Children of War

[DeJaVu]

(23 October 3074)

New Avalon [FSNS]—Charles Danning is thirteen years old, but he looks like a ten year old. Years of hard living and scrounging in Avalon City’s ruins have taken a toll on Charles, whose home was destroyed and his parents killed in the first Blakist invasion.
“It hasn’t been easy,” he said as he sat on the cot in one the resettlement camps put up by the Army, NACC, the Red Cross. “There were times that I ate only a couple of times a week.”
Charles is one of an estimated ten thousand children under the age of fifteen who lost one or both parents during the invasion. Some of the children joined the resistance, doing everything from running messages to actually fighting. Others like Charles (“Please don’t call me Charlie,” he tells me) kept their heads down and did their best to survive.
Charles is a gaunt boy, wearing clean clothes “For the first time in three years – they burned the ones I had on when they found me.” When asked why it took him so long to come in, Charles replied. “I had to make sure it wasn’t a Wobbie trick.”
With the bloody battles between the Blake invaders and the dogged New Avalon defenders, it’s easy to forget that thousands of civilians were caught in the middle. Most managed to flee Avalon City before the fighting became too fierce. But those, who for one reason or another, chose to stay, had to fight a different battle then the one between the two armed forces.
“It was tough,” Charles said. “I had to learn how to sneak around and eat things that I wouldn’t have eaten before for a million pounds.” His eyes get a faraway look. “I saw bad people do bad things. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in two years.” He rolls up his shirt and shows a ugly scar along his rib cage. “A Wobbie shot and nicked me,” Charles said, his voice holding no emotion. “It hurt for six months.”
Charles is lucky. His Aunt and Uncle live on a farm some fifty kilometers north of Avalon City, and they managed to survive. In a couple of days, he’ll be heading for a new life and some sort of normalcy. Asked what he was going to do when he grew up, Charles told me, “I’m going to join the AFFS and kill Wobbies.”

[Maxim de Vion]

There were times that I ate only a couple of times a week.