It's morning in your village; your favourite time of day. The air is peaceful as you walk leisurely to the well to collect water for your family. Too peaceful perhaps, given the rumours of militia in the area.
[[You continue to the well, telling yourself you are just being overly cautious.]]
[[You return home without the water. The air just doesn't feel right.]]A single shot shatters the stillness before the chaos. He approaches you cautiously. His clothing is tattered, his eyes are haunted, and a poorly healed scar paints an ugly stripe from his shoulder to his wrist. It's then that you notice the machete in his hand and the pistol tucked into his waistband.
[[You continue to hold still.]]
[[You scream "ENEMY!" at the top of your lungs.]]You decide that it's purely your overactive imagination and continue to the well. You pump the bucket full of water and turn back towards home. There's a man, more of a boy really, standing at the edge of the jungle beside your family's home.
[[You drop the water and turn to run.]]
[[You hold still and wait to see what happens.]]As you walk in the door, your father is there, crouched under the window, thumbing bullets into his rifle. He motions to you to be quiet and come closer. He has seen a group of soldiers in the bush steadily surrounding the village. Together you need to make a decision.
[[Leave the house and surrender at the center of town.]]
[[Abandon your family and disappear into the jungle.]]
[[Grab a knife and prepare to defend your house with your father.]]
The man takes several steps towards you. He asks softly if he may have a drink of water.
[[You slowly offer him a drink.]]
[[You drop the water and turn to run.]]Your shout is drowned out by the explosion of gunfire and war cries coming from the jungle. Suddenly the village is flooded with people - soldiers wielding AK-47 rifles and machetes are everywhere. The bloodshed begins as your friends and family rush out of the homes, frightened by the sounds.
[[You slide away into the forest.]]
[[You run towards home, hoping to warn your family.]]You don't get very far before a voice whispers into your ear. It says, "This way..."
[[You turn to follow.]]
[[You are petrified and run back toward the village.]]The village is chaos. Your friends and neighbours are being pulled from their homes... beaten... shot... raped... tortured... there is madness everywhere.
You are almost there when your mother appears in the doorway of your home. She is clutching your little sister in her arms. She is petrified. And then she sees you. As she reaches for you, the bullets rip through her body from behind.
Her lifeless body falls at your feet and you come eye to eye with her killer. Just before the blackness, you recognize him as a friend from a neighbouring village. He swallows greedily from your bucket; it's obvious he hasn't had a fresh drink in a while. He is grateful and offers his thanks.
[[You try to shoo him out of the village.]]
[[You say, "You're welcome" and hope that he leaves.]]It's not until he whispers, "I'm sorry" that you notice the group of children who have emerged from the jungle behind him. Their clothing is just as tattered, but their eyes are not haunted - they are ablaze. The child closest to you smiles crookedly before raising the AK-47 at his side and pulling the trigger. He studies you carefully, looking you up and down. After what seems like an eternity, it appears he's made a decision. He turns and slinks back into the jungle forest. You breathe a heavy sigh of relief. Perhaps the rumours of militia in the area were just that, rumours. You realize that it's your best friend. The two of you stumble through the dense forest, as you know you will have nightmares about the smell of burning homes and the screams of panic and despair. Suddenly, one voice in particular stands out from the rest. The voice is pleading with a soldier; it's your mother.
You stop dead in your tracks. Your friend looks you in the eye and says, "Don't do it."
[[You take a deep breathe and keep moving.]]
[[Frantic, you turn and race back toward the village and your mother.]]Double-click this passage to edit it.You decide that it probably wasn't your mother screaming. Hopefully you can just wait it out in the jungle and the men will leave. Gunshots ring out sporadically as you hunker down, fighting the feelings of guilt in your stomach. It's getting dark now and you're getting awfully hungry.
You and your friend walk until you reach the next village. It seems quiet, but you don't know if it's safe.
[[You are so hungry, it doesn't matter, and you walk into the village.]]
[[You don't trust the quiet, so you keep walking.]]
You start to panic, fearing for your mother's life. You run to the village and see dozens of soldiers there, armed with AK-47s. "Mother!", you shout, just in time to see soldiers pointing a gun at her head. She's crying. She looks up at you and screams at you to run. One of the soldiers turns and sees you coming out of the jungle. He hesitates, unsure of whether to aim his gun at you or not.
[[Surrender.]]
[[Turn around and run back into the brush.]]The village is empty.
There are no villagers, no soldiers, and no food. You and your friend creep into one of the vacanted homes to try and get some rest.
After tossing and turning most the night, you bolt awake the next morning with your heart pounding and drenched in sweat.
Dark eyes peer at you through the darkness. The low voice says, "You belong to me" before a vise-like grip grabs your arm and yanks you from your makeshift bed.
Today your training as a [[child soldier]] begins. You make camp for the night. There's no food and no water, but you are able to dig a little ditch to sleep in, with some leaves to conceal your hiding spot. You wake up the next morning extremely hungry. You go looking for a village to find some food.
You run into another cluster of troops. One of them hears you. Before you can take cover, they fire in a sweeping arc into the treeline. You feel an instant of pain, then it all goes black. You decide together to surrender, but as you are laying down your weapons and gathering the family, there is the sound of glass breaking, then your house starts to go up in flames around you.
You put your hands above you head and come out, telling the soldiers that you give up and that you'll go quietly. They quickly surround you. You look into the terrified eyes of your family.
A lieutenant dressed in military fatigues and a red hat announces that they need new recruits. You will be fed and taken care of if you join them and contribute to the war effort. If you refuse, they say you will be kicked out of the village.
[[Agree to join the rebels.]]
[[Refuse to join them.]]You quickly hug your father and sneak out the back. You haven't cleared the edge of the homes yet when a soldier appears out of nowhere. You surrender, putting your hands on your head. You are grabbed by the shoulders and marched to join the rest of the village. Your mother is on her knees in the center of town with several other crying women. You don't see your father anywhere.
You call your father's name. He burst out of your house, firing his rifle. The soldier fires back, hitting both of you. All three of you fall to the ground, clutching your injuries. You've been hit in the chest. The bullet has punctured your lung. Breathing gets harder and harder as it all goes black.
You take up a defensive position behind the door, clutching your knife closely. Suddenly, the sounds of gunfire and screaming erupt from the center of town. Your father peeks up through the window and fires several rounds from his rifle. From where you are, you see one of the enemy soldiers take a bullet in the side of his head and fall to the ground. Your father ducks back underneath the window. The soldiers are shouting. They'll be closing in on your position now.
[[Hole up in the house.]]
[[Leave while you still can.]]
You decide to help your father defend the house. He continues firing out the window. You put all your weight up against the door, just as you feel a soldier slam into it from the other side. Your father scrambles to help you hold it shut, while firing his rifle into the door. The pressure from the other side stops. Your ears are ringing, but you still hear shouting outside. There is the sound of glass breaking, then your house starts to go up in flames around you.
You run out of your burning house. Before you can fight back, before you can drop your weapons, before you can even surrender, the soldiers open fire on you and your father. You both fall to the ground, clutching your wounds. Your father stares into your eyes as it all goes black. Scary men with guns seem to have taken over. There are dozens of them. They are going through the houses and lining everyone up in the center of town.
[[Try to get to your neighbour's house.]]
[[Surrender and join the crowd.]]Before you can speak up, another boy who was standing near you declares that he will never be a soldier. The lieutenant hits him several times until he is curled up in a ball on the ground. Next, they ask you what your answer is and you say that you will join. The lieutenant nods and puts an AK-47 in your hands. He holds a handgun against the side of your head and tells you that there is a test you must pass before you can be considered one of them. "You have to kill this boy", he says, pointing to the kid on the ground.
[[Shoot him.]]
[[Refuse.]]
The lieutenant pauses for a moment, then shakes his head and tells you that you are free to go.
You take a few steps away before you hear the lieutenant bark an order to a nearby soldier. There is the roar of an AK-47 and then everything goes black...
You shoot at the young boy. You have never fired a gun before, so bullets go everywhere. When the smoke clears and you get your wits back, you see that he's dead on the ground. You feel sick to your stomach. This will be your life now. The lieutenant smiles and welcomes you.
They take you away from your village and to their hideout in the jungle. You're now a child soldier. Over the next few days, you learn the names of some of the men in the rebel group, as well as some of the children that tend to the camp. You are taken on raid missions to steal supplies from nearby depots and villages.
Slowly, you start to realize that the lieutenant can be a pretty nice man sometimes. He's very loyal to his cause and his troops are very loyal to him. He treats his soldiers like friends of his, and it feels like he would do anything he could to protect them. You are well fed and there is an almost constant adrenaline rush. You feel powerful. One day, the lieutenant comes to you with some brown powder and tells you to inhale it.
[[You do what he says.]]
[[You try to convince him that you don't need it.]]Without any further warning, you are shot in the stomach. The soldiers walk away, leaving you to bleed to death on the ground.You inhale it. It's awful going up your nose. It burns. Suddenly though, you feel absolutely invincible. Your heart rate increases. You feel like you are the greatest soldier that ever lived. "Today, we attack a military outpost", the lieutenant tells you.
The bloodlust is overpowering. You charge into battle, firing with surgical precision at every enemy you see. You aren't even sure why they're enemies. They have weapons and they're pointing at you, so they have to be killed. The sound of every gunshot is music to your ears. You shoot men, women, and children. None of these deaths mean anything anymore.
When you get back to camp, you are hailed as a hero. Your fellow soldiers celebrate your valor in battle. At night, you all sit around the fire and drink deeply. Still, sleeping is the hardest part. Your dreams are haunted.
When the drugs wear off, you start shaking and sweating. The memories come flooding back all at once, acting themselves out in front of you like little terror plays, plays that felt like dreams before, but are all too real now. It felt like somebody else did all that killing, but you will have to live with it. You start to see the faces of the people you've killed. The guilt is overwhelming, and there are only two options left.
You hear that the United Nations have sent peacekeepers to the nearby city. [[Seek out the peacekeepers.]]
[[You decide this is your life now.]]
But you know that won't last long if you want to live. [[You decide this is your life now.]] Bullets smack into the dirt in front of you. You dodge and run for the trees. Your mother's crying is cut short by a gunshot as you disappear into the jungle. The voices of the soldiers echo behind you. "Find him!", you hear them shout. A group of them are hunting you down so that you can't give away their position or warn any other villages.
[[Hide deeper in the jungle.]]
[[Hide, hoping to catch one of the soldiers by surprise.]]
[[Give up and surrender.]]
Double-click this passage to edit it.You can see plumes of smoke overhead, no doubt from where your home used to be. The soldiers are not far behind you. They're faster than you and they're following your tracks.
[[There's no time. Keep moving deeper into the brush.]]
[[Try to cover your tracks.]]
You hide, waiting behind some trees for what feels like hours. Your heart is beating so loudly in your chest that it feels like your hunters will hear it. The soldiers fan out to cover more ground, searching for you with cold military efficiency. One of them is quite far from the rest of the group, and he's coming your way. You make your move and rush out from behind a tree to grab his gun from the side. He pulls back on it, firing wildly into the woods behind you as he tries to yank it free from your hands. You feel his foot drive against your stomach and knock you away, sending you sprawling on your face on the floor of the jungle. Before you can get back to your feet, you hear a single gunshot.You begin your life as a [[child soldier]].You make it to the neighboring village. There is another group of rebel soldiers there, going through exactly the same procedure you saw in your own village.
[[Surrender.]]
[[Go back into the jungle and camp for the night.]]
You cover your tracks. They'll have a harder time finding you now. You'll be needing food and water soon though. Your only option is to proceed to the next village.
You make it to the neighboring village. There is another group of rebel soldiers there, going through exactly the same procedure you saw in your own village.
[[Surrender.]]
[[Go back into the jungle and camp for the night.]]You approach the soldiers and tell them that you surrender. You have nowhere else to go and you are willing to join them if that is what they want. They nod, thrust an AK-47 into your hands, and tell you to execute as many of the prisoners as you can.
[[Execute the prisoners.]]
[[Fire the gun at the soldiers instead.]]
After a miserable night, you're absolutely starving the next morning. By the time you reach the next village. You know something is wrong because you should have heard the sounds of people on your way here. The village is deserted. There is only the lingering scent of battle and ashes in the center of town. You're so hungry.
[[You are so hungry, it doesn't matter, and you walk into the village.]]
[[You don't trust the quiet, so you keep walking.]]
You fire into the crowd of prisoners. As you're firing, you notice other children from the village have been directed to do the same. The prisoners all fall to the ground silently. The smoke clears. You feel sick. You are now one of them. One of the soldiers.
Time passes. Your new friends are the same as ever though. They are smoking cigarettes and watching American action films while waiting for the scouts to get back. You start to see the faces of the people you've killed. The guilt is overwhelming, and there are only two options left.
You hear that the United Nations have sent peacekeepers to the nearby city. [[Seek out the peacekeepers.]]
[[You decide this is your life now.]] You fire wildly at the soldier who gave you the gun. The gun bucks in your hand and you can barely hand on to it. Your bullets go everywhere, but you see several hit him in the chest. He falls, but before you can pick any new targets, you hear a burst of gunfire behind you.They bring you to their hideout, where you see a group of women with blindfolds on. They tell you that if you want to join them, you need to do the dirty work and execute their prisoners for them. They put an AK-47 in your hands and say the choice is yours.
[[Execute the prisoners.]]
[[Fire the gun at the soldiers instead.]]You go into the city and meet with some UN peacekeepers. You tell them your story and they take you in. They tell you that it won't be easy, but they will take care of you and they will give you a better life. You'll spend the next several years going through rehabilitation and deprogramming. You'll miss your family, both your original one and your second one. Your dreams will never quite be the same, but you will emerge from this a better person and you will rise above the things you did in the jungle.You want the constant adrenaline rush and the feeling of power. You look down. Your shirt is stained with blood and your hands are covered in ash and gunpowder. Your old life in the village feels so far away now. You decide to stay with your new family. It feels like you'll be with them for a long, long time...There is no food to be found anywhere... You feel weak and dehydrated. It's time to give up and find some soldiers to join.
You stumble upon a rebel hideout. There is a campsite, a huge pile of weapons and ammunition, and several children your age running around cooking and laboring. One adult soldier sees you. He recognizes that you are a child, but not one of their recruits. Thinking you might be a spy, he immediately grabs his gun and opens fire on you. "Can't be too careful about children these days", you hear him say, as it all goes black.