Survivor

They call him the Survivor.

There, he has no true name. No one does. The prisoners of war are allocated numbers, and from that point on they have no other identity. The guards call them by number, and for the prisoners, finding out each other's names is not worth the punishment. None of them stand out, or are unique or individual. They all have the same dead eyes, void of hope and life. They are nothing, no one, just numbers.

Except one man. He is different to the rest. He is the Survivor.

At first glance he looks much the same as the others. Skin and bone and scars, dirty, haggard. He has been there longer than most, suffered more abuse, but that is not what makes him stand out.

There is something in his eyes that is missing from everyone else. A twinkle, that so many have been without for so long that they can barely recognise what it is. But it is a spark of life. A spark of hope. And it makes him different.

By all rights, he should be dead by now. He has been inflicted with injuries that no one could survive, and yet he lives. He has been worked so hard for so long that he should have collapsed from exhaustion and never risen again, but somehow he finds the strength to carry on.

And, to have lived through so much, surely he should be one who looks out only for himself. But such is not the case.

The other prisoners do not react when one of their number is being beaten bloody. They watch blankly, emotionlessly, caring only that it is happening to somebody else and not themselves. Some, perhaps, turn away, but no one helps. No one intervenes.

Except one man. He refuses to sit idly by. He gets up from his corner and either fights off the attackers, or draws their attention to himself so that the other prisoner is left alone.

The others cannot believe it. But for the first time in a long time, they feel something. Gratitude. They do not even know his name, and he does not know theirs, yet he puts himself at risk for his fellow prisoners, and asks nothing in return. So they are grateful.

For a long time, they do not know how to express this. But eventually, they begin to understand.

When he is too weak to walk, someone offers a shoulder to lean on. When he is unconscious during meal time, someone saves a little of the slop for him. And when a guard comes close to killing him, they decide no more death.

They fight, and realise that together they are strong. They break out of the prison camp, and they escape, bearing the Survivor with them, though reality suggests that he cannot make it through the night.

And yet he does, because he is the Survivor. In the midst of his pain and suffering, the spark remains.

Finally, someone asks. They do not know how he could possibly have survived for so long, when all the odds were against him. The cold, the appalling conditions, the torture, the work, the lack of food. Any and all should have killed him - claimed his life like so many others.

They ask how it is that he still has a twinkle of life and hope in his eyes.

He looks up slowly, and a smile curves his lips. It is a sight that seems impossible after he has gone through so much. But he smiles, and then pulls something from his boot that he has kept hidden, safe.

It is a photo. Muddied, bloodied, crumpled, but the image is still visible. A beautiful woman, cuddling a little boy.

On the back, there are two, simple words.

"Come home."

And the Survivor did.