SAFE ZONE

Hidden in a dark sewer pipe beneath a ruined besieged city, a mother and her eight-year-old daughter are starving. They survive by staying dead silent, terrified of the soldiers patrolling the streets above them.

When a humanitarian aid cargo plane flies over, most of the aid drops far away, but one parcel falls by mistake. It lands on the street, just a few feet from their hiding spot. The hunger is too strong for the little girl to resist. She breaks free from her mother’s grip, crawls through the dirty pipes, and scrambles out into the blinding sunlight. She runs to the broken package and falls to her knees. But she doesn't eat the rice. Instead, she frantically tries to sweep the spilled grains back into the bag to save them. High on a nearby rooftop, a sniper watches her through his scope. He doesn't shoot immediately. He simply waits. He knows the package isn't a lifeline; it is a trap. He is waiting for the mother to run out into the kill zone to save her child.