There was a blast in the distance. For any of us, it would have burst our eardrums, but for Zakhir Shah, it was just another of the hundreds that day.

Partition everyone knew, would be the cause of many wars between India and Pakistan. Everybody knew that these two nations would never live in peace. If one had to survive, the other would have to be destroyed, and here was one of the many wars to come, the war of 1965.

Zakhir knew the pains of partition. He got separated form his mother and his brother, who went to Pakistan. He was left with his father in India, a father who was a little better than a beast when drunk and a little worse than a man when sober. He was one of the reasons that Zakhir joined the Army. And here he was, in the middle of a war, fighting for a country he never really loved and fighting against a country that he never really hated.

Zakhir had to go around behind them. The grenade had come from no more than 10 meters away. Zakhir got up and slowly made his way to a bigger boulder towards the left, expecting them to fire at him.

Nothing happened.

From there, Zakhir could make out two heads towards his right. Getting down on his belly, he tried to crawl to the bushes behind them. The gunfire in the background muffled out any sound that he was making. He finally reached it. He was right behind them. As he leveled his gun at them, he hesitated. He wouldn't shoot them in the back like a coward. But then he quickly persuaded himself. He had to do this to survive.

Two shots, is all it took. Both of them fell face first into the ground. Zakhir quickly went over to their bodies to get ammunition as he was on his last clip. He found only two clips on their bodies.

As he started to walk away, he stopped. He was really hungry. He decided to have one last look at them to see if they had any food on them. He got over to one of the bodies and turned it around. Suddenly a shot of pain ripped through his heart. He was staring into the face of Javed, his own brother.