Seven years of pain - Written by me
She was nineteen when she signed the papers — all sharp edges and fire in her eyes.
Her name was Lena Reyes, and she’d been in love with Noah Hale, a fellow recruit, since the first month of basic training. He used to call her “sunrise,” because no matter how brutal the day was, she always smiled like she’d already survived it.
They swore they’d stay together no matter what deployment threw at them. And for years, they did — the letters, the video calls, the brief leaves when they’d meet halfway across the world just to breathe the same air. They talked about marriage after service. Kids, maybe. A small house with a lemon tree in the yard.
Then came Mission Seraph, the one nobody talked about. Seven years off-grid. Classified. She volunteered first. “Someone has to,” she said. Noah begged her not to — said the world could save itself. She kissed him once, hard, and said, “If I don’t go, someone else’s sunrise doesn’t come.”
And then she was gone.
Seven years.
Noah stayed in the service, waiting. He stopped celebrating birthdays. He kept a journal filled with letters he’d never send. He memorized her handwriting, her laugh, her scars. Every sunrise was a knife.
Until one morning, the call came. “She’s coming home.”
Noah dropped everything. He drove eight hours to the military hospital. When he saw her, his heart stopped — because she was there, physically. Same hair, same eyes. But empty.
Lena was alive, but not really.
The doctors said her brain was “unresponsive,” the result of trauma and prolonged deprivation. Her body moved, breathed, blinked — but the woman he loved was buried somewhere no one could reach.
Noah visited every day for a year. He read her letters. Played her favorite songs. Told her about the world she’d missed. Sometimes her hand twitched. Once, he swore she smiled. But the nurses said it was a reflex.
The saddest part wasn’t the silence — it was that she kept aging.
He watched her hair start to gray, her face soften, while her mind stayed locked away.
On the seventh anniversary of her return, he brought her a lemon sapling — just like the tree they said they’d plant together. He placed it by her window and whispered, “You made sure everyone else’s sunrise came. I just wish you’d let yours stay.”
She never woke up.
But when she died that winter, the lemon tree bloomed for the first time — in the dead of cold, under gray skies.
Noah never replanted it. He left it there, beside the window where her shadow used to sit, a silent monument to a promise no war could keep.
Her name was Lena Reyes, and she’d been in love with Noah Hale, a fellow recruit, since the first month of basic training. He used to call her “sunrise,” because no matter how brutal the day was, she always smiled like she’d already survived it.
They swore they’d stay together no matter what deployment threw at them. And for years, they did — the letters, the video calls, the brief leaves when they’d meet halfway across the world just to breathe the same air. They talked about marriage after service. Kids, maybe. A small house with a lemon tree in the yard.
Then came Mission Seraph, the one nobody talked about. Seven years off-grid. Classified. She volunteered first. “Someone has to,” she said. Noah begged her not to — said the world could save itself. She kissed him once, hard, and said, “If I don’t go, someone else’s sunrise doesn’t come.”
And then she was gone.
Seven years.
Noah stayed in the service, waiting. He stopped celebrating birthdays. He kept a journal filled with letters he’d never send. He memorized her handwriting, her laugh, her scars. Every sunrise was a knife.
Until one morning, the call came. “She’s coming home.”
Noah dropped everything. He drove eight hours to the military hospital. When he saw her, his heart stopped — because she was there, physically. Same hair, same eyes. But empty.
Lena was alive, but not really.
The doctors said her brain was “unresponsive,” the result of trauma and prolonged deprivation. Her body moved, breathed, blinked — but the woman he loved was buried somewhere no one could reach.
Noah visited every day for a year. He read her letters. Played her favorite songs. Told her about the world she’d missed. Sometimes her hand twitched. Once, he swore she smiled. But the nurses said it was a reflex.
The saddest part wasn’t the silence — it was that she kept aging.
He watched her hair start to gray, her face soften, while her mind stayed locked away.
On the seventh anniversary of her return, he brought her a lemon sapling — just like the tree they said they’d plant together. He placed it by her window and whispered, “You made sure everyone else’s sunrise came. I just wish you’d let yours stay.”
She never woke up.
But when she died that winter, the lemon tree bloomed for the first time — in the dead of cold, under gray skies.
Noah never replanted it. He left it there, beside the window where her shadow used to sit, a silent monument to a promise no war could keep.
