I am Naomi Hanako, survivor of the WWII Hiroshima atomic bomb. My name means flower girl in Japanese. I was 3 years old back then. My parents are bomb survivors as well.

I was eating my dinner when the bomb came down. I recall it was rice with grilled salmon, with my mom’s homemade chicken and pasta soup. There was a sound of gunshots a few blocks away. It had become a daily thing for us, but this time there was a whirring sound above us, like the sound of a laundromat the size of a football field. My parents dropped their chopsticks with a clatter and rushed to the windows. Something didn’t feel right. All of a sudden, there was a siren outside. A man, standing there with a bright red loudspeaker.

“RUN! They will drop the new bomb!” The man cried, fighting to keep the panic and fear out of his voice. His voice interrupted by static. He repeated the message, flinching at every noise the bombers were making. There were loud morse code messages going off everywhere as well. Beep. Beep. Beeeeeeeep. Beep. Beep. Beeeeeeeep. It was the feared atomic bomb. My mother picked up our emergency needs bag that the nation required us to have on hand. Her hands were trembling. My dad paced at the doorway, sighing every time he turned around in the other direction. As we scrambled out the door, something large was falling from the swarm of planes above us. I tried not to look. My heart was pounding out of my chest. As we ran farther, farther, and farther, the bomb crashed into the ground. There was a ear-splitting bang, and the supersonic air pushed me cruelly down to the ground. It felt like a whole brick wall falling on top of me. I slid against the hard concrete floor. My knee and hands screamed in agony. My father grabbed me, held me in his arms, and ran at full tilt. I wheezed, peering over his shoulder. My throat was scraped with sharp dust flying up from the ground. A wall of smoke and fire, glowing against the diminishing light of the sun, advanced along the deserted path. There were hands reaching out from the mountain. The bomb house. Running toward us, brave police officers crammed us inside a bomb house, created with pure metal, dug under ground beneath a mountain. A wave of heat rushed inside just as the officers slammed the door closed.

The house radiated with bangs and screeches from outside. I wasn’t sure if it would hold. The whole house rumbled and banged like a plane in severe turbulence. The metal screeched and rattled. There was silence, and then there was a huge sound, as the wall of fire engulfed the house. I almost burned my hands on the super heated walls. I whined. My mother pulled me close, tenderly wiping my knee and hand wounds with a white handkerchief. It stung fiercely, but I was too tired to complain. I cuddled closer to her chest. I could hear her heart pounding fiercely in her chest. Thu-Thump, Thu-Thump, Thu-Thump. Exhausted, I crashed into darkness.

After what seemed like eons, the officer opened a small compartment. It revealed a tiny, murky, window. He looked outside. We all turned our heads in unison. The city around us was leveled. Chunks of shattered windows, pieces of pots and pans, No sign that humans had ever lived there.Yet, we had survived. The police, handing out crumpled gas masks to everyone, finally released us outside. We stumbled out. It was hot like a oven. The air was dusty, and my eyes stung. The whole landscape looked yellow-brownish. My parents, tears running down their dusty faces, collapsed to their knees in front of our house. Well, what used to be our house. The stone foundation and a few chunks of metal and ceramics were all that remained. “At least we have each other,” My mother sniffled. Then, there was a fluttering noise above us. I tensed, thinking it was a bomber plane. I nervously peeked up. It was a bird. A small, white dove, clutching a charred branch, flitted soberly above, and softly landed in front of us. It looked straight and square at me, and dropped the branch at my feet.

I cried, holding the soft dove in my arms.