On 22 December 2023, I was lying on my bed when the evening was shattered by a missile setting off an earth-shaking explosion, its force reverberating through my chest, making my heart beat faster.
But why? It wasn’t the first one; the war had been going on for about three months.
That afternoon, my mother had yelled for me to come and sit with her. I knew she was afraid of losing one of us. She had been stuck in Egypt for the first two months of the war. Her vacation turned into a nightmare, and, though she made it home, her fear only grew.
I had been talking with my friend Eman about this. She had laughed, saying fear was normal until a person gets used to the situation.
With her words in mind, I turned my attention to my anxious mother, hoping to ease her tension by asking about her adventures in Egypt.
The next morning, we woke up and had breakfast. Afterward, my father got his clothes and went out. It was about 7 am, too early to go anywhere. I didn’t think much of it, assuming he had work. ….more
