It was a Friday when we heard about the war. By ‘we’ I mean the whole world. It was on the 6 o’clock news. I remember rightly, we were having lamb and peas; it used to be dad’s favourite dish. We were all laughing at the story of the man, who had gotten stuck in a telephone box and been mistaken for a terrorist bomber by some tourists. After that the music that announces the major news is going to be read out played, you know the type. We didn’t fall silent until Dad shushed us. The news reader read out that our enemy country had failed to meet our demands, and that we were now at war.

I’ve long since forgotten the name of the country. Place names have changed so much as well as the people we fight.

“It’ll be over soon. Don’t worry. It’ll all be over soon.” Mum had tried to reassure us. The amounts of times I have heard that sentence…But back then, I believed her. Completely and utterly. But it wasn’t over soon. It still isn’t. Same war, different people, different names, different places and demands. Same war. Always will be.

School taught us a few lessons about it the following Monday. Why they had refused, what we had asked that sort of thing. A kid had asked if it would get down to any real fighting. Bombings by night, recruiting all over the country, having to have vegetable plots to survive and all other manner of things that sounded like they had come from an old World War II poster in the museum’s ancient world section. It didn’t sound like real life back then.

“It won’t come to anything like that!” The teacher had laughed, “It’ll be over soon. Don’t worry. It’ll all be over soon.” I’ve long since forgotten the teachers name, and the kids, and all the other kids in my class. I’ve also forgotten the reasons and demands. Those things don’t seem important compared to my memories, don’t seem real.

And I went home believing the teacher. I walked down the line to the bike shed and rode down the hill. I laughed with Lilly about unimportant things and ate tea. I carried on. I didn’t know any better back then. I suppose I didn’t want to know any better. I didn’t want to know about the bad things in the world. I was thirteen, I had my whole life ahead of me, I had my family and I was free. I didn’t know what was coming.

The news kept showing more and more stories about the enemy country. School did more and more lessons about war. But we all still failed to realize what was coming. None of us wanted to know. Lilly had always known; even if she didn’t know it herself. She had the ability to sense trouble. But she tended to ignore it. I remember fishing her out of the duck pond more times than I care to count and her just going,

“I knew that was going to happen; I knew it.”

We would laugh at her and go back home to spend the rest of the day in front of the fire with a packet of ginger biscuits and hot chocolate. Now wouldn’t that be nice. Ginger biscuits and hot chocolate. But chocolate’s been banned now from the lower classes, due to importing laws and the rocketing prices. And any biscuits you can find now are so hard or rotten they are beyond edible. But that is for later.

Weeks passed. Mouths passed. A year. Lilly and I had our birthdays, I turned 14 and Lilly turned 12. We had another party and another cake. Gods there’s something I would like; cake. I can’t even remember what it looks like, let alone what it tastes like. I couldn’t see past my next exam or the date my homework had to be handed in. And I was happy being ignorant. Maybe that’s what I miss. Being ignorant of everything around me and being happy about it.

Two months after my 14th birthday, the bombs started falling. On London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Berlin. Only they’re not called that now, and the names change so quickly that I can’t be bothered to remember them.

Mum sent us to bed early that night. Lilly crept into my bed when mum had said goodnight and we stayed awake together, both thinking about what would happen to us. My teacher’s words, Mum’s words going round and round my head: “It won’t come to anything like that!” “It’ll be over soon. Don’t worry. It’ll all be over soon.”

It had.

The next day we all said it was a one off. That our army, our boys would be right in there sorting it out for us. Protecting us. We were wrong. Three weeks later there was another bombing on London. Another early night. Another night curled up with Lilly. Another Saturday spent laughing. Another Sunday studying. Another week leaning about the war. And still we couldn’t see it. We wouldn’t see it. Our lives were too perfect, too safe; to secure to be worrying about what might happen.

I have nothing safe now. Nothing even remotely secure.

It took another three attacks over four months to make people realize that this war was real. And it was here and it was happening and it was killing. People started to be shipped out in their thousands; away from all major cities and towns, to villages and smaller towns. Places like where I lived. It was then that I the world became scared. And it was then that I met Jack.