Few are able to comprehend what has become their reality.

Hamza, 14, gathers with other children near a massive crater filled with grimy water from a burst water main, exploded in a blast a few days before. His parents sent him to fill a container with water after an airstrike cut off their supply.

He speaks softly, his arm in a sling.

"I was wounded in a strike in the village we fled to," he says simply.

Gunfire rings out on the streets of Sakhour, an Aleppo neighborhood that regime forces hope to retake so they can cut off a main artery for opposition forces and reopen a route to Aleppo's airport. Amid the street fighting, a group of women invite me into a house, venting their frustrations and anger.

"We know freedom has a price, but how long can we keep on living like this?" one woman asks.

Another tells of how her roof caved in from an explosion.

"Each time I hear one, I look up and expect to die."

She and her family moved around three times before they ran out of money.

"At least if there was work, anything, it would be a little easier," she says.

For many children here, gunfire has become background noise. Khawle, 12, sits on the sidewalk, cradling a neighbor's infant daughter. She doesn't move or stop talking as the gunfire intensifies, simply hugging the baby and rocking back and forth.

Others flinch at the sound of each pop and blast of weapons.

Every time Saleh Hadidi leaves his house, his 4-year-old daugher clutches his leg and begs him not to go.

Metal rods protrude from his bandaged arm, a bullet wound he sustained at a government checkpoint that he says was meant for his daughter.

"She was sitting in the front (of the car) when the gunfire started and I put my arm around her," he recalled. "She was drenched in my blood, and the soldiers were screaming, accusing me of being a rebel fighter. They held a gun to my head three, four times and she was screaming, 'Daddy!'"

The girl flinches and clasps her hands, looking away as her father recounts that day.

As we leave a woman whispers to me, "Sometimes I want to die rather than live like this."