At the Syria-Iraq border lay Abu Kamal, a southeastern border city.
The city's ochre buildings complemented the surrounding Gobi and yellow sands, as though it were a city hidden within the desert.
The entire city consisted mainly of single-story homes and low-rise buildings of around three stories. Many places were piled with rubble from collapsed buildings, along with craters left by bombs and artillery shells, and the ever-present small holes in the walls.
The traces of war were everywhere.
As a city on the Syria-Iraq border, Abu Kamal had once become a fiercely contested battlefield, changing hands several times before being retaken by the government forces after it had nearly been reduced to ruins.
But peace was always fleeting. Rebel forces still came from time to time to harass the city, fighting the government troops in a tangled melee.
People from Eagle Country, Russia, Israel, Persia, Saudi Arabia, and the Kurds—special forces, mercenaries, terrorists—every kind of force was fighting over this land.
The people living here had gone from initial panic and fear to anger, then later sorrow, until finally learning to find joy amid hardship.
Since bombs could fall from above at any moment, bullets could pierce their bodies at any moment, and they could be killed in the next second, why not try to be a little happier?
Everyone wanted to leave, but not everyone had the means to do so.
To abandon their homeland and head for some unknown safe zone, they first had to cross vast death zones engulfed in war and pass through one shattered country after another.
Since that was the case, it was better to live alongside their families—and die alongside them when death came.
But Abu Kamal was unusually quiet today.
The government troops stationed here had become even more tense. Large