Heroes

And the world which began it was nothing close to the world that ended it. It was a world bathed in blood, and sorrow.
Maya and Paul looked out the window at this world. At this world every day. They were the ageless ones; they were the ones who had been chosen. Four from each city…four people sacrificed to bury the dead. And the dead came in thousands…the plague killing some, and war snatching away the rest, they watched--faces plastered against freezing glass.
"I feel sick," Paul muttered one day as he watched a man get run through with a sword. Maya shook her head and punched him in the arm lightly. They both knew that ‘feeling sick’ was not allowed. They couldn't be sick. They had so much left to do...to bury to dead, to pray and heal the wounded, to deliver the news to widows and orphans. They couldn't be sick.
Paul understood and nodded sadly.
Maya sighed and leaned her forehead against the window pane, closing her round eyes, and gradually falling asleep. Paul remained awake, watching the carnage taking place beyond the window pane. His stomach churned again and again as the battle raged, first favoring one side, then the other, wavering back and forth like a pendulum. There were many other watchers. Each city had chosen four...but they were the only children. No city but their own had been cruel enough to choose two adults and two very small children.
Paul shifted his hand from the scene outside to the blank cream wall paper. It looked strange here, silhouetted. He traced it with his fingers, and was disappointed to find it the same size it had been last night. He needed to grow older. Then he wouldn't mind all this. Then he wouldn't get sick. Men didn't grow ill.
"Hey, ho, nobody home, meat nor drink nor money have I none," someone sang from the corner. It was one of the wounded men. Paul looked on him with appraising eyes. He would soon be like that. He would no longer be feeble and 'sick'. He would be strong and wounded.
A canon blast echoed through the valley, and a cannon ball buried itself inches from the window. A shower of dust and wood splinter flew towards the sky. Maya twitched violently and woke up, breathing quickly. She looked for fissures in the wall for chips in the glass. Nothing. Sighing she relaxed.
"Yet shall I be merry," the wounded man finished. Maya looked on him differently. Sadly. She called it shameful that so many young men were dying. She called it stupid, pointless, idiotic. She said it was something no god-fearing leader would take part in.
But Paul knew different. He knew the glory that someone carried back with them when their sword or bayonet was bloody.
Maya shook her head sadly. It was then Paul interrupted. He immediately regretted it.
"Maya, you shouldn't pity him! He’s a hero!" the small boy shouted climbing onto the window sill and gesturing wildly to the man crouched over in the chair. A thick which cast covered the foot left of his right leg. The man smiled wryly and gasped as his leg twitched, sending a column of pain shooting through his spine. Paul's brow furrowed. He was a hero. He knew it didn't him? War made men. That was what father had said. His father had been ashamed he and Maya would not be fighting. He had signed up for the army himself, to pay the debt his children were unable to fill. His had been the hardest body to bury. But paul had been able to do it. he had been able to bury him, because he was a hero.
The smoke was beginning to clear on the battle field. The blue army was victorious. Paul had lost track of which political party they represented. There were too many uniforms.
The ground was littered with bodies. Fallen heroes. Paul set his jaw and followed his sister out into the twilight.
Maya breathed deeply trying to ignore the scent of blood. They hardly ever went outside. She wasn't used to the crispness of the air, the gorgeous flavors of flowers, trees, sky that floated to her. One of the older women tutted as Maya stretched her arms out and whirled in a circle, enjoying the feel of natural light beating down upon her shoulders--even if it was only for this very short while.
"This is no place for dancing," the woman hissed, "This is a grave yard."
Maya stared fiercely at the elderly woman. Then her gaze softened. A tear had appeared in the corner of the woman's left eye. It ran down her face, leaving a glistening trail behind it, shimmering on the folds of her skin. Her face was tired...very very tired. She looked more dead to the world then most of the corpses on the battle field.
Paul felt his stomach claw its way up into his throat. The first wave of vomit fell from his lips and onto the jacket of a young private. He was almost no older then maya…they were almost never this young. Paul looked at him more closely then he had the other corpses. The man's face was surprised; his eyes still open, unknowing, unseeing. Paul's own eyes stung with tears and he bit his lip. And something deep inside small Paul snapped. Something broke into a thousand pieces. These weren't the bodies of heroes. These were the bodies of people who had not known. Who hadn't been fathers? Who had been brother and sisters. Who had been sons. Who had been small inside, who had barely cracked the shell of adulthood. They were chicks, staring with wide eyes at a world that was hostile, and impossible to survive. And yet they had tried to survive...because they had not known it was impossible.
It was Paul's job to close the eyes. It was Maya's job to bless the bodies. It was the adult’s job to do the actual deed. Death is not a thing for children...and should they be forced to experience it, the adults felt that they should do the smallest tasks, be the least involved.
"This one first," Paul sobbed, tugging on his leather gloves. He ran his hand over the man's face and watched as the lids fell. Maya was crying now too. She could barely complete the Lord’s Prayer, her voice so shaken that it was inaudible. Her small body rocked with tremors. Her eyes had dark circles under them, and her lips were blue with blood from where she had bitten them, trying not to cry.
"amen." she whispered. And she was finished.
They went on like this...until they came to the drummer boy.
There had never been a drummer boy before.
Paul was stunned.
Maya pushed him aside, trying to keep him from touching the small child. A child no older then her brother. A reflection of Paul, a reminder of the severity of the situation. Paul elbowed past her, and laid his hands on the boy’s shoulders. He was cold as ice. That was enough. That was too much. Paul let out a howl of grief. The emotion was so intense he could not hold it inside himself. It was inexpressible, but he needed to force it out of his chest. It erupted out of his mouth, wail after wail. He rocked back and forth, clasping the drummer boy's small hand in his, crying and crying, tears of bitter anger washing his face of its last remnants of childhood.

Maya finished blessing the last man, and ran for the door. Her stomach turned, her legs were numb, and her head was pounding. Paul had gone inside long before, and the adults had worked faster then she had. She blessed the unmarked graves instead of the body. She was thankful for this. She hated seeing the faces.
Paul was asleep when she arrived. He had curled up, not on his cot, but under it. He was still shivering. Maya felt his shoulders just to be sure...still warm. Still here. She still had Paul.
Following Paul's example, she curled up under her own cot and waited for sleep to find her.

The moon rose that night like a silver bauble, a perfect glassy pool. Its face was reflected in the window, which Paul could see from his cot. He watched it carefully, half expecting it to tap dance. Things were surreal now. So surreal that the moon could easily have decided to do a step dance and he would have thought nothing of it. His small frame seemed dwarfed by the blankets and cots. They were made for adults...
As he looked out the window, he was thinking. And that piece of him, that small bit of him, that snapped reformed itself. But it reformed itself the wrong way. The pieces discovered there were two ways to fit things together. And the second way made more sense. The second way was crystal clear. Paul sat bolt upright on his cot and swung his small legs over the side of the bed. His feet felt strange on the floor. He didn't usually walk barefoot.
"May?" he whispered, shaking Maya's shoulders. They were warm. She was still there. He still had Maya.
"Hmmm?" Maya asked only half awake. She sat up slowly, propping herself up with one arm and massaging her eyes with the other. Paul shook her again.
"The moon is full."
Maya raised her eyebrows. That made no sense.
"We can go,"
"What?" Maya hissed, sitting up straight. She stared her brother down, looking for any hint of joking, any small bit of humor. Nothing. Paul was serious. His wide brown eyes stared up at her own green pair. She put a hand on his shoulder and bit her lip.
"We can't Paul. I’m so sorry, but we can't...there's no where to go."
Paul didn't want to listen. He wanted to walk. He wanted to see that moon in a place where there were no bodies. He wanted to see that perfect pool of lamp light in a field where no blood had been spilt. He wanted to inhale the fresh air, without having to ignore the taste of blood. He was ready.
He walked to the door, and without a satchel, without a bag, without anything, he walked out into the night. Maya gasped and grabbed her notebook. Then she ran after him.
"This is treason," she whispered. Paul shook his head, and grabbed her hand. His hand barely covered half her palms and his fingers could not encircle her wrist. Never the less, he dragged her forwards, running, faster--and they went like this, over the crest of a hill, and into the woods. They hadn't been in the woods in years...they gaped at the trees laughed at the carpet of leaves beneath them, twirled and danced, because they weren't on a graveyard.
Something snapped behind them. Maya froze and pulled Paul close to her, grasping his thin arm. Paul buried his face in his sister's arms, hiding from whatever unknown beast was coming closer. The footsteps drew level with them, and another light appeared. This light was opposite the moon, completely imperfect. But there was something in the mistakes, in the subtly of them that was endearing. And the owner that held it also held the same small flaws. His face was not nearly symmetrical, a long scar running down the left of his face. A dog was at his heels. In the moonlight his clothing could have been any color.
"Whose there?" he whispered, almost as scared as Maya and Paul. Maya stepped forwards, shivering. The man looked her up and down, and then did the same to Paul. He peered intently at their necks and faces which were bare, and unscarred. Most children had the marks of their side upon them. Bullet scars, tattoos, or a necklace.
"What side are you on?" the man asked, amused.
Maya smiled, and said, "I'm on the side of god." the man's face deepened as he smiled. He gestured for them to follow him. He led them through the woods, deeper and deeper into the brush, into the trees through the labyrinth of fallen trunks, all under the midnight sky. He finally drew them out into a clearing. A clearing that neither of them had seen before. For all they knew, it could have been a freshly cut clearing. A clearing where no blood had been spilt. Maya inhaled deeply and realized the iron smell of the battle field was gone.
"Welcome to our camp," the man said, still smiling. There were hundreds of people in the clearing. And in the firelight the colors of their clothing was revealed. But it seemed not to matter. They were intermingled, so many different colors all mixed together, eating, laughing, cleaning, and smiling. Maya stared in awe at the sight before her. Paul smiled.
"We are also on the side of god." the man with the dog said. Maya walked still awestruck into the crowds. Girls greeted her, waving, handed her food, showing her where her tent was. Talking so fast she could barely understand them. Paul saw a little boy his own age he didn’t need to touch his shoulders to make sure he was there. He was bright cheeked, and bright eyed, so unlike the drummer they had found. He ran up to the man with the dog and hugged him, laughing.
"My son," the man explained. Paul smiled and then gasped as the boy hugged him as well. Tears stung his eyes again as he looked over the camp and then back to the man, the dog, and the boy.
"You’re heroes." he whispered.

This is certainly a well thought out piece. You've captured a certain senselessness in the hardly explained, yet ironically justified, violence and loss of life. Two children are thrust into witnessing taboos by the very same people who hold said taboos from children. The nonsensical and contradicting actions of their surroundings 'ironically' leads the two siblings into discovering another 'impossible' reality.

Now, let's get into the nitty gritty. Please remember, I do my best to point out common mistakes as I first see them, as it might be of benefit to you, but I am not so cruel to berate you on every single, miniscule problem that I may find. One detailed explaination per issue is usually enough; I leave it up to you to decide how to apply any given feedback in the future.

And the world which began it was nothing close to the world that ended it.

The sentence above has quite a few problems. From tense, to dangling modifiers, to subject-verb agreements, I think this is an excellent example to point out common mistakes that are very easy to miss.

First, I gather that the tense you intended best fits a Past Perfect Continuous Timeline: http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/tensepastperfcont.htm. With that in mind:

And t The world which began that has just begun it is nothing close to like the world that came before it.

I have taken some liberties to guess your intended subject and meaning. Here, it is clear that 'world' is the subject that is performing the action of beginning. In turn, beginning has been written as 'begun' to agree with the tense and predicate of the entire sentence. By using the adverb just, I have put emphasis on the immediacy of the change from the past to the present.

Furthermore, it is now clear that the current world is not the same world that has already been replaced. This sentence now contains a clear independant clause: "The world that has just begun". This independant clause is followed by the dependant clause: "is nothing like the world that came before it." The independent clause can stand by itself and remain a proper, complete sentence without the dependant clause. The dependant clause serves to modify, or clarify, what is stated in the independant clause. Because it is dependant, such a clause cannot stand on its own without a reliable, independant clause to 'lean on'.

Lastly, to say that the current world is nothiing like the one that preceeded it, is a much more natural comparison that saying the current world is nothing close to the world before it. It is not as clear if close refers to a comparison to physical distance, or if it means to compare the two in terms of another disjoint similarity.

It was a world bathed in blood , and sorrow.

This is a comma splice. A common splice is the incorrect usage of a comma to conjoin complete thoughts. Words commonly used as conjunctions should be only used with a comma when they perform the duty of conjoining. To conjoin simply means to combine two things. In the context at hand, it means you must combine two complete thoughts into a single complete thought.

In case you are not familiar with it, there is a rule of thumb that is helpful for identifying comma splices. This rule is as follows:

Omit the conjoining word and replace the comma with a period. Then, capatilize the following word. If you do not end up with two complete sentences, then you have a comma splice. Here we have:

It was a world bathed in blood.

and

Sorrow.

As you can see, sorrow is not a complete sentence. Instead, 'and' serves to link both blood and sorrow to things that 'a world' is being 'bathed in'.

Maya and Paul looked out of a the window at into this world.

OR

Maya and Paul looked out of the window at into this world.

OR even

Maya and Paul looked out through the window at out into this world.

I'll use this to elaborate a bit more on the subject of modifiers. In any of the above corrections, it is clear what the combined subject of Maya and Paul 'looked' at. Regardless of whether they are looking through a window or the only window, it's clear that they are using the window to look at the world beyond it. Otherwise you have unwittedly stated the following:

Maya and Paul looked out

and

The window at this world. ('this' is an ambiguous reference in of itself, as it is not clear what 'this' refers to.)

The window's purpose and relation between Mary and Paul as well as the world is not clear. Be sure to make good use of prepositions and take care to match the predicate nominative correctly. More on predicate nominatives here: http://www.grammaruntied.com/nouns/PredicateN.html

At this world every day.

This is a fragment containing two dependant clauses: 'At this world' and 'every day'. Neither describe anything contained in this fragment, and it appears that the desired, independant clause is contained in the preceding sentence. You have three choices generally; you can either combine the fragment with either of the sentences that precede or follow it, restate it to contain an entirely new independant clause, or omit it altogether.

They were the ageless ones; they were the ones who had been chosen. Four from each city…four people sacrificed to bury the dead. And the dead came in thousands…the plague killing some, and war snatching away the rest, they watched--faces plastered against freezing glass.

I have a few things to note here. Symbolism, especially within numbers, is very powerful. However, I'm not sure that the usage of the number four has been used to achieve much of a powerful effect, or if it even adds anything to this piece. I do think you are on the right track here. Your story is rife with nice examples of symbolism and imagery, some great, some not so great. Practice makes perfect, right?

Another thing that I want to note, is the usage of ellipses, ('...'), in any third-person narration. In prose, ellipses are better used to signify an actual pause in speaking, or to show conscious omission of thoughts from a first person perspective. When used in a third person perspective, it tends to show bias from a third party. Since the narrative third person perspective is most often told from the words of a removed, third party, this can lead to an unintentional 'breaking of the fourth wall'. Save the ellipses in narration for when internal thoughts clearly belong to a given character, rather than in the observances of an 'invisible' third party. This isn't to say that my assessment here is a concrete rule to never be broken; particluar usage of ellipses in diferent perspectives can be a stylistic choice. Take care to make any choices in style consistent and clear when writing prose.

"I feel sick," Paul muttered one day as he watched a man get run through with a sword.

Maya shook her head and punched him Paul's in the arm lightly.

Any spoken lines of dialog should be seperated onto their own lines, no matter what level of narration accompanies the speaker in terms of tone, demeanor, or action. It makes the combination of narration and spoken dialog easier to read and interpret. Also, "one day" is superfluous information that serves more to awkwardly break the descriptive flow than it does to add to the narration. It fits under 'one too many modifiers', as it puts too much information in a single thought.

Finally, it is ambigious if it is the recently introduced Paul whose arm recieves Maya's punch, or if 'him' refers to another, nearby male yet to be introduced. The same can be said for 'the arm'. Take care to flesh out transitions, and make sure that modifiers link back to intended nouns and verbs.

They both knew that ‘feeling sick’ was not allowed. They couldn't can't be sick. They had so much left to do... They must to bury to the dead. to pray and heal t The wounded needed healing, and the dying needed prayers; , to deliver the terrible news must be delivered to widows and orphans. They simply cannot couldn't be sick, it was an impossiblity.

I like the use of repetition for emphasis here. I am more offering a suggestion with my marks here than I am correcting mistakes. To get the maximum effect out of repetition, try changing the flow a bit with more synonyms and sentence structure; both elaborate and rephrase the things you want to draw your reader's attention to. This way, things don't get so predictably repetetive that you unintentionally bore the reader.

None of which I feel you did of course; I like to encourage talent and hard word when I see effort being put forth. In this case, I feel the repetition of strong words, like must, are well varied and interspersed in their appearance with contrasting words, like the negative contraction 'can't'. Personally, I feel that it does well to further cement the siblings' feelings of a reality they hate; at the same time, the variety of words and sentence structure helps to give repetition a greater impact. There are endless possibilities of course, I only mean to demonstrate how a little change can sometimes have a large impact on the results.

Paul shifted his hand from the scene outside to the blank , cream wallpaper.

Aside from the corrections above, 'blank, cream' is an odd combination of adjectives to describe wallpaper. It does feel a bit forced, like you want to describe 3-4 different contrasts that are very hard to express in a few words. If so, don't be afraid to go off on 'tangents' and use additional adjectives; feel free to write down more 'redundant' sentences in order to describe all of your ideas thoroughly. I can honestly say that I like what I'm seeing in your ability to describe complex scenes so far; continue to take it further and you'll get better and better.

A cannon blast echoed through the valley, and a cannonball buried itself inches from the window. A shower of dust and wood splinters flew towards the sky. Startled, Maya twitched violently and woke up, breathing quickly. She looked for fissures in the wall and for chips in the glass. Nothing There were none. Sighing, she relaxed.

This is simple enough. You have cannon which fired a cannonball. While it is not that odd to have a shower of dust and wood, it seems plain silly to have a shower of splinter. It seems fitting to say that Maya would be a lot more startled by the lack of comma use for emphasis, than a startled Maya would. There might have been chips in the glass or even fissures in the wall, but Maya was finally able to sigh in relief; she learned that her thoughts were not fragmented afterall, and her friend, the comma, showed up just in time to give her a break.

I think I've covered my main points for you. Not only is this not a proofreading session, but I've probably already come off as being too harsh or patronizing as it is. Keep in mind, many of the mistakes I've pointed out are common ones; even pros benefit from proofreaders and editors afterall. You seem to possess a good deal of imagination, and I would say you are 'ahead of the game' in your ability to bring an imagined story to life. I think I've mentioned it three times by now, but you really don't need much more than practice for the time being. Yes, I do mean that as a compliment.

Every once in a while, I find myself enjoying a piece in spite of all its flaws, and this is one of those pieces.

You have a very well-thought out setting here with solid characters, and while there is obviously a core message/theme behind this story, it isn't preachy in the slightest. In fact, the story stands on its own as a story, with the message/theme feeling incidental, and that is just wonderful.

The one thing that kept me from enjoying this piece fully was the constant shifting in point of view. Sometimes the story is told from more Paul's point of view, but then it's sometimes Maya's, and it switches back and forth without any warning. If you could keep the point of view more consistent, limiting changes to scenes or transitioning more smoothly between them, then this story would read much more smoothly.

Really, the only way to get good with transitioning between point of views is through practice, though you're off to an excellent start. So keep writing; you have an obvious talent for it. It's just a matter of acquiring the skill.

I look forward to reading more of your work in the future.