By Sisu Sugo (Shish Mmm)
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdqfdC9sT5H
The Elegy of Ruins
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡckngThpMma
Jerusalem—once a crown of civilization. Glass-clad skyscrapers had once kissed the heavens, gardens bloomed on rooftops, and magnetic trams hummed beneath polished streets. Now, the city was a mausoleum of ambition.
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqPBlXqaoLZ
The sky was no longer blue but bruised in shades of ember. Ash choked the wind, and firelight flickered in the craters where homes once stood. A burnt schoolbag lay beside a charred wall; its zipper half-open, revealing a small notebook that read in shaky Arabic:
*"One day I’ll become a doctor. I’ll make sure Abu never feels pain again…”*
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4HmmMF7f5M
Near it sat a little girl—Zainab. She touched the notebook with trembling fingers, as if it might still be warm from a classroom that no longer existed.
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtowINqFPjr
A Parade of Shrouded Ghosts
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNbQ0EVRlPr
In the city's heart stood thousands of children from Gaza. Boys and girls of every age—some barely walking, others already touched by years far beyond their time. Dust-cloaked but upright, they wore white **kafan**—the shroud of the dead—soft and tattered, glowing faintly like moonlight through mist.
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVMROLU2SyV
Their laughter rose not in mockery, but in defiance. They laughed not because they forgot pain, but because pain had forgotten to silence them.
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjKRp2UYdTs
Zainab cradled her younger brother Hamza, his limbs limp, his eyes forever shut. She whispered softly,
*"Just sleep a little more, Hamza. There are no drones today."*
But Hamza no longer breathed. He hadn't for days. Still, she held on—refusing to surrender him to the silence of dust.
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8tZ84n0Stn
The Language of the Divine
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0afqm1neey
A sudden brilliance tore through the smoke-hung sky. Not thunder, not fire—but light.
**Jibreel (Gabriel)** descended—wings wide like galaxies unfolding. His gaze carried mercy... and sorrow. As if to say:
*"Even in the heavens, we weep for you."*
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1XErNTvagk
He walked among them, silent. In every child’s eyes he read stories:
A doll with no arms.
A mother’s scream just before the roof collapsed.
A half-eaten biscuit in a lunchbox never opened.
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb2pVOuj1yT
Beside him walked **Azrael**, the Angel of Death—his form robed in twilight. He was not fearsome, but solemn. The children reached toward him, not to resist, but to return.
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLvY2OnlCPG
One boy asked,
*"Can you bring back my Ummi?"*
Azrael spoke no word, only rested a hand over the boy’s head, filling the void with a warmth that had no earthly name.
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGMn3MRbMWS
Playing with Ashes and Memory
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnoA2Y7gIzg
One girl knelt and drew on the ground with her finger—outlines of a village, a little store, her mother combing her hair.
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ01U7U8ryp9
A boy ran up laughing,
*"It was my birthday today, but no one knows!"*
He wrote his date—**9th June**—on a corner of his shroud, in soot.
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7N8T1jLVf7
And still they played—among skeletons of towers, beside the skeletons of dreams.
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwvWcS919HC
They did not mourn like the living. They remembered.
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfx30M3m5hx
The Final Fire and the Gentle Ascent
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXFgtPoHXju
Suddenly, the earth shuddered as another missile struck. The shock rippled through the ruins—but the children did not flinch.
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMQElTZjFGb
Jibreel raised his hands in silent prayer. His wings unfurled like a veil, casting golden light across the ruins, as though to tuck the city into sacred sleep.
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXRkFEuNUHr
Azrael touched each child on the forehead, one by one. With each touch, they smiled and lifted, slowly—light as dandelion seeds—ascending into the glow, vanishing into the air like incense.
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwwGL4X4Slk
And when the last one had gone, there remained only the fluttering of empty shrouds in the wind. A single burned toy sat among the rubble.
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoFRmTLEc8t
Beside it, scorched into the stone, were these words:
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEViiut3mUE
"They will not play again. But they did not lose."
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRhEOkhTMo7
The End
15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYQZofL51Ig
