So, here we are again. Moving closer and closer to the ending. Oh and one fact about that flashback I put in the last chapter- it was so terrible by the way. And I was chatting to LocalXmusicXjellybeanX keeping on telling her that I needed a brain transplant for the ideas I had was too crazy.

"Sophia? Sophia? Sophia, are you okay?" Tee's voice woke me up from my… well dreaming or whatever it was and I found myself standing up by the table in the living room with the drawing still in my hand.

"Are you alright?" Mike must have heard Tee's voice because suddenly he came rushing into the living room. "Sophia?" He ran over and shook my shoulder. Then felt my forehead- just in case. "Sophia talk to me please!"

"Faiz!" I almost whispered. I needed Faiz! Or just someone who had been there that night and would understand. "Faiz… Faiz. I need him, I need him now!" I saw Tyler in the corner of my eye trying to see what I had been drawing and I quickly pressed the drawing into a ball in my palm for no one to see anything.

"Okay, that's okay. Come on Soph, Let's go to the office I've got his number and the phone there." Slowly I let Mike lie his arm around my shoulders, lead me around and then through the hallway and into the office. "Here, sit." In the office he gently pushed me down onto the sofa in the corner. And there I sat- not too known about what was going on for the closest while.

Even though I was more or less in my own world it felt like the time went about the speed of a turtle all the while while I could hear Mike talking on the phone. And then he came and sat down by me. He said something about Faiz but I couldn't really take in what. And then we just sat like that until I could suddenly hear running steps and knocking on the door to the office.

"Sophia." I seemed to kind of wake up again when Faiz hurried towards me and I pulled the paper to have it flat again so that Faiz could see it. "Oh…" he didn't seem to know what to say… He might not have been there- or in Gota at all the night it happened- but he knew enough about Gota and the Emerino to understand what it was.

"They just…" I barely knew what I was saying, "That man from the Emerino he just grabbed Adam's hair and pressed his head down in the fire." Mike grimaced and turned away. "And then they did the same to those kids… Ronin, Katsumi and Isamu and Ronin… he was just four years old and he was screaming, and then Katy was screaming and then she went quiet and… and they did it to all of them and then they just shot and shot and shot and shot"

"Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey." When my voice went more and more sharp and I broke down Faiz laid his arms around me and pulled me close. "Sch, sch, sch. It's okay. It's alright." I shook my head and tried to pull away but Faiz held me tight to his chest and didn't let me go.

"And they died, and they all just died and mum, and dad and Aaron and Sophie and Luce too but I'm here… why am I here?" Faiz grabbed my arms, pushed me a bit away from him and leaned down so he could look me in the eyes.

"For a reason!" He still held stern grips around my arms. "Sophia, I don't know why you are here and not them but I know that you are here for a reason! And whatever that reason is… I don't know okay? But I know that your parents would have wanted nothing more than for you to live. And live your life and make sure that you teach people about what happened there and why it cannot go on!"

I was shaking, both by myself and by what Faiz had said every single little piece of my body was trembling. And that while Faiz moved and embraced me again.

"It won't leave me alone!" I said half suppressed "I get nightmares about it, I get flashbacks at daytime. I draw things like these without even thinking about it. Without even knowing that it ever happened because one second I don't remember it happening at all and then the next I remember everything so clearly. Why can't it just leave me alone?"

"Soph." Faiz sat down on a desk chair and signed to me to sit down in the sofa not letting go of my hands for a second. "It's everything you ever knew. It can't just go away like that. Wait, wait. Just hear me out first… Do you remember that song your father used to listen to… I know it feels like nothing can get worse, like everything that's going on is hurting you, I know you want it to leave you alone, but it won't unless you tell it to."

"When you tell it to let you go, you can look forward again, see the light in the end of this tunnel, see an end of all of this pain." I continued, without singing- but still kind of with the melody they were in the sofa.

"Oh baby I promise you." I and Faiz sung together going onto the refrain. "It won't always feel this bad, just hang on and somewhere after all of this, is the best time that you've ever had." I sniveled, pulled up my feet in the sofa. "So tell it to stop, tell it to leave you alone and do it now my love, make up your mind that you won't let it back, and open your arms to the help from above."

"Sophia." Faiz spoke without a melody again. "I know it hurts, and I know it will continue but I also know you- and you are stronger than all of what is hurting you like this. You've just got to believe it yourself!"

I made a quite failed attempt to smile while Faiz frowned. "You know Soph." He pulled out a pill box of his pocket- of that kind with seven small boxes in it- dosage pill boxes or what they are called. "We all have got our problems from this war. I have been taking these every day since I arrived here in Great Britain because without them the memories just cause me too much angst. Soph- it's not just you and feeling bad doesn't make you weak! It makes you normal, and a person. And feeling good about the happy memories doesn't make you a bad person. And the fact that you're alive while so many others aren't that isn't your fault and it doesn't make you to a bad person!"

"So what am I supposed to do?" I didn't really know why I asked it or what I really wanted to hear. But I hope that Faiz would change that and give a good answer.

"You are supposed to let go of what hurts as much as you possibly can. Remember the good times and then make sure that you live your life as much as you possibly can." I leaned forward and Faiz pushed that pill box back in his pocket. "My dear niece. I have been there since the very moment that you and Sophie were born, and if it's something I know about you, it's that I know that you will- so to say, fall down seven times and stand up eight. And if there's something about your family, it's that they would have more than anything else wanted for you to be alive and well. And happy and not worrying what was or what might have been."

"Faiz?"

"Yes?"

"Can you help me do something?"

"What?"

"I have a drawer in my room. Where I keep some things, the clothes I still have that I had back in Gota, mum's old diary and a rope that I did something with- it ended up with being the rope that one of the younger residents here hung himself and almost killed himself with. It was an accident, but I had put the rope there and I haven't been able to let go of it since then because whose fault would it be if not mine… I want to burn it- I want to burn it all! And I want to burn it now!"

"Are you sure about this?" Faiz asked me when I stood with the things I wanted to burn, a pair of pants, a pair of canvas sneakers, an old, ragged T shirt with a big hole by the side of the stomach, a rope, and a diary that- different from the other things I had lied on the table I held in my hands and I opened it.

"Have you read it?" The rest of the people from Elm Tree House stood behind us. Including that Faiz had brought Magdi and Alvaro with him and in the quite cold but at least not wet summer day and they all stood wrapped in blankets or with vests or jackets or whatever they had been able to find as fast as possible along with scarves and even beanies.

"Yeah. I wanted to find something that she could have written to me now. And I guess I did." I riffled to the last page where mum had written, looked up at Faiz for a second or two, then looked down on the page and read out loud. Even though I felt kind of bad for even reading from mum's diary.

I wish

I wish that Aaron knew that when he lies so close he can feel my heart beating strong, that he knew that without him it would never beat as strong. I wish that every time I show Sophia something that she will have use for many times in life my heart is aching for the fact that her life might not be as long as I'd hope it to be. I wish that Sophie knew that when she got hurt I swore to myself that if I could give my own life for her to live I would, and I wish that Luce knew how proud I was when I saw him graduate.

I wish my children knew that they all four are together the reason my heart is still beating. I wish they'd know how many times they have all saved me. I wish they could feel all the love I feel for them so they'd all know how loved they are and how much I treasure them.

I wish my dearest Luca would know that every time I look into his eyes my heart is still beating like the very first time and I feel young and crazy in love all over again.

I wish this war will soon be over, I wish for no more lives to be cut off way too early, and for no more guns for ever to be made. I wish that my children and my loved one will all be kept safe.

I wish for God to carry my children safely through the world as long as they're alive so they- no matter if I were not here anymore they would know how much I loved them all. I wish for them all to feel my love when things are hard, so they'll know that I'll be behind and carry them forward when it hurts too much for them to walk on their own. And I wish they will know that I will always be there.

I wish that they'd know that as long as they are safe I don't need anything else

And I wish they knew that the love I have for them and they have for each other, it's so much stronger than the hate we have learned from living in a country like this.

And I wish they knew I love them

Forever and ever

Mum

Faiz took my hand and together we looked into the burning flames.

"It was like she knew. That I would be the one to live, the one to have use the longest for all of the things that she taught me."

"You don't know that yet Sophia. Luce could live."

"No! He couldn't!"

"You don't know that! But you do know that if you want to you could rip out that page so you had it saved if you want to go back and read it." I shook my head. "Burn that too?" I nodded. "Well if you're sure." I nodded again and then turned to the fire and then… before I almost had the time to think I threw the journal in the flames. Then, before I had the time to hesitate I grabbed the clothes and threw them in, but then waited for a while and watched as the soles melted in the fire.

"Faiz?" I mumbled. "Earlier today, I had a flashback. About the night that the children Adam had taken care of and Adam himself were killed. And the men they grabbed all of their heads and hairs and then pressed their faces down in the fire… their skin kind of… melted… like the rubber in those shoes… How could anyone do that to a human being?"

"I don't know Sophia…" Faiz cleared his throat. "…And I don't think I want to know either!"

"I don't think I'll be able to forget these things Faiz…. But maybe… maybe it's like everyone keep on telling me that I should do my best to leave it behind and not think about it." Faiz nodded. "And maybe I should do that with this too." I lifted the rope that I had cut in to save Shawn and twisted it in my hands.

"Sophia." Shawn suddenly stood right by me. "Do you still think it's your fault what happened with that?" I hesitated, then nodded slightly. "But it wasn't your fault. It was an accident." I nodded again, then looked to the rope, to Shawn and to the fire, then back to Shawn.

"Maybe we should let my blame go up in flames with the rope should we?" Shawn smiled from ear to ear and nodded. "Okay, together." I gave him one of the ends of the road so we could throw it together. "Watch out so you don't burn yourself, three…" I made a swinging movement with the rope. "Two… one… throw!"

And watching the things go up in flames it was almost like along with the rubber of the soles and it ran down the stones of the fireplace, I could feel my blame run off in just the same way. And by the time Mike came to put the fire out, it was all gone.

So, and cut! I just wanted to let you know that in the chapters left of this I will probably make things start moving forward faster than what they are right now. Since right now they're dragging on a bit. But I hope everyone will be happy with the way I write it and after all- the faster I make it move forward, the sooner you will know what happens to Luce and how the rest of everything ends.

That "Song" is written by me, but haven't got a melody. If someone would like to use it then I have only four conditions that will be very easy to follow. One- ask me first. Two- if I say no, respect it. Three, if I say yes, give me credit for it. And four, don't let anyone else use it without having asked me about it first- thank you!