The sun glares at him.
He watches as it rises and falls. rises and falls.
All of his comrades are asleep. Awake. Asleep. Awake.
Living a life. His life.
It’s been three years since Jonathan’s come here. Three years since he so cruelly abandoned by his parents. Three years since the New Legion gave him such comfort, and three years since he found solace in an act that no one respects.
Two years since he took a life. For the legion. For himself. For everyone but himself.
Two years since he found a new passion. A new taste, a new thirst for crimson.
Sand walks by.
“Hey, man.”
“Hey.”
They call him Sand because of his complexion that resembles exactly that. Jonathan calls him Sand because he knows his intricacies
‘From the outside, he might seem gritty and uncomfortable;
but give him the care and attention he needs, he shines like glass.’
The peace is interrupted by a very hard-to-not-notice man running into the camp.
“We gotta go. NOW.”
The sergeant’s pronunciation of each and every syllable made everyone realize what he was talking about.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
It has been two years since they last went to war, this camp of misfits. They only fall back on camp-11 during the times when the men remaining are so low that you could count all of the ones alive on one hand, and the ones that are mentally stable among those are about half of the total.
He sees them all reaching for their guns, their pistols, their knives, their grenades. Amir reaches for his pictures. Most of them barely adults, almost children.
They line up by the gates. A voice chirps up from amid them.
“do we really have to?”
The silence of the sergeant speaks loads more than words ever could.
The twenty men walk out, march out, drive out.
The vibrations of the massive army-issued vehicles shake the ground, clearing up the path in front of them, dusting the sand away with the vibrations themselves.
Amir runs at the pace of the others’ walk. Jon sometimes wonders how he could ever survive a war, ever since he first arrived to the camp six months ago.
“Damn, man, damn.” Jonathan whispers.
Amir glares at him.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He looks at the stature of the man that stood before him. Five foot five, maybe six.
But Amir has proven himself ever since he came to this forsaken place. His aim is impeccable. They station him over any hills, or any other place with a full view of the battlefield, as a sniper.
It takes about an hour for them to reach the helipads, and fifteen minutes more to get everyone into the helicopter.
The men seem to be so happy that, to an outsider, this might look like twenty men going to the premiere of a movie they’re really excited for.
They’re happy, because they don’t know if they might get a chance to be happy again.
> 'Chopper-7, hovering over supposed-warzone/29' 'Roger that'
The men who are barely even men, prepared to take the lives of other men and the “others”.
Jonathan gets so engrossed within these thoughts that he barely notices the turbulence increasing.
***
An ear-piercing noise fills his ears. He watches, as the helicopter gets filled with yellow-flowers that burn.
The door of the helicopter blows up, and the wing falls off. Something has hit their helicopter. The helicopter falls apart, the screams of the passengers slowly fading as they fall down. Some don’t even get the chance to fall as their bodies blow apart mid- air.
He falls slowly, surrounded by the mist of crimson-red blood. He barely gets the chance to think about what just happened before he feels the ground touch his spine, and he feels his legs go limp, his head askew.
He feels his life leave his body, abandoning him.
***
Darkness. A moment of solace.
Jonathan finds himself floating in limbo.
He finds himself standing in a shoddy room. Far from the war. Far from the helicopter. He feels his body for wounds, but he finds none.
He is confused, but it’s too soon to ask why.
He does the only thing he was capable of doing.
He screamed. Cried.
Unbeknownst to him, he is being observed. By two men, hundreds of miles away.
“Another has been detected.”
___*___