BLACK

My name is Black and I am a mixed breed cat.

I don't know how I ended up where I was. A military trench. Everything around was made of mud and wood, it smelled of dampness, metal and burning. I just hid in it from another shelling. I had been living alone for a long time, but never before had I been so close, literally to the heart of the war.

In the middle of this horror, in this cold trench, I found people. Military men. They were kind to me and I trusted them. One of them once told me: "Don't worry, the time will come and we will transport you to a safe place."

Each new explosion made me freeze, and the silence between them seemed even heavier. The soldiers shared canned food with me and even allowed me to sleep with them. But that didn't make it any easier to go through all of this.

One day, the military kept their word and took me out of that trench. That's how I  ended up in the shelter.

At the shelter, everyone tells me that I'm very calm, but the memory of what I went through still lives in my eyes. And yes, the past left a mark on me, but now I have a chance for a life in which there will always be warmth and love.