After we discussed our future plans, we joked around and got to know each other until we got tired. Alexei took the first watch, saying that we did all the work so we should get to sleep first. We didn’t argue with him. I kicked some dirt over the fire to extinguish the flames. As our fire died, on the horizon, another took its place. I glanced up to see what was glowing, something was burning, and it was lighting up the horizon with a reddish glow. The fire seemed to not be very close at all, which was concerning. If we could see it this far away, then it must be a big and hot one.

When I was finished watching the world burn, I looked at the others. To my significant dismay, they were both looking at me like I was in charge or something. NOOOO, thank you I liked being an E-4. No responsibility, and you didn’t have to lead jack shit, maybe you would give a couple of words of advice to the younger boots, but you didn’t have to lead them!

I let out an exasperated sigh and started speaking,

“Well, we can’t do that much. For one, we are tired and unfit for combat. Two, not all of us have night vision. Three whatever is going on will be long done by the time we get there.”

Walter replied, “what are we going to do then.” I could hear in his voice that he didn’t care about the reasons I gave. He wanted to run over there like an idiot. Fuck, is this what NCOs have to put up with all the goddamn time? A bunch of 18-19-year-olds trying to run off and get themselves and their team killed.

I responded in a forced, calm tone, “We are going to rest, recover, and resupply, then we will check out all the noise. So get the fuck to sleep while you still can.”

Walter just nodded sarcastically and angrily walked off into the cave. Before I went into the cave, I handed Alexei my rifle and a couple of mags.

“Here, take this. You can keep it beside you while you clean yours. I know those rounds are corrosive as hell.”

With that done with, I turned around and walked into the cave to get some sleep.

____________________________________________________________________________

They had come at dusk. They had come with torches and steel. They had come for our food. The constable and the men had tried to fight them while the women and children fled.

I was helping mom milk the cows. We had gotten a fair bit of cream along with the milk. I was idly wondering when mom would make some cheese; she always made the best cheese. When shouts rose up from outside of the small barn. Mom had gotten up to see what the commotion was about. The cries turned to screams as mom peaked her head outside.

Mom turned to me, and she had this look on her face that I had never seen before. It was a mix of terror and despair. But that didn’t stop her from her mission. She picked up my small underfed 10-year-old body and threw me over her shoulder. Then, she grabbed something off the tool rack. I only knew because I heard the clack of metal on wood.

I didn’t struggle as mom carried me like a sack of potatoes. The look mom gave me left me petrified before she plucked me up. Then she opened the barn door: fire, screaming, and blood followed. A wave of heat hit me as mom walked out the door. It was like we had died and gone to hell. We ran past burning buildings and bodies. Thankfully I didn’t have time to identify who most of them were. But, I recognized a few. Balwin, the baker, was lying on his back, a pool of blood spreading out around him from a cut along his belly. His homemade baker’s hat, which he always kept spotless even if it meant going into debt, was lying on the muddy ground covered in blood.

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I spotted a few bodies from the town guard. I franticly looked around for my older friends. Mom, guessing, could sense what I was feeling, and told me to close my eyes. I slammed them shut, hoping and praying to anything and everything that this was all a dream. The slithering of wood on wood came from behind mom. A twang of a bow, a wet thud, a sudden loosening of grip.

I opened my eyes to see an arrow in my mother’s back and five green figures, one with a bow, slowly approaching. I looked at the approaching figures with wide-open eyes. I shake mom a little, trying to get her up. Trying to do something, anything. Mom started to move. She whispered to me what would be her final words.

“Run, run far from here. GO!” I scrambled to my feet and started running towards the woods. As I ran, I heard a bear’s roar and metal clashing against metal. I only turned to look once. Mom was wielding the family's cutting ax as if she was a direct descendant of the hero Arlan Skullsplitter. She seemed as a whirlwind of steel and death with her ax glimmering in the flames of our home.

That was the last time I saw her alive.

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Mermon, grunten first class (an officer), overlooked the carnage his men had caused. The burning buildings, the bodies laying in the streets, the grain being loaded into the carts. Mermon felt a slight pang of guilt. This wasn’t a battle against a strong and worthy enemy. Just a bunch of farmers who were at the wrong place at the wrong time. So when Mermon heard of the last stand of a mother and a missing boy, he thought he could right some wrongs at least.

Mermon called over his second.

“You wanted to speak to me, sire.”

The junior officer came at the call of his superior. Mermon ordered that most of the men should focus on loading the carts, and any groups dispatched to hunt for survivors should be recalled. Mermon wondered how much longer this war would drag on and how many more innocences would die for things like food or water.

Mermon just hoped that his good deed would help him sleep better.

____________________________________________________________________________

I was the last on watch. I got to see the sun come up over a smoke-filled sky. Over the night, all of us had cut chunks off the bear to eat, but we still had a lot left over. Every second it gets riskier and riskier to eat the bear’s meat. I had sat on the ground and used one of the campfire sitting logs as a backrest.

It would have been the perfect time to smoke a cigarette. Looking out onto grass and tree-covered hills with pillars of black smoke reaching into the sky as fingers tainted with soot. I check the time. 4:57 well, the sun is up. We better get moving if we hope to find anything other than ash.

I get up and do a quick scan to see if I can spot anything. I am just moving my eyes around and scanning for movement. My eye catches on a small figure on a hill across from me. The figure is ragged looking and doesn’t seem to have a weapon. I don’t know what to do. If I only wave, there is a high chance he won’t see me. If I shout and wave, it might draw some unwanted attention to us.

The whole thing might be a trap. But fuck it, not a lot I can do.

“HEY, OVER HERE, YOU THERE, YEA OVER HERE!” I shout over the intervening space. I could hear the cave behind me start to stir. But, I don’t pay it any attention as the small figure turns to me, starts walking toward me then face plants into the dirt. I snatch up my rifle and start slowly moving down toward the figure.

As I moved down the hill, I started to get flashbacks to a certain valley. I instinctively scanned the ridge lines. I ran back up the hill and into the cave. A still waking up, Walter had his machine gun dropped onto his lap along with a belt of ammo. Walter looked up at me with a questioning look. I responded with

“We’ve got a contact. It might not be hostile, so watch your trigger finger.”

I turned my head as a clacking sound to my left. It was Alexei racking the bolt on his rifle.