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English Chronicles 2025 26printed 2 · PDF 66
113 pagesrevision 50822
printed 2 · PDF 66
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I tried to speak, but the words caught in my throat. The child didn’t flinch,
didn’t acknowledge me. They were rooted there, like a monument to
something forgotten.
When I stepped closer, the air shifted. A low hum seemed to vibrate through
the ground, faint but unmistakable, like the murmur of voices buried deep
beneath the soil. I knelt down, trying to meet the child’s gaze, and for the first
time, their eyes locked onto mine.
In that instant, it felt as though the entire world fell away.
The child wasn’t just standing there, they were the tether, the connection
between the present and everything that had been buried beneath it. They
weren’t waiting for help. They were waiting for someone to see. To
understand.
And I did.
The land beneath my feet wasn’t just scarred, it was alive with pain, grief, and
memory. Every stone, every shadow, every echo was a testament to all that had
been lost. This was no longer a war zone, no longer a ruin. It was a graveyard
of forgotten stories, and the child was its guardian, silent and unmoving,
waiting for someone to bear witness.
I stood there, the weight of centuries pressing down on me, and I understood
what the whispers had been trying to say. The land hadn’t forgotten its history,
even if we had.
It wasn’t the rubble that haunted this place.
It was the memory.
Muhammad Moeez Imran
C2-G
AC Chronicles
56