Desperation meets me at death’s welcoming ceremony.

Two pairs of foggy eyes stare into the cold Earth’s blankness, ignorant to the poverty the war has fueled around them. While streaks of red trickle down a man and woman’s clothes, crimson stains the concrete’s bleak stone. With every movement, ash and soot awaken from the ground. What once was a refuge from violence, is now home to rubble and debris. I carefully place my palm on Baaba and Maama’s chest.

“Wake up,” I plead, refusing to give in to the truth. A truth I was aware of from the moment I stepped into this burnt fortress. This time, the tiny voice sinks in, and I let it.

My spark is barely getting by. Though, there is no thump, no sign of life. A surge of inconsolability weakens my soul and my fire is burned out, what is left are only ashes.

I recall the day the first airstrike hit Damascus. Though it was miles away, what remains in my memory is vivid. A bolt of fire went into steep descent and heavy smoke plumes arose from buildings engulfed in flames, killing hundreds of civilians. Conflict erupted in early March when a group of students began peaceful protesting against the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad. Leaving the house had soon become a dire game of dicing with death.

I’m suddenly transported back to this dreadful reality.

All I want to do is hide.

Horror fills the war-torn roads of Damascus with dead corpses and civilians losing body parts. Innocent families’ faces are splattered with blood, shrieking at this grisly battlefield. Seas of people flood the streets as they escape their homes for freedom. And children are plucked off the ghastly streets like specks of dust, only to be crushed and trampled on the ground by fleeing civilians.

Rumors spread quickly among the people of criminal gangs who are charging families thousands of lira to transport them in rubber dinghies across the Aegean Sea to Greece.

“This is your only choice Tasnim,” my conscience shoots me a sharp caution.

I bolt through the crowd, only to find myself back in Maama and Baaba’s apartment, scavenging for a stack of money on the ground. I recall them hiding their valuable possessions underneath piles of clothes in a wooden drawer. Under a panel of charred wood, holds my ticket to cross the Aegean Sea to Lesbos. I grab Maama’s cream shawl wrapped around her limp body and say goodbye to my home.

A thundering vibration sets the earth quaking. Another airstrike… I must leave now.

It takes hours of trudging through the dirt before I’m almost out of the country I once called my home.

Freedom stands between me and a wired fence, Turkey’s border which leads to the Aegean coast. The feeling of impending death awaits me, though I’m certain this is the only way. I pray for a new moon tonight, as darkness is my only ally. Instinctively, I sprint across the dried weeds and hastily climb, clinging to the barbed wire. The rawness from the flesh of my hands is ripping me apart. I can almost feel the scars of agony beginning to form. My heart is now beating out of my chest, with life rapidly draining out of my hands. This excruciating suffering is killing me. I jump impulsively, only to be welcomed by a pile of weeds ensuring my safety.

I don’t mean to be alive, nor do I wish to still be breathing. Fear is my nemesis. Each day I survive, is a day fear has an opportunity to haunt me in its daunting shadows. I walk a little further until I collapse into sleep. And then, the world is black for an eternity, and for some reason I wish it could stay that way.

Suddenly, a soft amber glow cuts through the black that I once saw through my eyelids. The sun is blinding. I stare into the eye of death, where the treacherous waters of the Aegean deep are preparing to drown my soul. Rather than inhaling acrid fumes, a wave of salty air meets my senses. As dawn draws near, Syrian asylum seekers and families from Damascus and Aleppo gather. A man clothed in black greets us with an expensive number in broken Arabic.

“50,000 euros from here to Lesbos,” he explains. “After you reach the island of Lesbos, you must walk to the capital of Athens. There can be a maximum of only thirty people per boat, otherwise it will capsize and sink.”

Families begin hurrying to grab stacks of money out of their pockets, counting the amount. Some desperately beg the smuggler for mercy as they are short on money, others are uncertain if they will even survive this perilous journey adrift.

Half past five, the smuggler lifts three rubber boats and forces them into the reluctant waves. As soon as the orange meets the blue, a rush of Syrians instantly grab a life vest and briskly crowd into the boats, anxious not to miss their last chance at survival. My body weaves through the thinning crowd, shoving into people until safety finds me at last. In the blink of an eye, all three rubber dinghies are filled, but four families aren’t boarded on.

“Please, take her!” a young woman tosses her bawling baby into the sea, with only a life vest keeping the struggling child afloat. Quarreling arises, and the smuggler tells the mother that the boats are already exceeding their capacity limits. I wish I could tell her I understand what it’s like to lose someone, but my life is far too at risk… All of our lives are. Some might say desperation makes people do drastic things, but a day without fear is all we long for.

The water swells as we drift to the rhythm of the billowing waves. Though we are journeying across the sea slowly, the engine has not failed us yet. The rough waters have already caused sickness churning inside our stomachs, as the pungent odor of vomit is now mixed with the salt of the sea. A now hueless sky seems to wrap the earth in all of its somber darkness. Our body’s tremble solely with fear of being swallowed into the watery abyss which lies beneath us. We are blind to the light, yet our eyes are open to terror’s presence hunting us.

As a distraction from fear’s haunting company, we begin taking turns saying our destination points aloud.

“Great Britain.” A young boy nods determinately, blankly peering off into the distance. I smile in reminiscence, he reminds me of my cousin.

“Hungary,” another says.

“Sweden, we have family there,” an older couple explains.

My voice quivers from the evening’s bitter cold as I speak, “Germany.”

“What city?” two sisters wonder, their youngest sister seated in between them seeking warmth.

“Munich, and you?” I ask eagerly.

“Berlin.” I nod. Berlin is currently home to refugee camps who are housing all asylum seekers, especially those who have journeyed from Syria. There’s no doubt why three sisters separated from their family would choose the best option for safety. Or maybe, their parents didn’t wake up either and only left money.

“Macedonia,” a pregnant woman carrying a shivering baby in her arms, speaks in a hushed tone. Her abdomen signals me that she could go into labor any minute now above these rocky waves. The mother’s baby is trembling uncontrollably as if she’s having a seizure. The baby can’t die, not here, she’s too young. I grab my Maama’s shawl, wrapped around my shaking body, and reluctantly hand it to the woman. This is the last piece of my family that I carry left. The last piece of home.

“For her,” I say.

The mother squeezes my hand in gratitude. “Thank you,” she says to me, carefully wrapping the baby in the cream linen.

Days have passed, or maybe it’s weeks? Soon, a sign of hope rises into sight before us. We begin screaming, yelling out cries, thanking God for this strip of land in the distance. My fire is relit, but only a spark, I’m not getting my hopes up. Besides, what is water if not the destroyer of fire. Everything is always much farther than it looks, and a crescent moon is dangling low in the starless sky. The sea might have to be my abode for one last night.

All thirty of us awaken to the rubber dinghy knocking with the waves into shore. As we rise up from the waters and step into a new morning, out of our sorrows, the greatest thing happens to us. We see blades of grass, a shoreline overflowing with pebbles, and trees. How I’ve missed the sound of swishing trees and their lively leaves dancing in the wind. The sea did not completely drain all the life out of us. It cannot take away our hope, nor our happiness.

Poverty and desperation find their way through Athen’s filthy Victoria Square. Thousands of asylum seekers, largely from Syria and Afghanistan, gather to sleep in these overcrowded makeshift camps. For those who are carrying whitened faces and rheumy eyes, I can’t tell if they are asleep or have already died. Guns fire and glass shatters. How I long for a night where fear will not master my sleep, nor my dreams.

I’ve missed the train. My feet are screaming, raging with fire. We’ve been journeying this arduous trek for three days along the Serbian border’s dirt road without a speck of freedom in sight, and hope has just fallen out of my grasp. Dread and anxiousness silence my thoughts, and I cannot think straight. My foggy vision can barely make out a cluster of blurry figures in the far distance. My eyesight slowly clears, and I catch sight of a large truck overflowing with people inside. In a moment of resolve, I make a bee-line sprinting to the delivery truck, unaware of the energy one can gain in such a time of desperation. The truck door springs open, and three pairs of familiar eyes catch my gaze… The sisters from the dinghy. I reluctantly climb in, preparing myself to die of suffocation.

This is my only choice. The doors shut, and darkness and I meet once again. Immediately, I sense the oxygen level has dropped. I’m struggling to breathe, gasping for air.

I can’t do this. I’m going to die.

I begin hyperventilating, I’m not going to survive. Suddenly, I feel the two older sisters place their hands on my shoulders.

“It’s okay, just breathe,” one of the sister’s tone calmly puts me at ease. “Just breathe.”

By the time the doors fly open, my sticky body is drenched in sweat as I step out of the extreme heat. I give the illegal smuggler 5,000 euro. Suddenly, it strikes me. I am in Hungary, one country closer to Germany. Through hushed whispers, ongoing rumors spread quickly of a train leaving Budapest west for the Westbahnhof station in Vienna at dawn tomorrow. It stands as the crossover point. Then, from there it will leave for Munich, Germany. Hope is not slipping out of my grasp this time.

I arrive at the Keleti train station at midnight, where groups of asylum seekers have beaten me to it. Four days to Vienna, Austria. Four hours to Munich, Germany. My chains of heartache and sorrow are slowly breaking away. A new flame is ablaze.

The begrimed glass incessantly rattles with the wind from the train’s speed, whipping the windows. As the first rays of dawn seeped through the horizon, seas of refugees poured out of the train doors when we arrived in Vienna. Only a few migrants from Austria boarded the train for Germany.

My feet are firm on the rumbling floor, burnt out from standing in place for days. To my astonishment, left of me is a vacant seat, and in front of me is the young boy from the rubber dinghy. These are the moments when life tests you. Although I’m squished in between the sweaty and filthy bodies of refugees overcrowding this car, the rapid train assures me of freedom soon to be in my grasp.

I carefully nudge his shoulder. “There is an empty seat over here.” Though he doesn’t recognize me, our eyes meet and share a glance. The boy keeps silent, but a gleam of gratitude comes across his eyes followed by the same nod he gave earlier. Thank you, they say.

From the foul stench of this train, I am certain I’m just as poor as everyone else.

My fire is far from being burnt into a pile of ashes, but rather burning brighter and igniting my soul.

After three months of poverty and war, Munich welcomes me as I step onto Germany’s soil. Refugee families and asylum seekers bolt past me, most seeking to find a refuge before night falls. Others are eagerly waiting to get approved citizenship, fearful of being rejected later on. All of the people surrounding my presence seem to break away into the dust, as hope and courage are the only voices echoing into my soul.

And for the first time in many months…

I can breathe again.

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  • Haley Hsu moved to Southern California after living in China with her family for ten years. After going to a bilingual international school in China and being immersed into cultures across East Asia, she has grown a strong passion for the written word. Besides personal narratives, she enjoys writing historical fiction and poetry.

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