1. On 24 February 2022

The dim glow of my laptop screen flickered in the small confines of my dorm room, casting an unsettling ambience that matched the uncertainty hanging in the air. It was one of those nights where time seemed to blur, a sensation magnified by the weight of the words and images flooding in. I sat hunched over my desk, eyes glued to the live stream on YouTube, a digital portal into the heart of a brewing storm.

In the glow of the screen, a heated debate raged amongst the participants in the chat. Tensions were high, and I couldn’t help but get drawn into the intensity of the discourse. The topic: the growing tensions between Russia and Ukraine. The question at hand: would war actually break out? It was surreal to think that the fate of nations rested on the flickering comments of an online audience.

My friends and I had spent hours dissecting the situation, passionately arguing our perspectives. The notion of an actual war felt unfathomable to me, since Russian and Ukrainian people were so intertwined, their histories and cultures inseparable. It seemed impossible that any Russian would point a gun at a Ukrainian. It was just a dispute between siblings, wasn’t it?

“Putin might be a lot of things, but he is not crazy enough to start a war over this,” I remember telling my college mates earlier that day, my voice brimming with misplaced certainty. They looked at me sceptically, unconvinced by my attempts to downplay the gravity of the situation. “I’m telling you, this will blow over.”

Hours slipped by, the stream’s viewership climbing higher and higher. But as the night stretched on, the atmosphere grew more sombre, the arguments in the chat less fervent and more fearful. As the time went by abd the night went darker, I found myself sleeping into sleep, as a sound pierced the air – the shrill ring of my phone. I fumbled for it, blinking against the sudden brightness of the screen. The caller ID displayed my mother’s name, and a knot formed in my stomach. Why was she calling this early?

“Hello?” My voice was a mix of sleep and anxiety.

“It happened.,” her voice trembled, “They have started to bomb on Kyiv.”

She didn’t have to say another word. My heart plummeted, as the weight of my misjudgement crashed over me like a tidal wave. The war I had deemed impossible was now a haunting reality. My fingers trembling as I reached for the mouse and clicked back to the YouTube stream. I sat there, stunned, my mind grappling with the enormity of what had transpired. And now, in the cold light of morning, I was confronted with the horrifying truth that I had been wrong.

The first rays of dawn filtered through my window, casting a pale light on the scattered remnants of the night’s debate. As the world outside stirred to life, I remained still, haunted by the ghosts of my own assumptions. The war had begun, and with it, a reckoning of my own naivety.