[ CW ] End the story with `` And the home became a house ; an empty shell of what it once was . ''

***Present day, somewhere in the Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo*** 
 
 Their home was made of concrete with a tin roof. It was home to the girl, her parents, her grandmother, and 3 siblings. The outside was painted red, yellow and green, in bright swirling patterns. Her mother had done it when they first moved in, when her older brother was first born, when things were simpler. 
 
 She loved the home, she loved the way the sun came streaming through the cracks in the walls to shine on her as she helped her mother pound grain in the mornings. She loved the sound the tin roof made in the rainy season, a gentle drumroll to ease her to sleep. She loved the way the soft clay floor felt on her bare feet as they pattered around the house. She loved sitting on the front steps watching the world go by as she wove the colorful strings into jewelry to sell at the market. She loved sitting in on her grandmother's lap in the big chair listening to stories of magic and adventure as her grandmother braided her hair into every pattern she could possibly imagine. She loved those evenings when the home was full of drums and singing, full of the sweet smells of good food, full of family and friends, full of love. 
 
 Ten years in the home was the only life she had ever known, it was a home like all the others in her village yet still unique in its own special ways, it was where she felt safe, where smiles happened. 
 She had heard the grown ups talk about things outside her world, about money, about work, about war, about rebels and government, about poverty and crime, about better places, and a better life, but these things meant nothing to the girl. She only knew the home, and the family that made it. She could not imagine a happier, better place. 
 
 It was a cool rainy afternoon when the girl dropped the little basket of beads she was carrying. They rolled out across the clay floor and under the big chair with a muffled scattering noise. She got down on her hands and knees and crawled around into the small space behind the big chair, scraping her elbows on the floor as she reached out to grab the beads which rolled further every time her fingertips struggled to grasp them. 
 
 That's when it happened. Tires screeched to a halt on the dirt road outside. Angry voices, yelling and shouting. She cowered behind the big chair as she heard her father's calm voice tremble with fear. She covered her ears as her mother's scream pierced the humid air. Then mayhem. She had never seen a gun before but she knew what the bullets were when they tore through the home she loved. The rain began to seep though the holes they punched in her tin roof, as if the home itself was weeping with her. The air once filled with joy and warmth now reeked of fear, tears and bullets. She clung to the edge of the big chair, a knot wobbling in her throat as she struggled to understand what was going on. She stayed there paralyzed by fear as strangers ran through her home, tearing out its very life, and with it hers. She stayed as they drove off in a cloud of noise. She stayed as the rain washed away their tracks. She stayed until her tears dried up, until night fell and the rain stopped. 
 
 She awoke to a crumbling building she did not recognize. The corpse of the home she once loved. She staggered to her feet and slowly crept out of the concrete carcass, and the home became a house; an empty shell of what it once was.
