100-Word Fiction: ‘A Crossing (2)’

The street is empty. There is no petrol for cars anyway. Across the street my brother waits, his head peeking round a doorway, ushering come, come. I see the whites of his eyes but can’t tell whether he is pleased to see me, or scared, petrified. The rule is that if you leave and return you don’t expect everything to have remained the same. You never know what you will find. My brother frantically signals above. There are snipers on the roofs but we don’t know whose they are. I look left and right and step out into the road.