Writing these words, I am not merely a student awaiting a grade; I am a soul desperately clinging to the fraying thread of life amidst an unrelenting storm. I remember those mornings so vividly. They began with the aroma of coffee in our home and my mother’s gentle voice: "Wake up, my little one, your day awaits." I would organize my notebooks with care, arrange the colorful pens that painted my dreams on paper, and carry a backpack filled with nothing but textbooks and a future clearly mapped out. I would walk the streets, breathing normal air, heading to school with a heart full of ambition—no fear, no looking back, and no fear that every goodbye might be the last.

Today, my morning begins with the frantic rhythm of a heart racing in terror—fearing a new displacement, the hunger gnawing at what’s left of us, or the shelling that erases the very details of our existence. My school, once a sanctuary for knowledge, is now a tattered tent sheltering hundreds of displaced people. There are no "exam halls" anymore, only cramped corners where we hide from death to scribble words that mirror the fragility of our reality. I have no books, no luxury of revision. I only have a few worn-out pages, yellowed like our days, their edges torn just like our dreams. As I sit to write, my hand does not tremble from the rigor of the questions, but from the brutality of the scene. Behind every exam paper lies a child searching for safety, a mother scouring for a loaf of bread, and a father wrestling with death to provide us with the bare minimum to survive.

Today, I am not just taking an academic exam; I am taking an exam in "survival." Every time I hold the pen, I think of my father, exhausted from the endless quest for water, and my little brother, who is forgetting the taste of joy. The weight of our daily struggle crushes my dreams underfoot. We are writing with our tears, striving to prove to the world that we are still here, even as they attempt to erase us. I wish, if only for a fleeting moment, for time to turn back—to bring back those ordinary mornings, that backpack heavy with books instead of burdens, and that safe path that does not cross over the rubble of dreams and homes.

I am not asking for the impossible. I am simply asking to live to see a dawn that does not smell of smoke, and to write my future with my pen—not with my blood.