No More Battles Left to Fight

“Therefore, you are discharged from your duties Lily,” my battalion commander says as he hands me a badge.

He was a gruff old man that looked to be in his fifties, and his white uniform was decorated with countless military badges, some of them so valorous that it made the badge he just gave me seem pathetic in comparison.

“But of course you know that already,” he sighed, “since the world is ending in a year anyway, there’s no real point in doing this. You could’ve just left the army at any point and it wouldn’t have mattered.”

Right, I thought, of course I know that already… I was there when I saw it happen.

The machine that had descended upon the battlefield a few weeks prior was a much deadlier weapon of war than anyone could’ve anticipated. What it injected into the ground wasn’t an explosive like everyone originally thought it was, but rather, something that could only be described as a ‘planetary virus’.

‘The Wither’ was what they called it, and just like a virus, it had injected itself into the biology of the planet, reshaping it and changing it so that it would become suitable for the Wilted to live on.

Over time, instead of producing oxygen, plants and other photosynthetic organisms would start producing carbon monoxide—the type of air that the Wilted naturally breathed in—eventually making it impossible for humans to live and breathe on Flos.

The meeting with the generals of the Wilted army revealed that it would take a year for the atmosphere to reach that point, and had given the people of Flos two options: they could either continue the senseless fighting and allow the Wilted to use their much more advanced technology to immediately decimate all life on the planet, or they could agree to stop the fighting and the Wilted would allow them to peacefully come to terms with their demise without interference and finish invading the planet only after everyone had died.

Whatever they chose, the message was clear: the world was ending and it was up to them to decide if they wanted it to happen now or a year later. Eventually, the latter was chosen because the world leaders believed it was better to give people time to make their amends. With the agreement made, the Wilted pulled out all its forces from the planet and said that they will return in a year to finish their invasion.

“Weird question but… do you think we had a chance to win in the first place?” I asked.

“Ha!” the commander laughed, “absolutely not. The only reason why it looked like we had a chance in the first place was because we were fortunate enough that oxygen was corrosive to whatever material they were using to build their weapons and war machines. That fact alone set them so far back that they had to replicate our weapons using materials stolen from our mines. The entire war was basically just a race to see which side could develop weapons that could harm the other first.”

I see… then it was all pointless… everything we did was pointless. Everyone’s death was—

I stopped myself before completing that thought.

No, I scolded myself, stop thinking like that. If you keep thinking like that you’ll trigger one of your memory floods again. At the very least we should get out of here before that happens.

“Well… if there isn’t anything else left to do, then I should be heading out,” I said, turning towards the door.

“Wait,” the commander stopped me, “you’re heading back to your home right? If so, take this letter with you. It was written by Hazel’s parents for Dahlia’s to read. Those folk… are probably still mourning after their daughter’s death, and just want to share their grief with the people in the same boat. Since you live next to Dahlia’s farm I figured I’d let you deliver it since the postal system has become quite unreliable after the announcement.”

I silently walk over to the table and take the letter from his hands.

Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it, the words repeat over and over in my mind, as I tried filtering out specific words that came out of his mouth. Let’s think about something else instead, I urged myself as I took a look at the letter.

It was a nice, formal, almost antique, white envelope, neatly sealed with a red wax in the shape of a rose.

Rich people, I bitterly thought in a sarcastic manner, but I would expect no less from her family; they’re the most famous doctors down south of the mountains after all. The only thing I’m surprised about is them going out of their way to send a letter to a peasant family of farmers in the first place—they weren’t known to be humble and laid-back like Hazel.

“I’ll make sure to deliver it,” I promised, before remembering that I had something else to return, “oh right, and you’ll probably want my gun back given that it’s military issued and all.”

I reached behind my back, preparing to unsling it, but was stopped by the commander.

“No, no, keep the gun,” he says, “unless you really don’t want it for some reason. I heard that a lot of the major cities have fallen into anarchy after receiving the news of the end of the world so maybe it would be better to keep it just in case.”

The commander was right. The journey from this outpost to Dahlia’s farm up north would take a couple of weeks, and having some protection along the way would be ideal given the state of the world. Slinging the gun back around myself, I prepared to leave once more, however as I did, the light from the sun behind the commander glinted off of something and stung my eye.

Ack, what the heck? I thought as I rapidly blinked my eyes to refocus them, before looking at the table to see what caused the nuisance. There, I saw a photo of a young girl around my age wearing a cap and gown, and right next to it was the culprit—something that caused me to freeze.

A revolver?

“What is it?” the commander asks as he traces my line of sight towards the photo on the table.

“Ah, curious about my daughter are you?” he asked, angling the photo towards me, “she graduated from her doctorate program a year ago… I didn’t get a chance to see her ceremony due to the war, but my wife sent me a photo of her in case I wanted to see her all grown up—I’m very proud of her.”

I nodded my head slowly, but my gaze kept lingering on the gun.

Something is off… I realized, a daughter who worked hard to get a doctorate only for the world to end a year later because we lost a war—and one of the people spearheading the fight just so happens to be her father. The guilt he feels must be immeasurable…

“Commander…” I finally said, “promise me you won’t do anything rash after I leave.”

At first his expression was confused, but then saw what I was actually looking at, and his face fell into one of stunned guilt at being found out.

“...Of course,” he replied, “I still have to do the formal discharges for any other soldier who wants one.”

“Even after that,” I continued, “promise me you’ll at least visit her before doing anything stupid.”

He opens his mouth to say something, but then stops himself before looking down and solemnly nodding his head.

It wasn’t my place to judge other people for what they wanted to do with the last year they had left, especially when I had considered doing something similar a few times already. It was hypocritical almost, but I didn’t care. It was easier to imagine it being done to myself than other people, and at the very least I wasn’t planning to stick around forever to constantly prevent him from doing it.

All I needed was just a little confirmation from him to make myself feel better.

“Good,” I said, making my way out the door.

Whatever he wanted to do next wasn’t up for me to decide anyway.