Young Writers Society

7 .62x51, magnum, Orsis T-5000, the most accurate sniper rifle in the era of modern warfare. It hits a mouse from two kilometers and no wind or rain can deflect that shot out of the way. It's a beautiful gadget. I call her a sneaky Russian. I have been doing this almost all my active work in Syria. We're not talking about equal war. It's not a war, it's a genocide of one's own people. The moment I set it on fire, the Free Syrian Army army was almost destroyed. These men fought with Kalashnikovs and hand grenades. We're not talking about killing the military, we're talking about mass killing of civilians, about demolishing entire settlements by bombing the Russian army from the air, about not choosing casualties and the nonsense of shooting. Assad has a good back, and he will rule until someone kills him himself. Ordinary people can't do anything about it. The Free Syrian Army received military aid from the United States, but these invertebrates sent them second-hand, semi-broken rifles from their military depots. There have been many cases where rifles literally exploded in the hands of these so-called "soldiers." It's not a war, it's a genocide of one's own people. The moment I set it on fire, the Free Syrian Army army was almost destroyed. These men fought with Kalashnikovs and hand grenades. We're not talking about killing the military, we're talking about mass killing of civilians, about demolishing entire settlements by bombing the Russian army from the air, about not choosing casualties and the nonsense of shooting. Assad has a good back, and he will rule until someone kills him himself. Ordinary people can't do anything about it. Anyone who wasn't on Assad's side was considered an adversary, and that was just the way it was. No one could escape their fate. It is up to you to choose which side you are on, but the end of your life is so near that it is only one step behind you. Every day after and every morning you see alive is nothing but a bounty. Life there is a big gamble.

I am from Damascus, my wife and two sons, my two heirs. This is where I was born and raised. Life in Syria has not been easy for 30 years. The system has been corrupt since the Assad family was in power. People really lived hard even before the beginning of this last war. Admittedly, I am a soldier by profession, so I had some privileges over the rest of the people and I could afford my children more than other people.

Aleppo 21.7.2012.

On July 19 and 20, 2012, the Free Syrian Army stormed the city of Aleppo in an attempt to make a surprise strike, they tried to liberate the city with a quick and effective strike, but the very next day we successfully stopped them. The meaninglessness of this war was already at its peak in my head in 2012 but I had no choice, I had to work, I had to protect my family. It was the only way to make sure that no one would cross my doorstep and kill them. I watched those boys die like bees in a fire. I watched people who had captured weapons to defend dignity, to defend life. And I'm one of them, we're the same people, the same people, but I chose the dark side because I'm a coward. I chose a distorted image over the truth. Those thoughts were running through my head all the time, I couldn't get it off me. I prayed to God in those days. That's very interesting. A man prays even though he knows he is wrong, but he also knows that it is all he has left.

Aleppo 24.7.2012.

The Free Syrian Army has been trying unsuccessfully with smaller incursions to tear us apart and decimate us from the early hours of the morning. None of our soldiers were killed that morning, but there were many deaths from the opposite side. It was all that day, until dusk, when everything stopped. It's all gone quiet. We informed command that the attacks had been successfully repulsed, reported their numbers and interrupted the conversation. That night was too quiet. I was hoping it was over, that I wouldn't have to fire another shot. I wish the war had stopped. He stopped for an hour or two. There was only silence, some eerie silence. I guess when a man gets used to the sound of mortars and wakes up to the sound of tank pipes, it's unusual for him to hear nothing, as if he subconsciously wants a shot just to know that everything is fine. Because in war, everything that is abnormal becomes everyday life and one begins to fear the normal, just as in marriage. My train of thought was interrupted by the sound of our Albatross school planes. What is this, we didn't ask for air support? Dozens of planes began bombing Aleppo. They attacked in parallel formations and it was almost impossible to escape from a bomb. Countless vertical lines of light descended from the sky directly into the city. I've never seen a meteor shower, Somehow I'd sleep through it every time, but most of all I wish someone had taken away all my senses at that moment and that I didn't see the rain of bombs like that night. All that was heard was an explosion, a scream, an explosion, a demolition, then a scream again and so on. That was a crucial moment. Everything I had broke inside me. They crashed from the air into a sea of innocent civilians, for whom? For what? Who am I fighting?

Aleppo 25.7.2012.

The night was long, too long and I spent it planning my escape from the front, from Aleppo, from the state, but at that moment I would have run away from myself if I could. But I was helpless. I knew the only way to get off the line was to get wounded and get transferred to treatment. I prayed to God at some points for just one stray bullet somewhere where it didn't hurt much, just to go home and pick up my kids and my wife. No one will ever see me again.

Days went by, not a single bullet hit me yet. I wasn't an interesting look target. And I was a little further away from everyone, tucked away, so it wasn't easy to notice me. It had its good sides, because Unnoticed I could do what I decided. The same treacherous Russian, who shoots two kilometers, this time shot very close, in the arm. You can't imagine how much acrobatics a man needs if he wants to wound himself with a 1.2m sniper in the forearm. I succeeded in that. It didn't hurt at all, whether it was a state of shock or an adrenaline rush I don't know, but all I felt was hot blood gushing on my boots. I dressed up with my shirt and called for help. I was rushed out of the city by ambulance and returned to Damascus for treatment.

Damascus 7.8.2012.

At my own risk, I got out of the hospital and went home. I was greeted by a woman with children. Everyone was alive and well at the time, and that's all that matters. I told my Iman everything I had planned and she agreed with me. This woman has always supported me and believed in my decisions and she has had enough of living in fear. We decided to leave that same evening because there was no time to waste. The moment word gets out that I'm no longer in the hospital, the military police will go looking for me, and my plan is for me to be out of state at that point. I don't want to shoot my hand for no reason. I told them to pack as basic as they could, to take one backpack and put everything they might need along the way. I didn't want to take any memories with me from my city. It all seemed too dirty to take anything with me to some new life that I plan to live, I don't know where yet, but I'll find out along the way. I brought clothes, bandages, a lamp, cigarettes, and a bullet that wounded me to remind me of how much i had already given myself to get out of this hell, and never, in the moments of weakness that I will surely have on my way, would I want to return. Let it be a reminder of the struggle for life in which sometimes you have to kill who you are to survive.

In the car, we reached the Turkish border almost without any interference. We were to cross the Oront River in one of the poorly guarded and unlit parts. We were all good swimmers and that wouldn't be a problem, but I was the one who almost stumbled at the first hurdle that appeared. Because of the still fresh wound on my arm, I had to swim with one hand. I did not dare to dip my other hand in a filthy plain river full of cow dung and sewage water. I couldn't get an infection right now. All mine swam to the other side relatively quickly, but I struggled a lot with the river current, although it was a plain river, it threw me like a log and I came out about 200 or 300 meters downstream to the other side. When I came out, I thought, 'Well, we haven't even entered another country yet and we're already wet, dirty and smell like, we're officially refugees.' We were supposed to, having successfully crossed the border, find the nearest route to Antakia. I have a friend there that we can settle in with. I took the phone to call him but it turned out that our "waterproof" phones are not resistant to river water. We were left without a phone somewhere by the river in Turkey, we don't know exactly where we are, it's early in the morning, we are wet and hungry. The only possible option was to continue on foot and hope that along the way we would come across someone who would take us to our destination. As time went on, the sun burned more and more and the stones we walked on literally became scorching. The heat came out of the sky and the earth.

A van stopped next to us and I asked the driver in bad Turkish: "Can you help us find our way to Antakia, our bus left and we went to visit a friend"?

He says to me, "Syria then? "No problem, $300 a head."

Of course he knew who we were and what we were, and I don't know why I tried to deceive him in the first place. I gave him the money and he put us in the back of the van along with the chickens he was transporting. He told us to put on the overalls that were standing in the corner in case we were stopped by the police. We're going to have to pretend to be his workers. In addition to river, we now smell like, but that was our only way out at that moment. The next few hours seemed like an eternity in that darkness and stench. We didn't talk much. That darkness brought me back to the front, to uncertainty, to the bobfor life. I came back with a picture of a boy in a white T-shirt pinned under the rubble with the Koran in his hands calling out to his mother and calling out and calling out. This book is probably all he has left until his death.

The door opens, we're in Antakya. I asked the driver to lend me the phone to call a friend and he really did, turned around and left. Edhar soon came and drove us to his apartment. We ate, ate, bathed. I swaddled my hand for the first time in two days. They welcomed us as their closest and it was the first time in years or more that my family felt the warmth of the family home in the evening, without gunshots in the distance and air raid sirens. Everything was calm.

In Turkey, we were unlicensed and undeclared, which meant that it would not be desirable to stay here. My goal was to get to Greece because it is the first European country we can reach. We stayed in Antakya for two months and then decided it was time to move on. In turkey without papers, it was impossible to find a job that was paid enough to support the family and obtaining citizenship is such a long process that we would probably stay with Edhar in his apartment for the rest of our lives. I didn't feel comfortable anymore. I felt like I was a burden to someone even though he never mentioned it. On Facebook groups, I regularly followed the routes of syrians' movements from Turkey to Greece and I saw that the largest number of people were going to the island of Samos illegally. It turned out to be the only possible way to get to Greece. I arranged with Edhar to drive us to Kusadasi and that we would try to get in touch with the schevenings that could transport us to Samos.

20.10.2012.

We're in Kusadasi. It's a beautiful city. It is full of people in suits who just go left-right, up and down, live fast, people drive expensive cars, the air is healthy, the sea is beautiful, the climate is different. I wonder if I would notice all these things if I looked at it from the head of an ordinary man. Do these people know how much life caresses them and gives them on a platter served cakes that they just need to eat? I wonder if they look at me as a man, in fact if they notice me at all. We sat on the beach and ate some dough from a nearby bakery. My children laughed, they laughed freely, we all breathed life again.

We spent the next few nights under the metal structure of a restaurant on the beach. I was not immediately able to get in touch with some of the smugglers who worked in the area. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts and lowered the headphones, we got our appointment.

1.11.2012.

We were supposed to leave one of the wild beaches at 11 p.m. The deal was that there would be 32 people in the boat. When we arrived at the beach, I saw about a hundred people, mostly Syrians waiting. I was hoping we'd go with at least two boats. We paid 2,000 euros per head. We all got into a 15-meter boat together. When I counted, there were 127 people in a 15-meter boat. I begged our smuggler to take us at least two rounds because, as soon as we sat down, the boat sank almost half of the cargo. No one had life jackets and we had a short trip ahead of us. He just smiled and started the engines. We're on our way. All evenings up to that were extremely calm, cold but calm, without any wind or precipitation. But that night, as if we were choosing the worst possible time for the journey, such a wind blew, which began to carry the boat to the left and right. There were also waves that began to fill the boat. People vomited en masse. We all tried to get as much water out of the boat as possible that the waves were pumping inside. The smuggler cursed all the time, said he was going to throw half of it into the sea, he said we were cattle that deserved nothing but death. The waves were getting bigger and I started to believe that none of us would get out alive. The water was already pulling the bags into the depths. I turned to my Iman and told her, "Just hold the kids tight, I've lost everything but I can't do you." At one point, we were just hung up by a wave and the boat leaned to the right and spit my Kadan into the water. I jumped after him after a few seconds, but the water had already pulled him under the boat. I saw with my own eyes his little body fighting for his life under that boat. I tried to reach him, but I didn't. His hands were languishing before my eyes somewhere in the middle of the sea. He just stopped fighting. He was disappearing... My Kadan, my fighter...

I have been in Samos for four years together with Iman and my younger son Anil. Europe is not what I thought it was. Europe does not respect me and we do not have basic living conditions here. What kind of life do I need anymore? Who am I to ask for more than that? My life is all about waiting in line for food, lying in a tent with my kids and struggling with insomnia. I am here for every immigrant and Will remain so for the rest of my life. I'm proud of my label. I lost everything, I lost my child. I did not come to kill, on the contrary, I came never to take a weapon in my hands again. I swore an oath to my Kadan and that's the way it has to be.