DAY 951 - OCTOBER 15, 2013
You, Emad and Yara are brought into a white-walled room that is above ground. It is blinding. It is so clear and luminous with the daylight streaming in through the full-sized windows that it is disorienting. It's almost a supernatural experience to see light again after being in darkness for so many months. In the room nearly 20 other people stand around equally as confused as you are. Some of them are prisoners with beards that show lengthy stints of captivity, others are clean cut and just arrived. However, Emad and Yara are the only children in the room. You find it miraculous that you have been given the medicine you needed to save your life and then after that you are reunited with your children in the same day. A soldier this time, not a guard, motions for you to come his way with your children. When you get to the kiosk he gives you a thin stack of paperwork to fill out, basic things like name and age. You are hesitant to answer honestly but as long as you don't mention anything about your husband you don't think they can hold you for anything, not any longer at least. Then again you realize that the Syrian government defiantly seems to break any rule they like and with little to no repercussions. When you hand the paperwork back to the soldier, he tells you that you are going to Jordan. It's not a question. It's a statement. There has been a three-way prisoner swap between Turkey, Jordan, and Syria he says. He tells you that you are lucky enough to play the Jordanian today. Once he stamps your paperwork he tells you to give an adequate goodbye to Syria before you leave. You will never be allowed back, he tells you cooly while waving the next person in line over to the kiosk.