The Final Day

"Sir? General Vazove?"

"I can hear you!"

"Sir, I just received a telegram that General Duane has just surrendered the 3rd army..."

At this, General Vazove stopped aggressive scribbling on his page and looked weakly up into the First Captain Revrho’s eyes, burning with passion and youth, as he stood at attention in the doorway. “That is upsetting,” Vazove gritted his teeth, looking back down at his work. ‘Where was I…’ his hand started to get heavy.

"That would imply you are the final general of the Second Levidian Empire.” Revrho waited as General Vazove started writing again with all he had in him. It was a brutal race against time to summarize all the major findings done at base 252 before the coalition forces were going to tear everything away from him.

“Do you have any orders, sir?" Revrho asked again. Vazove paused, grabbing another book. Revrho watched Vazove flipping through it with his left hand, his eyes darting around, and his right hand jotting down notes.

"General Vazove, we don't have much time remaining before the coalition forces arrive. I don’t expect that they would face any resistance, which implies they could be here in less than twenty-four hours, sir." First Captain Revrho said forcefully before throwing a look into the hallway as if expecting the coalition forces to round either corner at any moment.

"It shouldn't take that long," Vazove huffed without breaking concentration,

"Why don't we..." Revrho began before being interrupted by Vazove,

"Then what was it all for?" Vazove motioned his hand around his room, a small office which had also started serving as a bedroom for the old general.

General Vazove motioned to the bookshelves that went from the floor to ceiling, all tightly packed with books, to the three potted plants which were wilting on his desk, and then to the dozens of open bottles that held various powders and serums. "I already said we are not going to burn down everything, Revrho!"

Revrho signed just weakly enough that it didn’t warrant a comment from Vazove. "What about the archives? Surely…"

"You can burn those."

"Appreciated, sir." Revrho gave a quick, courteous bow before stepping out into the hallway and turning to close the door with a grin on his face.

“Start freeing some of the prisoners,” Vazove faintly called out as Revrho closed the door.

‘What? I only caught 'incinerate the archives', General.’ Revrho walked off calmly; he walked slowly at first so as not to disturb the General. But once Revrho rounded the corner, he broke out into a sprint towards the archive building, his uniform jostling. "Please ignore this, General," Revrho muttered under his breath.

As Revrho ran, he gathered up the soldiers who were left; that is, these lost souls stood around camp mindlessly wallowing in despair. It had been obvious for months that they had lost the war, yet these men kept going; they worked themselves up into a frenzy as Revrho spurred them into action.

A short half hour later, this ragtag group of men stood outside of the archive building. The home of a billion pages accumulated over the past thirty years from all across the Levidian Empire; anything and everything written could be found here, a true treasure trove of knowledge!

The two soldiers who stood guard outside the entrance saluted Revrho as he slowed to a walking pace. Revrho walked through the double doors with pride. “I can’t wait for this place to burn,” Revrho murmured as only a couple of men followed him inside; the rest stood waiting outside.

“What are we looking for, First Captain?”

Revrho did reply as he strolled over to the closest bookshelves, a sudden pain surging through his heart as he picked up a benign-looking book. Revrho turned the book in his hands, reading the spine: “A collection of birth certificates BEA-BEF.” Revrho saw his own hollow eyes in the book’s metallic ink. He covered those letters with his tattooed hand.

The book went up in blue flames.

Revrho sighed as he roughly shoved the book back onto the shelf; the fire quickly started to jump to its neighbours.

The few soldiers who had followed Revrho gasped. "Sir- what- we have to put out that fire!" a man pleaded as a nasty grey smoke started to drift up,

“I’m just following orders." Revrho turned firmly, taking his eyes off the fire, which had started racing upwards. "I believe it’s lunchtime." Revrho clasped his hands behind his back as he slowly walked out. “We should linger around here.”

There was a moment of hesitation for the soldiers. "Yes, sir!" All the soldiers saluted out before turning their backs to the raging inferno.

It took over half an hour before the smell of something burning had penetrated General Vazove’s office.

Another hour later, a knock came from the door. “Come in.” Vazove barked,

"Much obliged, sir," Revrho coughed, carefully letting himself inside. Revrho was holding up a wetted handkerchief up to his mouth with his left hand, a bowl of soup in his right hand. "Your collation, sir." Revrho walked up to Vazove’s desk to place the plate down. Revrho coughed into his blackened handkerchief; his uniform was laden with ash.

Vazove leaned forward to inspect the soup. “Thank you, First Captain.” Vazove rubbed his nose as he lowered his pencil, bringing the soup before himself to eat.

Revrho stood at attention, watching Vazove enjoy the soup before making his request, "Should I get to liquidating the prisoners? I got another telegram that coalition forces are specifically rushing here.” Vazove’s expression didn’t change as he kept sipping on the soup,

‘What does it matter?’ Vazove tried to string together a plan, but his thoughts were about as easy to grasp as the soup in front of him. Finally, Vazove paused and muttered something before going back to eating.

“I couldn't make that out, sir.” Revrho leaned in.

Vazove, having finished his soup, scoured his desk and absentmindedly pulled out a book, toppling down a stack of four books which had been on top of it to the ground.

Vazove flipped through the book mechanically until he circled a section of a page. “Find two hundred prisoners with a Spee over a thousand-” Vazove tapped a diagram on the page with a forearm, clearly written on it. “This is what you should look for… four hundred to be safe.” Vazove ripped the page out of the book and handed it over to Revrho, who carefully studied the short spell and diagram that let the caster see someone’s Spee. “Don’t pick people who have less than five hundred Spee. I'm almost done...”

“It will be done, sir.” Revrho declared, holding back a cough.

As Revrho sharply left the room, he started coughing up black mucus; the smoke had gotten to him. Revrho wiped his hand on the wall as he booked it to the barracks. To execute General Vazove’s will.