Tên tôi là Sasuke Uchiha. My name is Sasuke Uchiha. It's 1979 and I'm 15 years old. I was born in Saigon, Vietnam. Currently, I guess you could say I'm running from my home. It doesn't feel safe anymore.

I'm not alone though. My mother and older brother, Itachi, are with me. My Dad isn't with us, but I know he would be if he could. He died before I was born. My mom was pregnant with me at the time; she says it was just a regular day. She stayed at home, and he went to work. Only he never came home afterwards this time. The building he was in was bombed. The debris - including his body - were unidentifiable. That was it, there was nothing left of him, nothing to bury.

I never met my Dad, but I know he was a good man. I can tell by the expression my Mom has when she sees his picture or hears his name. I can feel it. I can just tell.

Before we left, I made sure to carefully tuck his photograph into my jacket pocket. I know my Mom left it at the house on purpose. She wants a fresh start; she doesn't want to have to remember what happened to him each and every day she's forced to live without him. She blames herself for the way things turned out and I know she wants to forget, but I want to remember. At least this time there will be something left of him.

To us, every day is a gift. We never know if we'll make it to see the sun rise the next day, or when we'll have our next meal. Most importantly, if we'll ever be free from this war that controls our lives. It just keeps taking more and more from us. We're prisoners to this life. But this is also the only life I've ever known. I was born during the war, and I'll be lucky if I'll be able to see the end of it - lucky if I'll be able to see the world from another perspective. But right now, this is my world.

…

After two straight days of walking, we finally reached the dock. I could barely see the boat through the sea of people crowding the area. The boat was a decent size and I'm sure it could carry a lot, but there was no way it would be able to fit all these people along with their luggage.

I guess I wasn't the only one thinking this. "One suitcase per person!" yelled a man on the ship. Between the four of us, we had seven suitcases. Which aren't much considering that these sole seven suitcases contained everything we owned - our clothes, money and anything else we needed. I suppose it could have been worse. I remember seeing one family of five with about a dozen bags.

"Layer on as much clothes as you can," my mom told us. Much to our dismay, it was currently over 30°C. Despite that, we unzipped the suitcases and did as we were told. By the time we were done, we all looked ten pounds heavier. I barely restrained myself from laughing at how ridiculous we all looked. Right now just wasn't the time or place for laughing. However, we were still one suitcase over the limit.

"Are we going to have to leave that one behind?" Itachi asked, reading my mind. Mom nodded her head in response.

"Make sure there's nothing valuable left in it, and leave it behind."

When it was our turn to board the ship, I didn't think they were going to let us on. There wasn't even a square foot of floor space visible. As we were walking up the ramp, the man from earlier seized the suitcase I was carrying. "We're running out of room." He said. "Everyone's going to have to give up another bag." Well, now we have three suitcases. I proceeded to board the boat. I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see the man toss the suitcase into the deep blue water. I cringed; I sure hope that wasn't the suitcase with all our money inside.

Once everyone had boarded the ship, it was suffocating. Everyone was practically standing shoulder-to-shoulder with one another. I guess we'll have to take turns sitting along the way. I also noticed that the boat seemed significantly closer to the water level. Actually, the boat was almost below the water!

"One more thing, folks," the man said. I involuntarily let out a long, exasperated sigh, along with a handful of other people. We knew there was something else coming. Something none of us were going to like. "We need to make the boat lighter, so we're going to have to ask you to take off your shoes." And there it was. Now the lot of us are homeless and shoeless, I thought, as I threw my shoes over the side of the boat.

After the man made a quick check to make sure no one was smuggling any extra luggage, the boat finally started moving. If we weren't so desperate, we wouldn't have to endure this, but we only just scrounged up enough money to pay for the expenses of the cheapest ticket out of here. On the bright side, we've almost made it to our new life. I'd say we're about halfway there. We're on a boat and going to a place without war. A nice place, I'm told, without nearly as much poverty or crime. I'm enthralled just thinking about it.

I've heard that this place we're going to has nice things, things we've never seen before. Like white winters with frozen rain that sparkles in the sun. They say sometimes you can even build things with it, like we do with sand. But instead of having a rough and grainy texture, it's cool and soft. You can even catch them on your tongue as they fall from the sky. This place, my Mom called it America. I don't know much about geography, but I do know that there's a northern and southern America. So I asked her which one we were going to. She replied with "Whichever one will accept us first. You boys will be happier living at either one of them, I promise." I trust her, so if she's fine with either one of them, then so am I. As scary as this all is, I'm excited.

The ship came to a halt, and the impact shook me awake. I could hear shouting. I immediately opened my eyes. I didn't even realize they were closed, I must have dozed off. "What's going on?" I asked no one in particular, while rubbing my eyes, I realized that I wasn't going to get an answer, I finally took in my surroundings. I could feel the ground rocking, so I must still be on the boat, but I was in a bed, if you can even call it that. The cot I was laying on was back-spraining and laden with springs. The sheets were non-existent. I can appreciate that I at least wasn't left on the deck to sleep. I slept pretty well. This must be the quarterdeck. Aside from the cot, there was nothing else in the room - just a porthole and a door leading to the upper deck, I assume. I walked over to the porthole. The only thing I could see through the small window was another boat - seemingly much larger than ours and constructed with black wood instead of the usual faded brown most ships have. Are we at a dock? Is this what all the commotion is about?

I crossed the room to the door. When I opened it, the voices rose ten notches higher. I instantly spotted my family sitting nearby. They must have been waiting for me. "How long have I been asleep?" I asked. No one answered. I scanned their faces. They seemed entranced by something; they were looking at something in the distance. I turned around. The first thing I noticed was the ship. I was right; it was much larger than ours. However, we weren't at a dock, there was nothing but vast, deep blue sea surrounding us. Their ship was full of people too. But not people like us, something about them was... different.

I squinted so I could read what was written in red paint on the side of the ship. "Akatsuki," it read. That's an unusual name. In spite of that, it somehow seemed familiar. I was pulled from my thoughts when I noticed a man on the Akatsuki walking on a plank and onto our boat. He had dark disheveled hair and an unshaven face. His features vaguely reminded me of a shark. He wasn't dressed all too nicely, but still significantly better than the other people on his ship. He also wore a large hat and had a menacing face. I guess this man was the captain.

The captain opened his mouth to speak, I noticed that he also had pointy teeth that resembled those of a shark. I strained my ears to listen to what he was saying, but I couldn't hear a thing over the buzz of voices around me. He turned around and yelled something at the people on his boat. At once, they became silent. In no time, the people on our ship had followed suit. It was completely silent. But there was something eerie about it, something indefinable about all of this. I could feel the palms of my hands beginning to sweat. I clenched my fists to keep them from shaking.

The man turned around to face our ship. He opened his mouth again to speak, only I couldn't comprehend a single word he said, his words were foreign to me. He was speaking another language. Why doesn't this man speak our language? We're just barely off the coast of Vietnam.

I tried to read the expressions of the people around me. They didn't seem to understand what he was saying either. Even so, the man kept talking. His voice rising. He seemed to be growing increasingly irritable with our lack of feedback.

What happened next stunned me. It stunned us all. The captain grabbed the collar of the man closest to him and threw him into the water. He surfaced and began gasping and clawing through the water. He couldn't swim. A woman from our ship moved to dive into the water after him. The captain materialized a gun and shot her right in the temple before she could help him. The man in the water screamed and we were forced to watch him drown in the bloodied water.

I wasn't scared anymore, I was petrified. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I was in shock. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't move. I was frozen, paralyzed. Why is this happening? How could anyone do this? Who do they think they are? Then it hit me. These people were pirates.

When I looked back to the captain he had a disturbing, malicious smile imprinted on his face. I've never seen anything more sinister than what I was witnessing this very moment. He beckoned to his crew behind him. Gradually, they filed onto the plank and boarded our ship. They assisted him in shooting us and systematically throwing the lifeless bodies overboard.

Then I made the mistake of making eye contact with the captain. He looked straight into my eyes. They were cold, I involuntarily shivered. He began striding towards me with purpose. He threw his gun aside and pulled out a knife from under his shirt.

I turned to run but it was too late. He grabbed me by the collar just like he did with the first man and now I was going to face the same fate he did. I closed my eyes and braced myself for what was next to come. Instead, I heard my mother's screams. My eyes flew open. She lunged at the captain and hit him over the head with a barrel before he even had a chance to react. This left me utterly speechless. But it sparked something inside of us - hauled us out of our trance and feelings of helplessness. It was at this moment that we started to fight back.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Itachi pick up the captain's disregarded gun and my mother handed me a rifle of my own. I hesitated.

"Just hit them in the head with the butt of the rifle," She said.

As I took the gun from her, I felt a rush of adrenaline course through my veins. I'm not going to remain a prisoner to this war anymore or to this life. I can't change what happened in the past - not that I ever would. My past is what has made me stronger and made me who I am. I'll admit that my past wasn't ideal, but I can change how I live my life in the future. This time, I'll fight for my freedom. I'll live happily, and more importantly, I'll live the way I want to... And just maybe we can pull it off. After all, there are more of us than there are of the pirates. It's a bit of a crude plan, but what else are we supposed to do during a malevolent time like this anyway? I gripped my rifle.

"Sounds like a plan."

A/N: I wrote this story two years ago, back in 2015, which means I would've been in grade 10. It was for an English assignment and I decided to write about something historical. When my mom came to Canada during the Vietnam war, there were quite a few boat robberies and deaths along the way. Luckily, her ship wasn't one of the ones targeted by the pirates or neither her nor I would be here today. No one really ever says it, but being a refugee isn't as easy as it seems.

I haven't quite decided if I want to add onto this story or just end it here where I originally had.

I don't know, do you want more of this story? Leave me a comment telling me what you think.