Prompt: #18
Time Period: January 2019
Prompt Administrator: DaughterofHypnos17
Rated: T
Word Count: 417
Cabin Points Received: 15
we were only children.
broken, beaten, useless.
they were monsters.
terrifying, gruesome, evil.
when war came around us, we weren't children anymore.
we were soldiers of a different mold.
we traded books for guns, softballs for bombs.
they were relentless.
we were bathed in red.
our eyes were gray, our hope was black, our smiles were fake.
we stood still instead of running.
we killed instead of helping.
we didn't grow up with love and teasing smiles.
we grew up with death threats and cramped rooms,
with looking over our shoulder at every whisper and rustle of the wind.
we were training to fight with people twice, thrice our age, we were trained to kill.
we didn't get scrapes on our knees or a mom to smile and kiss the pain away.
we got tortured slowly, we went insane with no one to help us.
we didn't learn our abc's or numbers, we didn't sit in a classroom or think school was the worst to happen to us.
we learned ten different ways to kill someone, we learned to manipulate and get our way.
we learned that no one was to be trusted, that the world was much, much worse than we thought it was.
and yet we lost.
after sacrificing everything,
we lost.
we lost our childhood.
we lost the giggles in the dark, the rolled eyes and the smirks to keep us alive.
we were left out on growing up.
we turned into an adult too quickly, too fast.
we lost the bedtime tales and the chats with our friends.
we lost, lost, lost, and yet, even though we sacrificed all we could, we lost the war.
we were forced into homes.
our bodies were mutilated, scarred with knives
we were scarred with bullet wounds and torn uniforms.
we were scarred with nightmares every night, we were scarred with shaking hands and panic attacks.
we were scarred and scarred and scarred but we lived on.
we still believe that the world is good, no matter what they've told us.
we lost our childhood, we lost the war, we lost our innocence.
but we still believe.
we still believe in the warm kisses before we go to bed,
in the simple act of giving a compliment to a stranger, or helping someone out, even if we don't know them.
we still believe that the world can be healed, that not everyone is evil.
we were only children, but we survived.
So if you're part of the CHB forum you probably shouldn't read the author's note, as it talks about the prompt.
Okay, so here we go: my prompt was to write a Military AU. I went through a lot of ideas, some half-written, the others scrapped within seconds. Eventually I decided that I wanted to write a poem. It was originally going to be about a parent in the army, missing out on their kids life- I was picturing Sally and Percy in my mind, but it ended up being this. And I'm very passionate about this. If you can't tell, this poem is about a group of children in war. As this is fanfiction, you can assume that the children are the seven or any other characters. After writing this, I did a bit of research, and apparently child soldiers aren't that popular, but it's still a huge deal, especially in the Middle-East. And as the topic was so... bleak, I decided to finish it off with a slightly happier note.
And, my grammar might be a bit all over the place, but it's meant to be that way- I thought that it fit with the theme of the poem.
Anyway, I hope you liked reading this, and if you did please follow, favorite, and review.
-Lauren Swan