有來聽～urWriting

Question:

Read the following excerpt from a poem by Walt Whitman.

There was a child who went forth every day,
And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became,
And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,
Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.

Whitman's poem suggests that certain objects become important to us and remain important to us even if we no longer have them.

Write a story in which you tell about an object that remains important to the main character over a period of years. The main character could be you or someone you know.

In your story, describe the main character's first encounter with the object, why the object is so important to the character, and how, over the years, it remains a part of the character's life.

Stories like mine have never been told, but it somehow needs to be known by the world. It has been about eight years since then, yet all of those are still so clear to me as if it were just happened yesterday.
A terrible massacre has happened in the town I lived for an unknown reason. Most of the people were killed, included both of my parents. Three men had broken into the house on my birthday party and shot three clips away on them while I was hidden in the storeroom to survive. With all the way out were either caved in or blocked, it has been impossible for anyone to get in or out.
Hopeless and sad, I wandered on the street for a shelter, and finally found the police precinct before sunset. However, as I walk into the hall, there were only twenty dead bodies of police officers lay on the floor. With blood spilled all over the floor and deep cuts and shot on those bodies, it was like they were all killed by the insurrectionary. When I almost cried of fear, I heard the door behind me flit open. I look back, and found that it was an insignificant-faced man with an axe in his hands! I screamed and began to run, but the man just swiftly walked behind me. A few minutes later, I was chased to a dead end, the man then slowly walk over, and raised his axe with an evil smile emerged. With all the terrible thoughts of death running through my mind, I closed my eyes to wait for death. Then I heard a shot.
One second, two second…I waited, and then I noticed that I was still breathing. I opened my eyes to know that the man was on the floor with a bleeding hole on his head, and a young woman has appeared three yards away. At the time I didn’t think that I was rescued, since the woman still had a gun with her – maybe guns. So I still tried to run away, but yet I was grasped.
“Easy, easy! I’m not going to hurt you! It’s alright now.”
At first I was stunned, and then realized that she is not going to kill me after that man. When she noticed that I had stopped struggling, she spoke again.
“It’s still too dangerous here; they would still back anytime. Let’s get out of here together. I know a path out of this town. By the way, I haven’t caught your name. ”
“Alice.” I answered. On the way I started to measure her with my eyes, she’s about twenty-five or six years old, wearing a red jacket biker suit with two guns hanging beside her thighs, her hair was tighten into a ponytail. We walked through paths between destroyed houses and the forest, no other survivals were found.
“You’re shivering.” She said. And then she took off her jacket and put it on me.
"Here, I want you to have this." She said, "Take it as an amulet."
“Thank you.” I couldn’t find another word for response.
A few minutes later, we stopped in front of a cliff. She lifted the rattan and disclosed the entrance of a tunnel, yet it seemed that there were something happened that it was just wide enough for children like me to pass. She then instructed me to get through it.
“What about you?” I asked.
“I‘ll be fine. Get through the tunnel and you’ll be able to get out of here.”
“But –” I said, but she stopped me. Silence, then she said:”They’re coming! Go now, quickly!”
She covered the tunnel with rattan again, and then I couldn’t hear outside anymore. So the only thing I could do is to move forward. After I was rescued, I have never seen her anymore.
I have been treasured the red jacket until now, to remind me that what I’ve got is not only the terror of the war, but the selfless love I’ve tasted. And I will always remember the name on that jacket – Elle.