A Good Soldier

He didn’t quite know what to think when the boy was gunned down right in front of him. All he knew was that he lacked the correct rationale and logic to explain an event like this.

He racked his brain for answers. Who was to blame? An enemy soldier, most likely - but one that, he realised, looking around, had already taken flight. Revenge and justice were now out of the picture. What about help? Could the boy’s life possibly be saved...?

But no. The boy would die. He was sure of it.

Other options. He tried to clear his head. Option A, Option B, C, D, E... self-destruct, flee the scene, hide evidence report back... they scrolled upwards in his internal computer. None of them seemed to fit.

The fallen boy was now looking up at him with glassy eyes. They reminded him of another pair of eyes, among his very first memories, that looked at him with stern encouragement during the roughest parts of his training. He thought he remembered feeling something, but he wasn’t sure. His chest would flutter and his palms would become sweaty at a single glance from the eyes. Nothing emanated from them, nothing but focus and determination. Anything else had been swept away, and a glassy look remained. The eyes had certainly been threatening - which was probably why he always did what they told him to do. There. Do you feel that? You shouldn’t. Pain is nothing but an obstacle. You are stronger than pain. Such things will not control you. Do you understand?

Although they held the same lustre, these younger eyes before him now held no threat. Just a blankness, a void. He was doing his best to ignore them. It didn’t look like they would do anything too extreme. The other eyes had. They had been attached to a face with a mouth that issued its orders like a gumball machine spits out its coloured marbles. He followed the man’s orders. Taste this. I want you to stay completely calm. Don’t let me see you cry. You will win against the pain. He swallowed the nails like a good little boy was supposed to.

He just couldn’t think of anything that had ever taught him what to do with this moment. Something foreign, however, seemed to be creeping into his mind and spreading to his chest area. He paid no attention to it. Soldiers weren’t supposed to feel; perfect soldiers were supposed to conquer such distractions.

He considered himself successful at this endeavour up to this point. After he had served his instructor’s aims, there was nothing. Or rather, he pushed it down so far that he barely remembered identifying his emotions. Not even when longtime fellow fighters were killed, not even when he had to shoot them himself. That’s a traitor. He’s endangered the mission. He’s an obstacle. Kill him. He pulled the trigger like a good soldier was supposed to.

Now he looked at this boy, cloudy eyed and dying in front of him, and he was completely at a loss. Of what to do, of what to think... ought he to be feeling something? The foreign thing in his chest constricted. Push it down. You’re a soldier now, boy.

He thought for a moment about the other boy. He knew the boy considered him his friend; it had been said many times. He himself had never had any friends. Friends were supposed to like each other, weren’t they? Had he ever decided whether he liked the other boy or not? Try as he might, he hadn’t been able to forget him. Perhaps that was a sign of liking him. No… you don’t… to like… to love… get in the way…

The dying boy was bleeding out of his mouth and reaching a dusty hand into the sky.

God dammit, what was his chest trying to TELL him? It felt like an entire nuclear base had exploded in his bloodstream. What in the hell… what was the name of this war against his internal organs? What was it?

It doesn’t matter.

But here, now... it does... it was...

Sadness, maybe. Or something - no - grief. That sounded right. Was that the name of the ache in his chest now? Grief?

He didn’t know, but he knelt down to the boy in the dust, and he held his hand as he died, like a good friend was supposed to.


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