Seraphina
The little girl couldn't have been older than six. She sat on a folding cot near the back of the shelter, clutching a stuffed rabbit with one missing ear. Her mother was speaking with a volunteer nearby. Her father wasn't there. I didn't ask why.
Lately, too many answers to that question ended badly. The child looked up as I passed. For a moment, our eyes met. Then she quickly looked away. Not shy. Afraid. The realization hit me harder than it should have. Because children shouldn't look afraid inside their own territory.
They shouldn't flinch at sudden noises. They shouldn't sleep in emergency shelters. And they certainly shouldn't be carrying everything they owned inside a single backpack. Yet more and more of them were. Because the attacks weren't stopping.
If anything,
