Iron

I was just a laborer when the war broke out, doing whatever I could to earn my pay to eat. I lived a lonely life, my best friend dying when we traveled the continent and my lover showing their true colours, only caring for themselves, no matter what I felt for them. All I really had left was my mother, who I hadn't seen since I ran away to travel with my best friend.

The day we were attack, I woke up in the ruins of my city, soldiers everywhere, building crumpling to the artillery fire. I just woke up in a new world, surrounded by flames, everything I loved had faded by then.

Shortly after that, I was drafted into the army. Training was hasty and uninformative.

The first battle my squadron was involved in was also the last... it was a massacre. I was the only survivor. The only was I was able to survive was by hiding under the corpses of my fallen allies. That's not to say I got away unharmed, however. I was shot twice, once in the shoulder, and once in my right leg.

After the enemies moved away from our position, I waited for what felt like an eternity. After I was positive they were gone, I made my move.

I crawled out from the pile of corpses and crawled for about 30 meters. Shortly after I started moving, it began to snow. It was getting colder by the minute.

As I continued walking away from my fallen friends, I began to lose feeling in my limbs. I was freezing. By this point, I had lost feeling in my face. All I could feel was a burning sensation that comes with the cold. This, combined with the echoing of gunshots in my head and thinking about what had just happened, watching them fall rhythmically...

The steady burst of snow was burning my hands- I felt as if I were frozen to the bone. Around this time, I was getting tired... as if I knew I were about to die, and accepted it. I sat down, leaning against a rock, coated in the snow that tortured me.

As I thought about my current predicament, my thoughts quickly turned to my mother. She'd never know what happened to me. She'd been waiting for a letter from me for years... I couldn't help but to feel bad. I tried to remember what she looked like, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't recall the loving look in her eyes, let alone her face.

I kept trying, even as the world around me faded to black. Just another pawn in a war I knew little about.

Author's Note
This story is based off the song "Iron" by Woodkid, alongside other songs from his album "The Golden Age".

~ Kiyoshi 21:26, July 11, 2016 (UTC)