My hands are bound too tightly. Blood is running down my cheek. It is dark. I can hear the cries of my friends as they are tortured. Sounds like a horror movie doesn’t it? A translation of my favorite Ukrainian song pops into my head. *There under the Lviv castle an old tree stump stood *

I hear footsteps. A guy painted orange starts yelling at me. He calls me, you; not my name, Liberty. I have mixed feelings about my name now; now that my twin sister Freedom is dead. I saw her body tied to the chair I am sitting in. He asks me questions. I don’t answer him. He pulls out a knife. He carves the words OST into my skin. Words that my family had sewn to their clothing; When the nazi’s captured them.

I hear a scream. I gasp. I would know that scream anywhere, They got him. My lover.

After the man leaves I count my blessings: I am not dead, my brothers are safe, my sister is in heaven. *Under the old tree stump a patriot was laying. He is lying, not breathing, he looks like he’s asleep.* Slowly I drift off to sleep.

“Don’t move, please. We are getting you out of here,” a voice says.

*His golden curls rock in the wind *

I hear the cutting of my ropes. Then my hands don’t feel bound by anything. I stand up.

The voice then tells me, “Liberty, it’s Josh, and Vesna, Maple is waiting outside. We have to go. We already got everybody else out.”

I need support to walk so Vesna lends me a shoulder. When we get out of the building we see maple with a horse drawn cart. Josh lifts me into the back where there is a little seat made with blankets ready for me. Someone hands me a mug of soup, I drink it. As the cart keeps going I fall asleep. *Looking over at him , a mother tiredly stands, and she talks to her son.* I wake up in a bed with bandages covering various areas of my body.

A teenage girl walks up to me, “Well look who’s awake. Hey Liberty, I missed you.”

“Sonya, how are you,” I reply, “Where is everyone?”
“Everyone else is out of the infirmary, They are in a meeting. I know that you will want to go but your legs are not yet strong enough. But I will take you in a wheelchair. Now this is a wheelchair that you can push yourself so you don’t come back until after dinner.”

I transfer to the wheelchair and wheel myself to a big building that Sonya pointed out. I enter and hear the meeting going on.

“But it’s a suicide mission”

“They will kill us all anyway”

“How about Liberty”

“No”

“Why not”

“I love her”

I open my mouth to speak, “So what suicide mission am I doing?”

“Liberty, allow me to introduce myself. Colonel Son at your service,” says the man named Son.

“It doesn’t look like you’re servicing me, it looks like you’re about to send me to the lion’s den unarmed.”

He opens his mouth to speak but no words come out.

Josh launches into the plan, “They will kill us all with the nukes they made. What we need is someone who can kill the lead guy before he escapes so that the bomb kills both sides.”

I volunteer and just like that the meeting is dispersed and I go to eat dinner. I walk back to the infirmary and sleep. Too soon someone is waking me up with a satchel and change of clothes.

I get dressed in a pair of pants and black t-shirt. I braid my hair in a single braid down my back. I take the satchel and am on my way.

I walk for about an hour when I get into the city. Ruble. *Son my darling son my child, They wouldn’t have killed you if not for the war.* I see a girl around 5 years old with two boys who look to be her brothers; she asks me for a crust of bread. I look into my satchel and I give her a loaf of bread. *Your father had five sons, you were our youngest my son Andrei.* I continue on.

I reach the main building. A statue of stalin is outside. That statue of stalin already shows the evilness of it all. The secrecy of it all. Underneath the statue is the year when they took over killing almost everyone. *When you were a little boy your father was a warrior, he put down his head for Ukraine.*

I walk into the building, I run to the top of the building. I see him, my enemy, the one who killed my sister. I grab my knife, I don’t hesitate. I see the fear in his eyes. His white suit turns red. Then the job is done. Now only death awaits me. Pity, I won’t even reach adulthood. I look out the window and see our troops fighting. *Don’t cry old mother, your son is a hero, he laid down his head for Ukraine.*

Then comes a boom.

Fire, the sun, it burns. I see Josh and crawl over to him. He is dead. I see my lover, Luke, I crawl over to him. I hold him as he breathes his last breath. I collapse near him. *A tall grave and a cross made of birch, on that cross a golden tryzub.* My memories dance around me. I know this is the end. I hope my brothers get a better life than me. Soon I will see her, Freedom. I dig into my satchel and pull out a flask of water. I drink it letting the cool refreshing taste be the last that touches my mouth. Slowly my breathing starts to slow. I see a sun setting in the distance, my last one. The world goes dark.