Over the Wall

Yann wasn't sure why he found himself awake. He could see through his cracked windowpane that it was still greyish-black outside, with the moon just starting to rise and the stars winking out one by one. It was windy and the broken glass rattled and shook in the window of his third-floor dormitory. He lay there sleepily, collecting his thoughts, then suddenly jolted awake — tonight was the night they'd been planning for so long. The night they were going to escape.
Two years ago, his parents had been dragged from their cottage in the village in the middle of the night. As members of the resistance they knew they were in danger and so they had gone over their plan with him many times: if anyone came to the door in the night, he was supposed to hide in the cubby under the stairs to the loft, then, when it was safe to come out, run away to his uncle's goat farm high on the mountain. But when the soldiers began beating his mother he couldn't bear it and dashed out of his hiding place to try and help her. But the soldiers just tied him up, laughing in triumph, and pushed his parents into a cart full of other members of the resistance that had been successfully rounded up that night. The last glimpse he'd had of his parents was his mother staring back at him intensely while she cradled his father's limp body in her arms. Her look seemed to echo what she'd told him many times before, "You stay alive no matter what! We'll find you when this is all over." He didn't know if either of them were still alive or if he'd ever see them again.