Tag: Short Story

Short Story: Thousands and Thousands of Steps

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

The skies were dark gray, an ominous sign of an evil foreboding. When we reached the peak of the mountain, we had no idea what we would find. We merely followed the path from the village below that wound up and around the mountain. It was me– the museum curator–, Janice and Cameron. The latter two, an archaeologist and her intern respectively, were the most curious of those to climb the mountain. Even the villagers below had said so, though admittedly I only heard it through their interpreter.

I was there to ensure the museum’s investment was not in vain, nor squandered. I’d have been more scrupulous were it not for Janice’s own tendency to live on bread and water. It must have been the result of living a graduate-student’s life because Cameron took on a similar quality. This extended even to our private meeting at a high-end restaurant. We met to discuss the expedition, lunched at my expense, and either through courtesy or mere habit they each chose the cheapest meals on the menu. While Fine Divine’s chicken is always of the highest caliber, I must admit that if given the chance, I would not hesitate to gorge myself on their most expensive dishes. Even so, the Doctor and her student chose the meal of the fiscally meek.

This not to say that either of my comrades was without taste. To the contrary in fact. On our first evening in the village, the night before we were to begin our expedition, Cameron produced a bottle of twelve-year scotch that had come from one of the last distilleries in Scotland to bottle that particular brew. The three of us drank well that night, in good spirits despite the bitter cold that no bonfire could have properly fought.

When we awoke in the morning, it was without hang-overs, but that sky made us wish we had them. Mother Nature herself, it felt, had gifted us with an innate ability to overcome the liquor’s effects, ensure we would brave what was encamped for us above. I don’t believe we left the village with a single problem either, thereby cementing my feelings of some preternatural involvement in our later misfortune.

We were loaded to the gills with provisions, supplies, and oxygen. Although we were told the latter of these was unnecessary, we needed to be sure. We had one tent that would come in handy as we ascended the thousands of steps to the summit that required a night’s rest in-between. The mountain itself, you see, is unscalable by even the most experienced climbers. I could not tell you why even if I were one myself. I can only say what I have heard of the mountain; no one that has attempted to freely climb it by any way other than those thousands of steps has been killed or lost entirely.

To say that the place is not without its own lore or mythology would be gravely unfair. Indeed, it was this very lore that led Janice to petition the museum for expeditionary funds. Like many others, she believed that atop those thousands of steps was a lost city. In the very least, she knew that if we found nothing, we could put the rumors to rest in the academic community. Otherwise, she would return with what she could as compensation for the Museum. Afterward, it would be decided if we would pursue the matter further, or if she would be left to study the collected artifacts alone.

Looking back, I wish we had found nothing. At least then we could have returned home without the scrutiny that was later upon us. More importantly, had we kept our mouths shut, we would not have roused the suspicions of so many.

I can’t tell you what we found up there. Not really. I can only recount what happened:

It was the morning of the second day. We had made expected progress in the first day, were already half-way up the mountains steps when the first bit of misfortune struck. It was small, as if the single drop of rain before the downpour of a cataclysmic storm. We were walking up the three-thousand thirtieth step when Janice slipped. She’d been monitoring our progress and altitude on a GPS device. When she fell, the device was thrown. It disappeared over the edge of the cliff as Cameron and I lunged to keep Janice from the steps’ fatal twists and turns.

What seemed a small bit of misfortune only multiplied as time continued. First it was electronic devices; the GPS tracker, my digital compass, Cameron’s digital camera. One-by-one, as if the mountain rued their appearances, they were dropped, shattered, or tossed over the cliff’s edge. What soon seemed limited to the technological quickly escalated to the critical.

I can’t say how exactly, but I can tell you that by the four thousandth step we’d lost all of the aforementioned with the worst yet to come. It was at the four thousand fifth step that we began to hear a prolonged, angry hissing. At the altitude, we knew there was no possible way an animal could make the noise. Two steps later, Cameron began to scream. He tore his pack off his pack as if possessed,e whipped back and forth, Janice and I frozen in shock and terror. With a single, involuntary motion, he hurled the pack away from him, fell to the stairs writhing with screams.

We could only lament the loss of a third of our supplies and provisions for a moment as Cameron writhed. Somehow– and I’ve no idea how she spotted it– Janice saw something at a glance. In a moment she was atop Cameron, her knees in the small of his back as he fought against her weight. He twisted and shrieked beneath her while slow rumble began around us. She revealed his injury; a rapidly spreading frostbite from a punctured oxygen valve on the tank that in his pack.

The only solace I can take in what happened next is that Cameron was dead already. At that altitude, and with the windchill already well-below zero, he’d have frozen to death no matter what happened.

The rumble increased. My timely reaction allowed me to tackle Janice sideways, pull her from the path of a boulder that landed atop Cameron. The impact dislodged a few of the thousands of steps, the whole mass tumbled the countless meters toward the ground, the poor intern crushed beneath it.

I comforted Janice as best I could, but Cameron’s fate was both a freak accident and largely his own doing. Even then I knew his screams had caused an avalanche and rock-slide. He’d inadvertently killed himself from the freak injury without need of the Mountain’s seemingly malicious spirit. While you couldn’t blame the man for it, I still found it difficult to deny the truth.

For a long while we sat, huddled beside the newly opened chasm. We contemplated our options: our losses made the trek seem of no further value– nothing could quite make-up for Cameron’s death, no matter what we may or might not find. Even still, we concluded that we must press on, if only because the path down seemed too perilous now that a piece of it was missing. We continued upward, steadfast in keeping our minds from Cameron’s untimely death.

It was almost nightfall when we crossed the six thousandth step. The air was supremely thin, but we feared our oxygen canisters. They were like little cylinders of death at our backs. Each step we’d taken had been careful, laid out so as not to disturb our packs too much lest we suffer the same fate.

That was when we saw it; the summit. I had to keep Janice from sprinting toward it, my arm wrapped ’round hers to ensure her wits were not stolen from her. To her credit, my presence grounded her. After a look of gratitude, she breathed relief. We ascended the last steps arm in arm. Even at night the summit’s snow glistened with an unmatched brilliance and unnatural beauty. The last step led to the edge of a wide, open expanse.

We only saw that openness for a few seconds. What came next… as I said, I can’t tell you what we found, only what happened– no matter how wondrous or unbelievable it may seem.

The clearing suddenly dissolved into a bright, golden light. Distant structures appeared with leaved trim as if carved in stone. A whole city seemed laid out before us in a stair-stepping architecture with its lowest edge a walled precipice. The wall there seemed to looked down from an unearthly height, as though we’d left the planet altogether. Meanwhile, a pyramidal temple at the horizon’s apex reached even further into the clouds. Small figures came and went in the distance, paying no notice to the dots on their horizon.

This was undoubtedly an ancient city of stone, but formed in a strange, golden light that infected our bodies– our souls even– with warmth and comfort. How long we stood transfixed, I’m not sure. It may have been mere moments or hours even. Eventually we felt information flood our minds– something Janice and I later corroborated. It was as if all the Universe’s secrets were revealed to us at once, but due to our mind’s primitive nature, we couldn’t comprehend any of it.

When we felt that perhaps we might access some, a whisper on the wind– with as much indifference– spoke to us with an indistinct voice, “You do not belong here.”

The light flared so brightly around us we were blinded. Then to our relief and bemusement, we were suddenly at the bottom of the mountain, transported there by some unseen force. What was more, Cameron was beside us, unharmed and as confused as we. He later recounted that he remembered dying, saw the boulder falling before he felt it crush his bones beneath it. The next thing he knew, he was beside us at the base of the mountain.

To put it all into words makes it feel more surreal than it was even then, but I know it happened. There is no proof but my word of course, but then perhaps that is all that is needed. The mountain saw to that on our way up, and whomever occupies the summit seems to have sated our curiosity somehow. We’ve no desire to return to the mountain’s summit, not a one of us. It seems there’s not enough money in the world to change our minds either. We’re content in what happened, the fruits of our labors.

Some have theorized that’s the real secret of the summit: that whomever resides there can control the mind with thoughts alone. I’m not certain of that. All I know is what I experienced and how I feel now. It did happen, I know that– as do Janice and Cameron. I also know that we climbed thousands and thousands of steps along a path that has no rightly reason to exist, only to emerge once more at the bottom as if we’d never taken the first step.

Perhaps that is the real moral of whatever the mountain seeks to teach; no matter how many steps we take, we never truly progress. Then again, perhaps that is just the rambling of a half-insane man. I’ve no doubt there will be subscribers to either theory, but even so, I’ve grown tired of telling the tale time and again and so have simplified it to its purest form: I took thousands and thousands of steps, but never moved an inch. That simplicity, I feel, is best befitting of the mountain’s moral.

Bonus Story: Stronger Without Them

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

Cold wind whipped snow and ice in drifts across a plain of white mounds and frozen boot-prints. The mounds were the size of a man tall, five or six men wide, and spotted the horizon for countless miles. The man was clad in furred leathers, well-insulated from the cold with only thick, wild hair and beard to shield his face. He planted each step with a stone’s determination. It made his resolve immovable. His head was kept upward, eyes small, squinted against the snow that pelted and plastered his face and furs, coated him with a fine layer.

His people had a legend, one that made the trek all the more unavoidable: if a man were to seek to rectify the past, he must first risk his future, his life, in the mounded flats. Only once he made it through, could he hope to seek out recompense for the slaughter of his wife and children. He made the journey alone, as a man should, was certain he would die before he found refuge in the Gods’ embrace. He refused to listen to reason from those in his tribe; the invaders, they said, were the ones to blame.

But he blamed the Gods. For millennia, their tribe had lived the way of the righteous, their gratitude and sacrifices never late nor without due praise or ritual. They had given to the Gods all that had been requested, earned nothing but their contempt in the process. He’d had enough. He was man, and no God– gracious or not– would keep him from seeking his bounty. The righteousness that compelled him forward was just as it had always been; with conviction of spirit, character.

The Gods had let the invaders come. In any case, had not prevented it. In the harsh of Winter, when their ardor was already dampened, his tribe had been half-slaughtered by the invaders clad in their fierce battle armor. With sword and musket alike, they pillaged, plundered, raped and conquered all they’d seen. It was only after their leader, in his bear skins and helm, was killed that the tribe had finally withdrawn.

The snows of the village were stained crimson like the hands of the Gods that had neither prevented nor appeared during the massacre to stop it. The seasonal perma-frost had been breached by the pyres of a dozen men, their women and children. What few did not die by the sword wished they had. Only the fear of reprisal in the after-life kept them from turning their weapons upon themselves. The echoes of men and their families wrenched billowed cries for absolution through the blizzard that came after the battle.

But he would no longer stand for it. They had done all the Gods had asked of them, more even, in the promise that the Gods would watch after them, protect them. They had failed. He would not. Once he found them, he would paint the hallowed grounds of their hidden refuge with their blood. He would bury his sword in their bellies for every life lost and given in vain. Then, satisfied with the carnage, he would turn the sword on himself to die alone, the Gods vanquished and his work done.

He had fought the cold and the snows for five days to cross the flats. Like others of his tribe, he’d taken to resting only to conserve his strength, eat stored morsels and drink from a water-skin. He was no fool, knew not to take the journey lightly. If he did, there would be no one left to avenge the fallen, seek retribution for the sacrificed.

By the sixth day, he stood before a clearing in the mounds where the storm that raged seemed not to exist. In that emptiness, the ground was stone, clear of snow. The mounds around its perimeter formed a wide circle open before him. A furious huff of hot breath blasted from above his white-covered beard, fogged the air with the fire of his heart and ready wrath. His last steps were even firmer than the thousands that had brought him here.

He stopped in the center of the clearing, in his tribal tongue, demanded an audience with his Gods. It was answered with an intense, blue glow of light that deposited three, elongated figures with bulbous heads and black-eyes before him.

“You seek an audience, primitive?” The center God asked.

He spat at their feet, then in his tribal tongue, barked, “You have forsaken us! Broken the bonds that bound us to your servitude. Your treachery must be answered for!”

“You speak of the battle passed,” the left-most God said.

“Yet there is little that can be done for the dead,” the right God said.

“No!” He shouted in defiance. “There is one thing that can repay us for their loss.”

“Blood.” The three chimed in unison.

“Your blood!”

He drew a thick blade from his side with a sound of metal that rang through the open air.

“You mean to stand against your Gods?” The middle God asked.

“I mean to seek vengeance for all the blood spilled in your name, both in sacrifice and in the battles past– those you failed to protect, as was your promise to our people.”

The three Gods fell silent, as if to speak mentally. Then the middle one spoke with a bargaining air about him, “We cannot resurrect the dead. What is is what what must be. But we can offer something for the sacrifice your people have given this winter, both from the battle and when we did not think to aid you.”

He was unconvinced, his mind unchanged. He demanded they speak, “And what is that?”

“Bountiful harvests,” the middle God said.

“Warmth and fertility,” the left God added.

“And strength and protection in the battles to come,” the right God finished.

He growled from his throat. In a quick charge, he launched himself at the middle God, kicked him backward to rebound at the gut of the left God. The blade slice deep at its belly to ooze green. The curiously-colored blood did not faze him– blood was blood and it was to be spilled. With an outward spin, he moved for the God at the right, buried the blade in its belly as he’d planned. More green spilled out, leaked from the God’s mouth. He twisted the blade, heard the crunch of soft bones, then pulled it back. The second God fell dead.

His blade dripped a trail toward the God that still lay dazed on the stone ground. He dropped a heavy knee to its chest as it eeked out a few, last words.

“We would have… given you anything, made you the most powerful tribe,” it said, barely drawing breath.

“Your cowardice and bargaining only weaken us.” He grit his teeth, “We will be stronger without you.”

Then, the blade plunged into the belly of black-eyed God. The bulbous head gave a shudder with a last, rattling breath. Its eyes shut. The smallest bit of green oozed from the God’s mouth as the tribal rose to his feet, readied to bury the sword in his own gut and finally end things. Instead, something compelled him to look at the carnage around him, his three Gods slain about it. His own words resonated deeper than he’d first realized.

He lifted the blade to examine it, “No.” He sheathed it, spat at them once more, “Enough has been lost to you. I will lead my people now. Protect them as you should have. I will show them they are strong– stronger even without you. Then no man, woman, nor child will ever think to play servant to your kind again.”

With a steadfast resolve, he turned away from the green-stained ground, and left the mysterious clearing to show his people the way.

Short Story: A Hero

~ S.M. Nolan ~ 2 Comments

If he knew nothing else in the whole world, at least he knew that today was a fine day to die. Alexander Ortiz was hardly the picture of genius or perfection, but even he knew of the nobility of self-sacrifice. As a matter of fact, that was the only thing that had compelled him forward, into the fire.

He’d kicked in a couple doors with year-old sneakers, was pretty sure at least a couple toes were broken. It hadn’t mattered then, and mattered even less now, half a decade later. He’d rushed through the small, two-bedroom apartment, heard the young girl’s frantic whimpers from a side bedroom. He made it to her with a vault over a couch, used the momentum to land, spring through an open doorway behind it.

She wasn’t more than twelve at the time her mother and father had been fighting out in the hallway of the apartment building. She’d moused out to see the commotion when her father barked something lewd at her. Her mother huffed as she skittered back inside. Alex made it to his front-door, sensed from the sound of the distant, unaided slam that she’d bolted back inside and into hiding.

In a way, he had always sympathized with her. Alex’s own parents had been the same, short-sighted type to marry out of lust. When that fiery passion flickered, it found new breath in the exhalation of rage and fury. Even so, it wasn’t what compelled him to scoop her up in his arms that day. That feat was achieved from adrenaline and what was right alone. She didn’t deserve to die, least of all so tragically.

She was a whimpering, sobbing mess of terror and smoke-induced hacking coughs when he carried her from the building. The firetrucks had just rolled up, but even he was certain it would have been too late for her by then. He dropped the tailgate of a truck, helped her to sit on it as she gasped for air through smoke-tarred lungs and tearful mucus.

Alex didn’t leave her side the whole time the fire truck fought the blaze and the paramedics ran their tests. He wasn’t sure she’d have let him had he tried: She was clearly terrified of everything– probably her own shadow too. Having her own personal hero beside her was the only way she contended with the IVs and oxygen mask that day.

Alex never felt like a hero, but that’s the funny thing about heroes; the real ones never feel that way. Even now, as he lay dying in the street from yet another “heroic” act, he didn’t feel like one. He’d once more done what was right, protected that young girl who’d now aged enough to be considered a teenager.

Alex had watched Amy blossom from a slim, pretty blonde girl to a full-grown young woman. Presently, her face hovered just above his, her blonde hair framing an angelic face of subtle angles and still-forming curves. She was still too shocked to cry, but her brown eyes glistened with water all the same. Her mouth moved in that same, almost caricatured way it did when she sang choral warm-ups.

Amy’s mouth had always opened a hair larger than normal, as if it needed the extra room to echo the depths within. It was an instantly endearing quality. Most of the younger girls would’ve called her a big mouth, but never had time for the timid loner that she turned out to be. Or at least, as she had been when Alex had first, formally met her and her mother.

It was a banquet-style dinner, with a ceremony from the mayor’s office to award Alex’s heroism. He figured most people would have been humbled, felt as if nobility, but the experience was too surreal for him. He merely ate dinner with the young girl and her mother, Sara, the location just a little more lavish than the burnt-out husk of their apartments, or the identical dingy hotel rooms they’d been assigned by the insurance company.

Alex took the stage with Amy and Sara in tow, was given the opportunity to say something. He began with a thank you, then cleared his throat to attempt formality. He deepened his voice for the podium microphone, managed a few words, “I-uh… was just in the right time and place, and did what I expect anyone would do.”

That was it. That was his speech. He ended with another thank you, re-took his seat to enjoy the dessert course with the two ladies that had accompanied him, and shook hands with a few civic leaders afterward.

Two things came of that day, tangentially related but equally as pointless as he lay in the hot street with pain in his guts and fading vision. The first was a series of job offers from every, local tech company in the region. The comp-sci grad suspected most of the companies just wanted “the Hero” on their payroll, regardless of his skill. It seemed all the more apt after the offers doubled from an interview released by the Associated Press that detailed most of his life’s story, and therefore his qualifications.

He eventually took a job in the metro-area to stay close to Amy and her mother. Despite the obvious age-gap, and what on-lookers would call perversion at a glance, the two grew to become close friends. Sara allowed it, if only for that fact that it seemed to keep her ex-husband, Grant, away. The custody battle that took place nearly immediately following the fire was tumultuous at best. Were it not for Alex, Sara eventually asserted, Amy would have likely gone through worse than she already had.

As it was, Amy rode out the next couple of years with ease. Thanks to the aid of her hero, and her mother’s growing attraction to him. It seemed inevitable the two would be forever inseparable. Apart from his obvious affection for Sara, Alex agreed with the assessment. He’d have liked nothing more than to protect Amy, watch her grow old, independent, confident. As it was, all good things had to end, Alex’s life included.

In his final moments, he was never quite sure what had happened save that his last act was surely of selflessness. In truth, Sara’s ex had never worked through the divorce’s effects. Where Grant’s ex-wife and daughter were moving on, living their lives, he wallowed in self-pity and the bottom of the every bottle on-hand. He’d attempted to force himself into their lives time and again, was finally stopped for good by a pair of restraining orders. The court kept his drunken abuse out of Amy and Sara’s lives, but steeped his rage in the frothing pity-party.

It was almost without warning that he’d appeared in front of the trio’s new home, ready to ruin their lives once more. Sara was already at the front-door of the house when Grant pulled up, stumbled drunkenly from the door of his junker. He raged and shouted, compelled Sara in to call the police while Alex hoped to defuse the situation. Amy followed, as much unwilling to leave her hero alone as she was to be without him.

Grant’s slurred anger manifested in a one-sided screaming match before it climaxed. Amy, in her way, quipped back with her learned, quick wits. It only further infuriated her would-be father. Alex’s even-toned request that Amy go inside sparked that spewing temper that raged within Grant. In a swift motion, he pulled a thirty-eight on his daughter.

A shot rang out through the day-light. The next moments were a series of flashes before Amy found herself hovering over Alex as he lay on the ground. Blood soaked her hands, hot beneath the pressure she instinctively applied to his gut. In the background, sirens screamed toward them over the sprint-stumble of her father’s drunken fleeing.

Alex managed a few, confused words before his head fell back against the pavement, the life drained from his eyes. In his final breath, he’d managed to piece together what had happened, but all the same, the breath left his lungs and the life left his eyes.

The eulogy given by the young woman was short, punctuated by the constant stream of silent tears that made their way down her face. “He always said he wasn’t a hero, that he had never been one. But he saved my life twice, and… and gave me a reason to live in between… everyday. He showed me love I’d been denied, simply because he knew what it felt like. Alex wasn’t a hero because he saved my life. He was a hero because he lived the way hero’s do; by being what they want to see in the world. By making it as it should be, and not accepting how it is. He was my hero most of all, but in a small way, he was a hero to all of us. He made the world that much more special, and safe, and loving than it was.”

Beneath the dates of birth and death, two lines are etched forever into stone, “Alexander Ortiz, A Hero.”

Short Story: Little Warrior

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

She was seven, maybe eight years old. Too young. Way too fucking young. The AK in her hands probably weighed as much as her. It had a foldable metal stock locked in place at its rear, tac-light on a forward rail, and a red-dot sight atop it. Even for the era the gear was ancient– Ex-soviet surplus rounds and mags stamped with Red Army designations in Cyrillic script. You could tell they’d had her clothes fitted, the tac-vest and camo-suit were just baggy enough to breathe but small enough to fit her.

She stood in the middle of the desert, rifle poised at-ease, curled hair blowing in the wind. She had eyes that didn’t fit her lineage; almost azure blue. There was something European in them– Scandinavian shape, maybe German corners. Her bushy mane almost said Latin, but her skin was white, bronzed from the Middle Eastern sun. In a way, I think she was all of those things.

I was on recon with the Airborne division of the Special Forces Command out of Fort Bragg, AKA the Green Berets. We’d been in country about six weeks, hadn’t seen any action. It wasn’t for lack of it, we were just that good. We’d migrated through about half the region without so much as a boot-print left behind, our paint and powder dry the whole time. We saw maybe one oasis in those six weeks. It’s just lucky we’d learned to sneak in and out of the villages without being tagged. Water’s gold out here, and the well-tender’s God. Well I guess even God’s gotta’ take a leak sometimes.

Our mission was straight forward; HQ wanted us on point to map and recon anything along the campaign trail. Then, we’d proceed to the rendezvous, pull out while the cavalry stormed the gates. The A-P and Bomber drones were meant to hit first; bombers would clear the way of any heavy artillery, give the anti-personnel regiment a fighting chance. They’d pull back to a carrier in the Gulf while the A-Ps handled the main resistance. The Marines would be hot on their tails to sweep and clear the villages, secure any VIPs or civilians.

But there’s an old quote about war, something like, “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” It’s funny, we’re taught to always follow orders, that our Officers– direct superiors– are to be trusted with our lives. Kinda throws a wrench into the works when you hear that shit. No plan survives the enemy? Then what good’s having stars on your shoulders? In boot they tell us all this shit about training, trusting your intel or XO, or some such shit. Then, when you hit the field they tell you, “this what you’ve trained for,” and “everything’s on the line.” But you hear something like that, “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” All you can do’s think, wonder what the fuck’s it all good for? Truth is, you’ve just gotta’ know how to improvise. We’re all just attack-dogs forced to improvise.

I think that was why it hit me so hard. They didn’t know we were coming. They couldn’t have. They were running off soviet gear that was sub-standard when it was new. It was forty to fifty years old by the time it ended up in that little warrior’s hands. We were rocking the latest tech– bone-conduction comms, full-rail stealth systems on us and our weapons, dragon-scale armor capable of shrugging fifty-cal rounds point-blank; shit that was so new, it didn’t have names yet. We were the field test. To hell with the well-tenders, we were Gods.

But like I said, or someone else did anyway, “no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” Sure we got in and out without a peep, the UAVs did their thing, and the campaign began. The Marines though? Fuck, those poor guys didn’t know what the fuck they were getting into. I guess it’s partially our fault. We could only get so close to the villages, only do so much recon from the outside. Getting in was out of the question, but it wasn’t our job to know what we were missing either. It was above our pay-grade. We were told to move in, maintain stealth, and map out what we saw with vids, comms, paper– whatever we could, then feed it back to HQ over our satellite up-link. From our perspective, we did a damned good job of it. Even our XO said as much right before he green-lit our ex-fil.

But those fucking Generals can’t improvise. I dunno, maybe once you reach a certain age or rank your mind just starts to go, you get lazy or something. All I know’s that someone fucked up, and it damn near wiped out the first wave of Marines. It was so bad our unit was diverted en-route, air dropped just outside the village to flank and reinforce.

Us and the Marines. There’s a thought. Two of the most baddest-ass military groups on the fucking planet; the Green Berets and US Marines. We were the cream of the fucking crop, man, and we damn near got iced by civvies with fifty and sixty year old weapons. Shit, if it weren’t for my dragon-scales, I’d be dead on the ground in that fucking village too. Just another of those poor patriots whose blood watered the tree of liberty– if you believe the bullshit lines we’re fed.

You know, I’ve heard stories about some of the terrible shit that’s happened out here. I was on patrol with a guy who’d been forced into a second tour, said he’d watched some of those fuckheads we were fighting lace an apartment building with demo charges, blow it just as his unit went in. Only thing that saved him was his positioning on-six. The squad-leader wanted him watching their asses when they were walking face first into a fucking explosion. Tree of liberty my nuts.

Shame, lotta’ good guys go down that way. You know, doing what they’re taught to, being fucked over for it. But that’s not even the worst shit either. We signed on. We were called. We knew the risks. Them? Never. Not a chance. Not the one’s that matter anyway.

It’s what those fucks do to the people– their own people, that makes us sick. You wonder why some of the guys out here go nuts or turn into racist pricks? It’s a defense mechanism against the most gruesome shit humans can do being broadcast live, 24/7, for you to see. And believe me, we see the worst of it. In a way, you can’t blame ’em for those loose screws. Sure they’re assholes, and sure one rotten apple shouldn’t spoil the bunch or some bullshit nonsense, but most of those kinds of guys are kids when they enlist. They’re country boys straight outta’ high-school, or city-kids hoping the G-I bill’s gonna’ keep ’em from the gang life. They’re just hoping for a better life through the Army, Marines, Navy, Air-Force– whatever. No matter what their situation, they’re not prepared. They never would be. Still they enlist. I guess the US’s propaganda’s better than we think if we sign on to this shit.

Like one story I know from a guy; he was on-base just after the first campaign ended. We took our chow outside on one of the days that wasn’t ball-sticking hot. We were just discussing some of the shit we’d seen– shooting the shit we called it– when he got real serious. Told me about a time some nut-job strapped a kid with enough C4 to incinerate a tank, then sent him up bawling his eyes out toward the front-gate. Kid couldn’t’ve been more than four or five, and he knew he was about to die. My buddy didn’t talk much more that day. In retrospect, saying something like that doesn’t require much more talking afterward. Think he signed up for that? I know I didn’t.

They didn’t have a choice that day. And I guess, neither did I. There’s a select few people alive who’ve been forced to show the world what a fifty-cal round does to the human skull. But as far as I know, that group’s a hell of a lot larger than the one that’s shown the world what it does to a child’s skull.

The squeamish say it’s unthinkable, disgusting, what-have-you– to think about, speak of, but that’s war, and war is fucking brutal. It wrenches your guts out with knives, replaces them with a festering pit of emptiness. It hollows you out, runs the pieces through a meat grinder, then force feeds it back to you– And people wonder why ex-soldier suicide rates are so high.

I lost my taste for war that day we were air-dropped in to bail-out those marines. We were just outside the village’s East wall. It was like one of those old, stone things you see on the rich oil-Baron’s compounds in the movies or TV, except it was a small town. We breached with a series of C4 charges over the barks of gunfire inside. A few Marines shouted distant orders over a guy that screamed from a gut-shot. I don’t even know if he made it, but it makes you wonder.

We were inside before the smoke of the breach cleared, fanned out to provide as wide a line of flanking fire as possible. My unit probably bagged half that town in the first minute and forty seconds of engagement. But me? All I can do’s shake my head.

I got one.

One kill. It was more than enough– more painful, more monstrous than all the combined death that day.

That little warrior? She was that kind of childish beautiful that makes you have hope for the human race. That maybe, one day, something this wonderful will help all this shit end. I guess it won’t be her though. It couldn’t be. I made sure of that, had to.

I was huddled in cover when I heard the AK rack up behind me. I did an instant one-eighty and there she was. All of that hope I had was gone when that AK zeroed on me. She didn’t know, couldn’t have. She was only seven or eight years old and my dragon-scales were brand new– not even named yet. I think something was already dead in her eyes when they met mine, like she knew she couldn’t be saved no matter what anyone did for her. It was almost like she wanted me to save what was left of her innocence, her soul. Maybe that’s just bullshit I feed myself to cope.

She let loose a burst that slammed my scales. I was on my back in the hot dirt. I couldn’t breathe, but I was alive. A few bruises later, but not a scratch otherwise. I inched up with a groan, and she reset her aim. I didn’t give her the chance. I couldn’t. No one else would have either.

One round. That was it. That was all it took. No-one heard her die. No-one saw it. But her death-grip on her AK, and the chewed fabric on my armor made sure there was no doubt of her intent later. It was her or me, and she chose for us.

I try to tell myself that things’ll get better, that one day I’ll get over it. But I can’t, and I know I won’t. War is fucked up. It destroys people– destroyed me– in ways you can’t imagine ’til you’ve been there. But I wouldn’t wish that on the worst people in the world. Even they don’t deserve that. No matter how evil, you’ve always got something redeeming. Fuck, even Hitler was an artist. Sometimes, I wonder how many of those guys we took out would’ve invented the next wheel, or discovered the next fire, if they weren’t so fucked in the head and out of options.

But it’s all moot now. What I’ve seen– what I’ve done, is monstrous. They call me a hero. Bullshit. I’m a ten-cent rifle-jockey with a penchant for survival and improvisation. That girl? She was a real hero. She didn’t understand, couldn’t. Fuck, she wasn’t more than eight years old, but she gave her life and innocence to show the world how fucked up it can be. She was a little warrior, no matter whose side she was fighting for, and she deserves a fuck of a lot more honor and respect than any of the rest of us.