The war came like a storm, sudden and fierce, tearing through their lives before they could even grasp the weight of it. She held her children close, breathing them in as if their scent could anchor her to a world that was slipping away. Her hands, trembling but steady, brushed the hair from their faces, memorizing the softness of their skin, the warmth of their little hearts beating beneath her touch.
“Stay strong,” she whispered, her voice breaking as she tried to hold onto the smile they so desperately needed to see. But in her chest, there was a storm she could not calm, a fear she could not hide. The world was shifting beneath their feet, and she could no longer shield them from the darkness that had come for them all. She kissed their foreheads, each one, as though sealing away the last part of herself with them. “I’ll be back,” she promised, though she wasn’t sure if it was a promise she could keep. Her hands pressed against their tiny faces one final time, and she pulled them close, desperate to imprint herself into their memories.
Her heart shattered when they cried, when they clung to her, when they asked, in innocent voices that could not fathom the cruel weight of the world, “Why do you have to go?” She wanted to tell them everything would be okay, that this was only a bad dream. But the truth was heavier than her love could bear.
She was a mother, and this was the hardest thing she had ever done—leave them behind, to fight a battle that threatened to tear apart everything she had ever known. But she knew that, in that moment, her strength would be what they needed to survive. She kissed them once more, whispering, “I love you” through tears that wouldn’t stop falling.
And then she turned away, each step farther from them a piece of her soul left behind. The world was a battlefield now, and the distance between her and her children felt as vast as the sky, stretching endlessly, painfully. She could still hear their cries in her heart, feel their tiny hands reaching for her, but she had to walk away.
As she stepped into the unknown, the weight of the promise to return pressed heavily against her chest. She would fight—for them, for the future that had yet to unfold. And no matter how far apart they were, no matter how long it took, she would carry them with her, every heartbeat, every breath, until the day she could hold them again
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