Today I was planning to post two chapters to mark my second year on Royal Road as well as the second “birthday” of this story, but I decided against it.

The reason for this choice of mine is simple, today marks a full century from a much more important day. Most of you probably already know what I am going to talk about and I do not blame you if you decide to close this page now. I will be grateful, though, to those who remain until the end.

A hundred years ago World War I ended.

The estimated number of casualties of the Great War was close to forty millions. Such a number makes it impossible for a person to comprehend a tragedy of such proportions and, in our minds, it tends to translate to simply that, a number.

Many of you have probably lost someone dear to you. From my own experience, I know that a single death, when the one who dies is someone close to you, can overshadow everything.

Those numbers have nowhere near the same impact an event close to you can have, yet, for many more, at the time, a single person in that multitude was that event.

Despite all this, I am not writing this short piece to cry those deaths, because my sentiment would be insincere, as I too am not able to put a face to those millions.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

I am writing this to thank them.

I want to thank those people who gave their life, on either side of the conflict, because it is only thanks to those sacrifices, and the sacrifices made during the Second World War, that humanity learned a lesson.

Today most of us live in peace, without having to worry about conflict. For the first time in history, a large portion of humanity lives without war looming over them.

A single century is really short in historical terms. Yet, in the last century, humanity as a whole advanced in ways that would have been unthinkable before.

As sad as it is, those advancements probably would not have happened, or would not have happened as fast, if it wasn’t for the two wars. For this reason, I thank those people.

I thank those who fought, because over them is built the foundation of the peace many of us enjoy.

As readers and authors we soon stumble upon wars that exist only in fantasies, either by our, or someone else’s pen.

I wish to all of you that the pages of a book will be your only confrontation with the tragedy of war.

I hope that if they have the chance, people will make that wish of mine come true and not repeat the past. Because a century is short, but the memory of people is often even shorter.

I thank all of you who have read this crazy, incoherent rambling of mine. It was not planned, but I felt like I needed to do it. Updates of the story will resume on the 13th with two new chapters.

Thank you.