In The Exploding Silence

This short story was published in my book, Kharkiv, a War City, and received the first prize of Dream Foundry fantastic fiction contest in 2024.

1

One day in the second year of war, I woke up to silence. The earth beneath my newly constructed five-story did not vibrate with the movement of heavy military machines. As I opened the window, gray morning leaked in, smelling of fireworks and hope. I ran to the balcony and observed the fringes of the city - the burnt forest, a pair of ruined high rises, and a bombed menora of the WW2 Jewish memorial. Quiet and serene. The war is over, I thought.