Note: The story being presented by me here is of a young amateur war reporter. The story is fictional but based on events in the past and on-going. The narration is in first person. The story is unedited so, please don't mind certain uncorrected grammatical mistakes

I grew up watching movies with a usual backdrop of war and destruction. Right from the age of twelve I was moreover interested in reporting crimes; I worked as freelance for a local newspaper here in Boston. But then I was pulled towards war reporting; now twenty eight I work for Reuters as a war reporter and photographer. One of the most touching moments of life was when I saw  the picture of a young boy being left to die and vulture waiting beside him, waiting for him to die. The picture taken in 1991 represented the grim reality in the famine ravaged Sudan, Africa. The picture won the Pulitzer Prize that year but the photographer Kevin Carter, committed suicide three months later. I was touched, I was eighteen then.

My assignment was to report the on-going civil war in Sri Lanka. The island nation in the Indian Ocean home to rich diversity and culture has been battling from within. The war started in 1983 following the riots in July that year. The war fought mainly between the government and the separatists, LTTE.  The total loss of was estimated to be around 68000 or more dead and several others missing. I was twenty three when this incident took place.

I landed at the country’s only international airport in Colombo from Seattle. The flight was smooth. From then on nothing else was smooth.

The trip lasted only for two days. 48 hours but I felt like 48 years.

Soon after landing Colombo I headed straight off to Jaffna, the center of the whole conflict. I was accompanied by my guide and local translator Kumaratunga. We reached Jaffa late afternoon that day. Just days before my arrival there were reports of gun battle being raged by both parties. Just after reaching the borders of the peninsula, the driver of the vehicle we were in screeched the vehicle to halt and we all had to get down. The driver fled the place soon after we got down. With only a camera hanging from my neck and a writing pad in my hand we set out on a journey of gore and violence which showed us the grim and ugly side of war.

The first picture, I still remember it even today, though taken five years ago was of a young soldier probably as old as I was. His body was ridden with ten bullets all shot from an automatic. His eyes stood motionless staring into a world beyond our reach and understanding. The bullet in his chest was probably the one that took his life. ‘Quite gruesome for a first click on the camera,’ I thought. We moved on foot. The place looked like a jungle in the middle of a town.  The corpses lay on the roads left to decay with time. The stench of the bodies was striking hard on my nose.

It was six hours since my landing and the things were beginning to take shape as we covered inch by inch, slowly and steadily as there was danger lurking from all corners.

Few hours later all of a sudden the firing stopped. It was already seven in the evening. Being a field reporter I was accustomed to short naps in the field itself. But this time I was scared I kept a constant vigil around the surroundings. Since we were covering the story of the soldiers of the Sri Lankan Army, they were all around us.  Two more hours passed and it was nine in the night, the calmness of the entire area was shattered by a sudden explosion. It almost deafened my ears. It was a mortar fired from the other side. Unfortunately it hit a bunker that housed three soldiers. They were in its direct path. They were all dead in a single instant. Their bodies were burnt badly to a point beyond recognition. The rest geared up and then our forward motion started again.

They, the army men were all carrying M16 assault rifle while their counterparts had automatics; both capable of widespread destruction.

The firing started again, I really had no how they were firing in darkness which was pitch black. They were all firing blind. The shouts of pain and cries of agony as the soldiers got hit from bullets flying from different directions. That was horrible. The path of advancement had many obstacles and these men were prepared to take it irrespective of the odds. The courage they had reminded of Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. The only difference was that this was reality and that was reel.

We were advised to take cover under some hard shelter nearby. The mortars were being fired and wherever they hit, that was the target. They were being fired without a target.  We managed to find a probable safe shelter. Just then I heard a thud sound and turned to my right. What I saw bought heart in to my mouth, I saw a young soldier barely in his twenties dead but his eyes still wide open. A bullet just hit him and came out of his neck killing him then and there itself.

It took me minutes before I could regain my numb senses. I was still looking at him lying dead and unattended. I just couldn’t take my eyes off him, it was quite painful.

The day ended and I witnessed one of the worst scenes of gore and bloodshed.

Day two, the final day of my stay; the advancement of the troops was painstakingly slow. The resistance being offered was more than expected. The death toll was mounting on both sides. It took us three kilometers of walk to reach the nearby field hospital. The lead doctor welcomed to yet another place filled with the injured, he dead and the abandoned.

The beds were filled with injured soldiers; they were a number of civilian casualties as well. People who got caught in the cross fire had no place to run except to succumb to the bullets. The moved around the hospital made from tents. The sound of bullets being fired and mortars hitting the wet soil was too much to handle.

I was touched by the plight of a young locale, hardly in his teens. His head was ripped in to half and split wide open exposing the interiors of his brain and others. He was fighting a losing battle I was told. There was nothing that could be done. His mother I was told was shot dead by the rebels as she tried to flee, and unfortunately another bullet hit him in the wrong area of the head. I moved forward towards his bed and placed his hand in mine. Unknowing to me a tear rolled out of my eyes down to cheek. All this happened involuntarily. The war started to take a toll on me.

The troops advanced and so did we along with them. The battle was becoming fierce; by noon we were entering the town centre from there on it will only a matter of hours before the government troops could retake the city. But this was the most difficult and toughest part of the entire battle and also the most deadliest.

With the city limits snatched from them; the rebels started to fight guerilla warfare, back stabbing war fare. The snipers were placed at strategic positions well concealed. They were clever enough to use suppressors so as to minimize the sound.  The troops were being taken down like bowling pins. We had to move with our backs behind the walls and our heads hidden from the enemy’s sight.

All the while I kept clicking my camera on whichever I found catchy. But all of a sudden I decided to click for the last time on that land.

We were being covered by two soldiers, one on the front and the other on the rear. We had to move to a nearby building which was around hundred meters from us. We had no cover until we reached our destination. We had to move and move faster. We were being escorted by the soldiers guarding us, what we skipped was another building to our left. As soon as were out in the open, our hidden was broken and we were directly in the line of fire.

But we kept moving with the soldiers trying their very best to save our souls rather than theirs; almost instantaneously I somehow felt the grip of the soldier’s hand on loosening quite fast. I turned a bit and was shocked to see a bullet ridden in the middle of his forehead. Blood was oozing out of his head and he was dead before he could groan in pain, his body landing with a thud and his arms in free in air. He was staring and staring in to the world of the dead. All I could do was watch motionless. His’ was the picture I last clicked.

Soon after we were told to leave the town; I took the next immediate flight back to Seattle. Ten hours after that incident I was back home in Boston.

I couldn’t withstand such horrific violence and bloodshed. Fighting in the name ethnic partiality was costing a nation of rich diversity and culture too much. There must be an end to this before an apocalypse.

-       Nick Williams

for Reuters

Nick is now special correspondent for Reuters on diplomatic relations.

The war still wages and the death toll is still building up its pinnacle. The ravaged land continues to be ravaged.