and enjoys this rare moment of happiness in times of war
and disaster.
The Radiation Effects Research Foundation may try to take our
son away for research, the man chokes out, in the warm silence.

But, I wont allow that. No matter, this child is still my son.

wont have this damn war ruin his life.

Monster
By Junnifer Ngo
Amidst the laughter of the children playing in a little park, the
pitiful sobs of a little boy can be heard. In the circle the laughing
children have formed, the sobbing boy is cowering in the middle. The
children point and laugh, kicking woodchips at the trembling boy. The
laughing children become bolder as the weeping boy in the middle cries
out unheard apologies and start to throw pebbles and then rocks. As
the crying boy fears for his own life more and more, he becomes
frantic to escape the circle, finally deciding to force his way out.
He runs into a little girl who starts screaming and trying to rub
where he touched her off onto any other children. The other children
squeal in fear and disperse in every direction to escape the panicking
girls hand.
The monster touched me! the little girl screams.
She crumbles to the floor wailing loudly. Her mother rushes
over, glaring at the crying boy who looks apologetically at the
sobbing girl. He opens his mouth to squeak out more apologies but is
stopped by a burning sting on his cheek.
Dont talk to us you deformed demon! the mother screeches,
holding her sniffling daughter tightly in her arms. Dont come back
to this park or bother my daughter again you fiend!
The boy clamps his mouth shut, failing to hold back his
overflowing tears. He wraps all three of his stubs around himself as
he bites his tongue to keep from blubbering out nonsense. With his
two short legs, he starts running. The mother continues to scream at
the deformed boy as he runs. The boy runs along the blurred streets
faster than he had ever ran. Although out of breath and and unable to
see where he is going, the boy runs away from his problems and
sorrows. Even as he trips, the boy picks himself back up and starts
running. It was only when the boy could not run any further and his
legs burned, he stopped. Finally he looks around with eyes dried from
running so fast, only to see he has run into the only place he had
ever been forbidden to go: the city he was born in.
The boy knows he has to get out of the city. He knows his mother
would faint at the thought of him being here but his childish
curiosity overpowers his fear. He ghosts his fingers on the broken
down walls as he totters through the unfamiliar city. A croak
disrupted the silence. The boy flashes his eyes in every direction,
searching for the source of the noise. Finally his eyes lands on a
frog blinking at him with four eyes. It croaks once again, opening
its two mouths widely to show its two flicking tongues. They stare
at each other, the boy unsure of what to do.

Finally the frog breaks off their staring contest, hopping away.
The boy follows, unsure why but feeling a sense of fellowship. As the
strange pair wonders through the abandoned city of adventures, they
meet more animals that shared the same sense of comradeship. A bird
flies by with an added leg on its forehead and a fox with three tails
scurries by. The boy follows the strange frog until they come across
a stream where a deer is crossing. With its head high, the deer
takes careful steps forward and the boy watches with absorption - two
legs, one leg, two legs and repeat. The boy finally remembers his
mothers teachings as he stares at the deer wading towards him.
Mommy? Why cant I go into that city? the boy would ask.
Before you were born, a bomb was dropped there that killed
hundreds. It still has radioactive waves that had things called
photons strong enough to change people lingering there. You are
special. You survived and you need to live for the others who died.
she answered.
Whats in there?
Friends, honey. Friends whove also been changed from these
radioactive waves.
The boy silently listened to his mother with questions filling
his head. Why did the other children call him a monster? Why
couldnt he go play with friends right now? He wanted to ask his
mother but didnt when he saw his mothers sad face as she looked at
the city.
The boy snaps out of his daze as he feels a strange, wet
roughness on his cheek. He looks up to see the deer licking him
affectionately. With a trembling hand, he pets the deers head. It
doesnt move. The boy becomes bolder and moves to rub its back. The
deer doesnt move. The boy reaches down to pet its legs. The deer
suddenly takes a step forward, causing the boy to flinch and curl in
into a ball. When the boy cracks his eye open to see the deer once
more, he could only see its back as it scampered beyond a hill.
The forgotten frog croaks, as it starts to hop into the water and
across the stream. The boy once again follows. This time they dont
stop until they come to a hill. where a loud buzzing sound filled his
ears. The frog eagerly leads the boy to the top where a buzzing fog
of black cover the sky. Frozen, he watches the frog shoot both its
tongues out into the black swarm to pull out a tongue-full of flies.
The frog continues deeper into the haze, leaving the boy alone to
stare at the charred bodies littering the ground. One body had a
locket, shaped as a heart around his neck. The boy jabs his short
appendage onto a button and the locket swings open. Inside is a
picture of a little girl perched on a mans shoulder with a grinning
face and another of the little girl snuggled on a womans lap, with

her little hands and awing eyes on her mothers bulging stomach.
boy whimpers out.
Why is Mommy and Daddy with another child?

The