All known literature written and planned for the world of Centaura.
Book Stories
Note: The stories in the Novels describe events and actions that may be disturbing to some. Content warnings have been provided. Read at your own discretion.
| Fire in the sky | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
I remember the black sky lighting up with dim flashes in the distance.
“Petey, look! The fireworks are going off again!” my nine-year-old sister exclaimed.
“I can see,” I replied.
“Can we go over there?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Why not?” she asked, turning to face me with a frown.
It was the second night these so-called fireworks were happening. I knew they weren’t fireworks, but I didn’t want her to worry.
“It’s getting late. We should get to bed before Mom figures out we aren’t asleep,” I said, dodging her question.
Sarah pouted and slipped under her blanket, but I looked back to the window. The flashes continued, with some gleaming brighter than others. The flat and dark desert shimmered with each light, followed by a weak boom. It shouldn’t have sounded relaxing, yet it did. Every thud was accompanied by a long echoing sound, and it was something I could’ve probably slept to.
The reality was far from relaxing. Our father was over there, not celebrating with fireworks, but fighting in the heat of the desert, in the cold of the night, taking fire from the Ursans in the north and ducking under cover. They had taken our lands several decades before, and it was not until now that we decided to take it back. Sarah only knew that Father was gone for some type of military work, but not the exact details of what station he worked at or where he went. She had no idea that the fireworks in the distant desert were actually the explosions of battle.
I closed the window and climbed onto my bed.
“Good night, Sarah,” I said.
“Good night,” she whispered back.
The following day, Sarah and I left the house to go to the plaza. Mother told us to return before lunchtime and gave me some money to spend.
“Look after your sister, and please, make sure she doesn’t get lost,” Mother had said.
The streets were busy; it was packed with people, wagons, carts, and automobiles. Everyone shared the same road. I held Sarah’s hand, leading her through the crowd and keeping to the side of the streets, next to the buildings. The whole street reeked of gasoline exhaust from the automobiles, and the combination of gray and tan houses, loud and smoky machines, and dust made the entire road look like a factory turned into a plaza.
We reached the real plaza at last, where the gasoline stench disappeared, but it was empty. A statue of King Alnilam stood in the center, having deteriorated over the years – there were splotches of green in random spots of the copper effigy. I didn’t remember what I learned about him in school, other than he founded the Orion nation and was a wealthy man. What I did remember, though, was the history that came after Alnilam.
The government bought land from other nations, promising riches and luxuries for the new territories. For what reason they wanted these lands, I still did not know. Those who refused to comply were forcefully conquered either through direct war or invasion during instability, and still, they received the wealth they had been offered before their annexation. Perhaps it was to gain the support of people in the new lands in case they didn’t like their new leaders. The most recent territory, the Aurigan District to the south, had come under our control a few decades prior through a civil agreement. I assumed the government wanted farming resources seeing that the land in Auriga boasted a large amount of fertile soil.
Unlike most other kids in my class, history was never my favorite subject in school. The world back then was brutal, and still is. A few thousand years ago, the ancient Libran Empire held control of almost all of the world, and since then, every country on this planet has been trying to recreate it under their own systems and beliefs – even Orion. Wars took place every year in some random part of the world. Most times, we wouldn’t know about these wars until they ended, but they had always been caused by the greed of imperialists. There’s a reason why the Libran Empire fell, but these countries still want what they want and will stop at nothing to get it. I felt annoyed thinking about it.
Nevertheless, it was a beautiful day outside, with a clear blue sky and relatively green, healthy grass. The tulips around the plaza had begun to bloom with a red and orange hue, and the temperature was also perfect; it wasn’t uncomfortably warm or cold. The absence of people in the plaza accentuated the beauty of nature.
Sarah had walked over to the edge of the pathway, squatted down, and picked one tulip from the grass. She inspected the flower and walked back to me.
“Look, Petey,” she said, holding the flower toward my face. There was a yellow and black insect standing inside the petals – a bee. I took the flower from Sarah’s hand and observed closely. The small bug was sitting idly with its fuzzy hairs reflecting a white color from the sun. It flapped its wings occasionally, making a short-lived buzz each time. I handed the tulip back to Sarah.
“Cute little thing,” she said. After a few more seconds of admiring the bee, it flew away from the flower. Sarah then held onto the uprooted tulip, intending to keep it.
“You know that flower will die in a day, right?” I said.
“Yeah. It’s pretty, though,” she replied. “Why not admire its beauty while it lasts?”
“Right.”
We walked around the plaza, taking the opportunity to appreciate nature without people in the way. There was a tall tree in one of the corners with a combination of vivid and dull-colored leaves. I touched the bark of its trunk. It was rough and dry. A line of ants marched up one side, and I observed the small creatures; how they worked in unison simply amazed me! They never had any awkward jams and flowed smoothly across the trunk. There are so many things in nature that we never noticed.
“Can we read the newspaper?” Sarah asked. She pointed towards a booth with books and papers stacked in the front.
I nodded and approached the booth. A man was waiting eagerly next to it and immediately spotted me walking over.
“You want a paper, kid?” he asked in a raspy voice. He cleared his throat.
“Yes, please,” I answered.
The vendor tapped on one of the tall paper stacks placed on the ground. “Take one.”
“For free?”
“Of course not! What, you think I’m standing here giving away papers for free?” he snapped.
I was surprised by his sudden outburst. “N-no, sir.”
He let out a small laugh. “Just foolin’ you, kid. You’re my first customer this morning; you can have it.”
I sighed in relief and slipped a newspaper off the front stack. “Thank you.”
“Shoulda seen the look on your face,” he chuckled.
After he finished speaking, a booming began. It sounded faint, but I could hear pops echoing amidst the distant hum of automobiles. The vendor heard them too.
“There they go again,” he said. “Damned Ursans been makin’ a mess ever since they came here.”
I walked back to Sarah with the paper. We then walked over to the nearest bench and sat down. A small tree hung over where we sat, shading us from the sun.
“Do you hear that?” Sarah asked, referring to the faint popping.
“Yeah, it’s probably nothing,” I lied. She turned her head, looking around the plaza to see where the noise was coming from.
I began to read the newspaper aloud. May 3, 1904.
“The headline says, ‘Ursans Begin Retreat.’”
“So, are we winning the war?” she asked.
“Yes.” I continued with the article. It reported about the Orion Army gaining land in the southern Canis region, approaching the Cerberus oil fields. The Ursans were relentless, laying landmines in their retreat.
I paused, realizing that Sarah could not understand some of the words being used in the story. She didn’t object or stop me, however, and so I continued. As I read, I couldn’t help but wonder if Father was okay. The conditions reported on the frontlines sounded brutal; the soldiers lived without water, fought under the desert heat, and dealt with all kinds of poisonous critters in their camps. Hopefully, he wasn’t on the frontline.
Sarah lifted her head.
“Petey, do you smell that?” she asked. I sniffed. The air had a slight hint of smoke.
We stood up from the bench, looking around to find out where the smell was coming from. It wasn’t the scent of meat or food cooking, but more like tar. I decided that it was probably a good idea to get back home.
We hurried back through the streets, where people looked around with confusion. The smell grew stronger by the minute. “Fire, fire!” someone shouted. But there was no fire as I glanced around. Buildings surrounded my vision wherever I looked, and there was no rising smoke either. Mother stood outside our front door, watching something in the sky like the other people on the street.
A dark shade loomed over the homes. I felt the air cool down as a massive shadow stopped the sun from touching my skin. What was happening? We ran inside our house and upstairs to observe from the window. As I brushed aside the curtain and peered out the window, I saw what everyone was looking at – there was a black cloud on the horizon from where the fireworks from the past couple of nights came from. The smoke reached into the sky and the surrounding atmosphere, but it was nowhere near us. It was so huge that we could see it from miles away.
Sarah didn’t say a word. She gazed at the dark clouds just like everybody else. I shut the window to prevent the smell from coming into the house.
The next day, the clouds grew larger, creeping up the sky like black mold on a wall. They appeared to have moved closer to our town, and the smell of tar filled the air outside. Army officials were in the streets going door to door and informing people about what was happening.
It was rare to see the army in town, as the police agency usually informed the public of any mishaps. Whenever we saw the army, they were only passing through town in convoys and never stopped here. But today, they did.
One of the officers arrived at our doorstep and knocked once on the door. Mother, who was standing right beside the front door, opened the door quickly before he could make his second knock. Sarah and I watched the officer and Mother talk from the stairs, but we couldn’t hear what they were saying. The man stood tall, wearing a peaked cap and a greenish-tan uniform, just like Father’s. Along with his uniform, a brown belt was wrapped around his torso with a satchel and pistol holster, where I could see the handle of his revolver protruding from its cover. A white band was tied around his right arm, which marked the officer’s participation in the military police, or MPs. I remember Father told me that he and his friends jokingly called them the “fun police.” The officer shifted his eyes over to us occasionally as he spoke.
A minute later, the man nodded and walked away. Mother closed the door and turned her head to us. She led Sarah and me to our room to tell us what had happened. Judging from her concerned expression, I predicted that it was not good.
She told us that while retreating, the Ursan army lit the oil fields on fire. The smoke was coming from the oil wells, and the wind was blowing it toward our town. The officers had told everyone to stay indoors for the next few days.
I began to worry as I thought about how Father was over there. I didn’t know if he was alive and well, if he was suffocating under the smoke, or if he was burning in the fires. Mother thought the same things I did, and I could see it on her face. She was anxious but said nothing more.
“Come here,” she said with open arms. Sarah and I both hugged her. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
The following days were dreadful. All of our windows had to be shut, and each door leading outside had its cracks blocked with rags. We weren’t allowed to go outside, but Mother did to pick up food. Whenever she came back, her eyes always had a tint of red and she was constantly rubbing them.
“Mom, are you crying?” I asked her as she returned from the first trip outside.
Mother closed her eyes as she replied. “No, no, it’s the smoke.” She walked to the bathroom and rinsed her eyes with water.
The window view was almost blotted out with smoke when I looked outside. Sarah was scared, but I tried to comfort her by reading stories aloud. Soon enough, I ran out of books to read to her.
“Where’s daddy?” Sarah asked me one night.
I wondered how long she was waiting to ask that question. “Where the fireworks came from. He’s fighting the bad guys,” I finally told her.
“I hope he’s okay.”
“Me too.”
The few days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months. The smoke never cleared out. After a while, Mother began to cough and wheeze. I tried to keep her from going outside because I knew the smoke was severely affecting her, but she insisted on going to get us supplies. Consequently, her condition worsened over the weeks.
Three months after the start of the fires, the army officers came again to hand us what they called “smoke masks.” We wore them over our noses and mouths, allowing us to breathe outside for a limited time. Mother stayed inside the house from that day on, and it was up to me to buy food and supplies with the mask. Sarah stayed with her because for some unknown reason, she could not breathe properly.
On the first walk I took since the plume of smoke came, I could understand what Mother was talking about. The smoke had dried my eyes out, and I found myself rubbing them or tearing up to keep them wet. It was impossible to see what was about thirty feet in front of me, so I walked alongside the curb and relied on street signs to figure out where I was going. I could not tell whether it was the morning, the afternoon, or the evening since the smoke concealed the sun.
The plaza was a depressing sight as I passed through it; the grass had turned a dark brown color, and the tulips had wilted. They were no longer a rich red-orange color but now black, suffocated by the dark gray air.
Strolling across the square, I picked one flower off the ground. It felt cold in my hand, and its petals fell off as soon as I raised it from the floor for observation. The stem was a dark and grimy color instead of the vivid green it once was before the smoke. Similarly, the statue of the King in the center was also dark – almost black – and touching the copper left a dusty substance on my finger. I wiped the dust off my hand before looking towards the stand I took a newspaper from on May 3. It was abandoned along with several other booths, devoid of any products and rusting away.
I exited the plaza and continued down my route to the grocer. A couple of people walked in the streets, but aside from them, the lanes were completely empty. Seeing the streets when they weren’t full was amazing, yet it also made me feel uneasy. The people who walked outside had their smoke masks on and did not look anywhere but in front of them, only greeting me once I was close enough.
The route I took felt ominous. Each building had its doors and windows closed, and potted plants that were placed outside an occasional home were dead. It felt as if the whole area had been abandoned. There were spider webs spread across the corners of some porches and balconies, and I witnessed one spider hanging on its silk, moving its front leg forward as if it were getting a feel of the area. How was this spider living in the smoke unharmed? I wondered if spiders breathed air or drank water as I continued walking.
At last, I arrived at the front of the grocer’s shop. The green cross-patterned frames of the windows were unique compared to the rest of the street. Its curtains were shut, but a lightbulb placed above the entrance door glowed, indicating the shop was open.
Walking into the store, I quickly closed the front door and lowered my mask. A loud whirring noise blared above me a second later. I looked up and saw some sort of machine hanging over the door, but it turned off within a few seconds. Mr. Greenberg, the owner, came out of another door after hearing the sound and recognized me.
“Ah, Peter!” he exclaimed.
“Hello, sir,” I smiled. The man had a cheerful voice that comforted me a little.
“It’s been quite a while since I’ve saw you last. How’ve you been? I know the whole smoke ordeal hasn’t been very kind to any of us.”
“I’m doing good, sir. My mom isn’t, though, which is why I’m here.”
“Doing well,” Mr. Greenberg corrected me. “And yes – Marie looked quite unwell the last time she came. I’m glad to hear she’s decided to rest and recover.”
I looked back toward the machine over the front door. “What is that thing?” I questioned as I pointed.
“Oh, that. It’s called an Air Filtration Device, and it makes a lot of noise.”
“What’s it do?”
“Well, it’s in the name. It filters the air.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “How come you have it, but nobody else does?”
“The army gave me the thing a couple days ago. They said it’s a prototype and they’d be giving it out to the rest of the folks sometime later. They’ve given it to me first because I run this grocery, gotta keep the food pure and all that.”
“It’s really loud,” I commented.
Mr. Greenberg chuckled. “It does its job.”
After I obtained the groceries, I walked back out into the streets. The obnoxious whirring of the filtrating machine dissipated as I closed the door. The scene outside had not changed one bit.
There was a homeless man on my route on some days. Homelessness wasn’t a significant problem in the Orion Republic since the economy was great and citizens had many opportunities, but there were some exceptions. The man’s home was an alleyway entrance; most times, he was lying on the ground gasping. He had no smoke mask - I did not know how the man had not suffocated to death already, spending weeks on end breathing in the fumes.
One day, I approached the homeless man. It was uncomfortable for me to watch him suffer.
“Hello, sir?” I said, standing over him. He turned his head up toward me as he lay in a fetal position. The man’s face was dry, and his lips chapped. A puffy and dirty beard engulfed the lower half of his face.
I figured it would be best not to make him talk. Digging into my pocket, I pulled out an extra smoke mask and handed it to him. The man accepted the mask with a shaky hand and nodded. Afterward, I walked away, often looking back at the alleyway entrance until it vanished under the smog.
I never saw the man on my route again after that day, but his belongings stayed in the alley.
August. The smoke had blocked out the sun’s usual heat waves of the summer. I guess that was nice, having cooler temperatures instead of sweating to death in the house like the years before. Everything was miserable, though I had gotten used to it; the scent of tar no longer bothered me – sometimes I couldn’t even smell it – and the world looked monochrome as if the smog had sucked all the color out. People rarely walked on the streets and intended to stay indoors, only going outside to buy necessities.
Meanwhile, the war raged on behind the curtains of smog. There would be distant pops every night, and with each day, the pops would become quieter and quieter as the Orion army pushed the Ursans back to the north, away from our town. Sarah was no longer scared, acting as if the oil fires had never happened. Sometimes I would catch her gazing outside the window, wishing to be outside again.
“Happy birthday,” I said to her. She was now ten years old.
Sarah blinked and turned her head to me. “Thanks.”
In previous years, I would have bought a gift for her. But all she got for this birthday was black, unclean, oil-filled smoke. Smoke that prevented her from seeing nature ever again, from feeling the warm rays of the sun, from breathing fresh air. Smoke that trapped her in this ten-by-twelve-foot room, locking her away from the outside world, separated by a half-inch-thick pane of glass.
September, October, November, December. Winter came fast, yet there was still no sign of the smoke dissipating. A stack of old calendar sheets was next to my table, which I had ripped off the current calendar nailed to the wall. Crossed “X” marks were drawn on days that had gone by, and I had about eight sheets in that stack. Eight months of smoke.
As I looked outside the window of our room in the morning, I noticed it had started snowing. Snow in the desert? This couldn’t possibly be. It was my first time seeing snow. I wanted to tell Sarah, but she was still sound asleep. I donned my smoke mask and walked downstairs to the front door.
“I’ll be out for a minute, Mom!” I shouted as I walked outside. The ground was white, and it really was snowing. I slipped off my mask and opened my mouth toward the sky to taste the falling flakes. One landed on my tongue – and I immediately spat it out. It tasted terribly bitter and left an aftertaste in my mouth. Whatever it was, it was definitely not snow.
I took a closer look at the white particles on the ground. The whiteness of the floor turned darker and darker the more I stared at it. I soon realized it wasn’t snowing; they were ashes.
Running back into the house, I rinsed my mouth with water, spitting and gagging into the kitchen sink. Mother came around the corner as she heard me hawking.
“What happened?” she asked. I snatched an empty glass from the cabinet, filled it with water, and gulped down the entire cup.
“I tried to taste the snow outside. It wasn’t snow,” I said with guilt.
“It’s snowing?”
“Not really. It’s ashes.”
Mother rushed toward the window and opened the curtain. She watched as the small gray particles floated down to the ground.
“And your first thought was to taste it?” she asked. “You didn’t think twice about tasting this stuff with all the smog outside?”
That was idiotic of me. I was so excited about seeing what I thought was snow that I forgot about the smoke.
“Sorry, Mom,” I muttered.
Sarah was staring out the window when I walked back into our bedroom. I sat next to her and joined in observing the ashes fall. Several paper-folded models of flowers that Sarah made were set against the window frame. Among the lineup was the tulip she picked up from the plaza. It was dead, with its petals separated from the stem. Sarah had kept it this entire time.
The distant booms of battle were gone by the end of the season. It “snowed” for the entirety of winter, but the ashes cleared away as spring approached. The smoke during some days was a little thinner, but not enough to make me hope that it would all be over soon. An orangish hue began to color the smoke above me – it was the sun trying to break its way through the smog.
Once, I was outside, walking along the curb to make my way toward the grocer when I heard yelling. The smoke prevented me from seeing what was happening, so I followed the sounds of shouts to the right of my ear. As I walked nearer to the source, the shouts became screams and cries. I was hesitant to continue but too curious to stop.
And turning the corner, the screaming suddenly sounded as clear as ever. I froze, watching two men kicking another uniformed man on the ground. A helmet buckled on the floor next to them.
“Stop! Stop!” the man on the ground yelled. His voice had an accent I’d never heard before. The uniform he wore was dark brown, unlike any uniform I had seen worn by the Orion army, and it was then I realized that the maroon-and-yellow star emblem stitched on his collar was the symbol of the Ursans. He cried as his bloody face was stomped on.
“I surrender!” the soldier yelled. But the men continued to strike him.
One of the assailants shouted, “Hold him down!” and the second man pinned the arms of the soldier.
The Ursan screamed in terror, begging for them to stop. The first man then raised his knee and drove all his leg strength into the enemy. I heard the soldier let out a gut-wrenching scream. It was the loudest scream I had ever heard in my life, and I felt pity for the Ursan. I wished the men had just stopped or put him out of his misery, but they continued punching and kicking the soldier with each hit, I heard something crack or break.
A sickly feeling came to me as I witnessed this and did nothing about it. What was I supposed to do? I was much smaller than the two men – I couldn’t possibly intervene. They continued stomping him, I thought about how every other bone in his body must have been shattered.
The MPs arrived at last in their white armbands and restrained the attackers. The men did not resist while they were detained, but the Ursan lay against the wall, bloodied and scraped. One MP crouched down to check his pulse as the soldier whimpered in pain and fear.
“We’ve got an injured one!” the MP notified his partners. “Go get the doc!”
One of them ran back from where they came, disappearing into the smoke that filled the streets. Then the Ursan began to have a seizure. His eyes rolled into the back of his head while coughing blood.
“Shit!” the MP muttered. He had no idea what to do, so he tried to hold the soldier still, unfortunately to no effect.
Then a voice next to me boomed, “Move away, sonny.” I was startled and turned to see that another MP had been standing right next to me, peering down at me with an obstructed face - his gray smoke mask covered half of his head, and the white helmet he wore shaded his eyes. I obeyed the MP’s order and ran back home without the groceries.
The local papers the next day told of an Ursan soldier who had deserted his army out of fear for his life. He tried to surrender, but the men he talked to were filled with so much hatred for the enemy that they intended to kill the deserter. The Ursan went into shock and did not survive the attack.
I was surprised how I could feel sympathetic toward a man from the country that we were at war with. He was human, just like the rest of us, and wanted to stay alive. The soldier strayed away from his evil nation and came to us for a chance to be free, but he was denied that opportunity. I felt uneasy for a couple of days after that encounter, having never seen such violence before. Previously, I would sometimes witness fights occur at school, but nothing of a deadly scale. I couldn’t imagine what Father had to see on the battlefield.
Another month later, the army gave each home an “AFD,” or Air Filtration Device, just like the one Mr. Greenberg had. We were to turn these on if too much smoke seeped into our house. It was a white metal box with two open valves for intake and exhaust, welded on two metal bars. The machine was heavy, weighing about as much as a small table. It caused frequent blackouts, and a few devices in other households had actually malfunctioned and caught fire. We would hear the shouts of firefighters as they extinguished the flames while under the smoke from the oil fields. Unsure about the reliability of the AFD, Mother decided to use it less often.
May, June, July. Summer was here again. Most of my time was spent reading books I’d already read and teaching mathematics to Sarah. There was nothing we could do but wait out the smoke at this point.
While cleaning out the cupboard under the staircase, I came across an old dusty book. Its front cover was torn off, and the pages were yellow and aged. Flipping the book over, there was faded text on the maroon back cover which read Sagia Alpha Library. Sagia was a larger city a few miles south of our town that was also affected by the smoke from the oil fires, though not as heavily. I guessed the book belonged to Father and he never returned it to the city’s library. I brushed the dirt particles off the cover and brought it upstairs to my room. I didn’t know what the book was about, but at least it was something new for me to read.
“What’s that?” Sarah asked as she saw the book. She was on her bed drawing something.
“I’m about to find out,” I replied. “I just found this in the cupboard.”
“Tell me if it’s good.”
The front page, exposed due to the lack of a cover, was blank. Flipping the page, a title was printed in bold capital letters, From Kingdom To Republic.
“I think it’s about Orion's history,” I said to Sarah while still looking at the pages.
The next page had a painted portrait of King Alnilam, with much more visible detail than the plaza’s statue. He wore a tall crown and several necklaces, which I made out to be golden, and on the opposite side, the book began with a description of the Orion Kingdom’s rise.
The monarch was a very rich man, surpassing the wealth of businessmen of the current era, but there was no recorded history of how he obtained his gold. Some historians believed Alnilam was the cause of the lack of minerals in the Nock Peninsula, where the Kingdom’s first territory was situated. The King spread his riches toward the north and east, growing his state through the support of the common people. I would’ve thought he was a tyrant, but the book stated otherwise, claiming the King loved his people. The monarch walked in the streets of his towns rather than residing in the royal palace. He would have carts of gold coins follow him on some days, and wherever he saw a beggar on the street, Alnilam gave them seventy pieces. The King supported the businesses of the poverty-stricken districts, heard the opposition's complaints, and even lived among the poor on several occasions. He was truly a man of the people.
Unfortunately, the King became sick after living with the poor. After recovering, he was intent on cleaning the impoverished sides of his kingdom, wishing for all his people, regardless of status, to have equal footing with the nobles. But his actions stirred anger among the elite, and he was assassinated through a poisoned cup.
I skimmed through the rest of the section and flipped to a page about the Republic. The Orion Kingdom was declared the Orion Republic in the 1800s, and a republican government replaced the monarchy. No longer would people need to fear the possibility of tyrants like the two kings who came after Alnilam. The Republic also split the country into several smaller districts, each with its own sovereignty. However, the republican government’s laws were to be in effect in all districts.
A distant popping coming from outside interrupted my focus. The pops came back! I rushed to the window and pulled the curtain aside, but all I could see was the gray blanket of smog. I heard explosions happening near our town again. Did the Ursans push us back south?
Seconds later, wailing sirens filled the streets as MP cars rushed toward the popping sounds. Sarah jumped out of her bed and stood next to me, looking out the window as I did. Several medical trucks followed behind the MPs, with a large red six-pointed cross painted on their sides. They disappeared into the smoke as they drove away. A large fire engine then rolled across the street, but it did not have its sirens on. I watched as two firefighters hung onto the side of the truck, wearing yellow helmets, goggles, and smoke masks. They, too, disappeared.
That night, the popping ceased. An army officer knocked on our door, and Mother answered. Sarah and I stood behind her.
“Hello, ma’am,” greeted the officer, his voice muffled by his smoke mask. His uniform was dirtied by black splotches of soot. His revolver belt was also missing, which was unusual for an army officer.
“Good evening,” Mother replied. “Is there something going on?”
“Yes, in fact, that’s what I’m here to tell you about.”
She stared at the man, waiting for his explanation.
The officer blinked. “Uh, the army is currently trying to stop the fires at the oil wells. The explosions you may have heard were the result of our attempts to seal the wells with dynamite.” He hesitated for a second. “Unfortunately, they just made the problem worse.”
Mother furled her eyebrows and opened her mouth to speak.
The officer continued before she could say anything. “But fret not! The army has the situation under control and we are figuring out a way to close the wells safely.”
“You’d better,” Mother snapped. “We’re tired of living with this smog. It’s slowly killing us!”
“I understand, madam. Our attempts should be successful within the next couple days, and the smoke will disappear within, uh, the next month.”
“Another month?” she scoffed.
“Yes, ma’am. It will take time for the smoke to completely disappear,” he explained. “You all have a good night, now. I’ve got several other houses to notify.”
The officer rushed off before Mother could retort him any further.
In August of 1905, sixteen months after the start of the fires, news arrived of the war’s end. We won, and the Ursans were off our lands.
But that officer had lied; the smoke did not disappear.
And Father still had not returned. Was he dead? I had weak doubts. If he were dead, someone would come to our home to tell us. We had not seen the sun in a year, and Sarah spent two birthdays stuck in our house because of the smoke.
No. Not because of the smoke. The Ursans did this.
I became increasingly worried about Father. It felt like someone took out a part of my heart. I couldn’t accept the chance that he was dead. Other soldiers had returned to our town, some in bandages or crutches, but Father hadn’t. Where was he?
The neighbors next door were told of their son’s death and for the next two nights, I could hear a woman sobbing uncontrollably. Some houses were filled with joy as their boys had returned alive, and others were filled with misery as the news of dead sons and husbands made their way to their ears. Yet no officer came to our door to report Father’s death, days after the war ended. This was the only hope I had that he was still alive somewhere.
Weeks passed by, and still no word. But at last, the day I dreaded came. I watched from the upstairs window as an army truck pulled along the curb in front of our house. One officer with his peaked cap exited from the truck’s right and walked toward our door. My heart began to beat quickly as I ran down and waited next to the bottom of the stairs.
Knock, knock, knock. The clacks from the door seemed to echo through the entire house. Mother was in the kitchen preparing breakfast but stopped and walked toward the front door. I was scared about what I might hear next.
She opened the door and greeted the officer. I could not hear their conversation, so I kept looking at Mother’s body language and facial expressions to figure out if the news was bad. After a minute, she nodded, and the officer walked back to his truck. Mother left the door open and stood aside. She looked at me but didn’t seem distressed, instead smiling at me.
The officer returned and carried a box into our house. He set it down near the kitchen table with a metallic clang. He made a little wave at me as he walked back toward the door.
“You should help your mother unpack that box,” the officer said to me. “The new machine is still as heavy as the old; she’ll need a strong boy like you to install it.”
He walked out as he said “good day” to Mother, and the door was shut behind him. I felt relieved knowing that the man hadn’t come to report Father’s death, but I should have asked him about the matter before he left.
I opened the box to find out that it was a newer model of the AFD. A leaflet was included in the package, which labeled its improved mechanisms.
“They didn’t just give me that for free like the first one,” Mother said as she walked back into the kitchen. “It cost a quarter of our savings just to get it, so be careful with it.”
The new AFD ran more quietly and had a sleeker design. It no longer looked like a machine put together with scrap but actually refined. We were able to keep it running most of the day without worrying about blackouts or fires.
Sarah could not wait any longer to be outside. She had stayed confined in our house all this time and begged to go outside with me on my next trip. I kept telling Sarah the smoke would worsen her breathing, but she tried every way to convince me that she’d be fine while wearing a smoke mask.
“Ask Mom first,” I said.
“But you know she’ll say no!” Sarah complained.
I sighed. “You really want to be outside?”
Sarah nodded. “Yes, Petey. You’ve been able to go out, and even Mom sometimes. I haven’t gone out since the smoke came! I’ve been bored staying inside all year!”
“Don’t you think I have been too? It’s not great to be outside right now.”
She hesitated, then walked and sat on her bed. I watched as she started to tear up. She sniffed and wiped her eyes.
“Sarah,” I said as I sat next to her. I held her hand. “If you really want to go, you can come with me tomorrow.”
“Really?” she asked, a tear running down her cheek.
“I’ll try to convince Mom, but just know, the streets are not like what they were before.”
She hugged me, and I felt her warm and wet face against my shoulder. “Thanks, Petey.”
I was able to convince Mother to let Sarah come with me, with the exception that we didn’t stay out for too long and Sarah had to wear her smoke mask at all times. When I told Sarah the news, she was filled with glee. I wasn’t so sure that she should be feeling that way because it really wasn’t any better outside than inside the house.
Upon leaving for my next trip to Mr. Greenberg’s, Sarah stepped outside the house for the first time in a year. Her smoke mask was fitted loosely around her small head, but I helped to tie the rear straps, tightening it securely. We walked out onto the street, and Sarah looked around anxiously. I could tell that this was not what she had expected.
Stopping by the plaza, which was in an even worse condition than when I last visited, I looked in awe at the large tree in the corner. It looked beyond dead – ghoulish and rotting. The tall tree had no leaves and was completely black as if it was burnt. But it wasn’t burnt; what covered the bark was a thick layer of soot and black mold. The branches reached out into the sky as if the tree was a hand coming out of the ground, trying to grasp for help.
Sarah tilted her head down, peering at the grass patch that was now dark brown and black. Every tulip which had grown in between the blades of grass ceased to exist - what had been left was a flat and lifeless blotch of murky dirt. She frowned at the sight of the dead body of nature and began to cry.
“Hey, Sarah,” I said as I wrapped my arms around her. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
While hugging her, I could understand what she felt. Sarah loved the outdoors and nature. To see something she loved very much destroyed broke her heart.
“Do you want to go home?” I asked. She nodded while gripping me tightly.
Once we returned, Sarah stayed tucked into her blanket for the rest of the evening. She kept staring blankly out the window the whole time.
The next morning, I woke up to find Sarah sleeping behind me, her arm hugging my chest.
I continued to read From Kingdom To Republic. For most of my time in history class, I had learned about events on the Centauran continent, located an ocean away from Orion. They had more conflicts than we ever did, but it was interesting to learn more about my own country’s history in this book.
The Orion Republic continued its expansion towards the east of the Hydran continent, where the Kingdom of Gemina resided. That country had refused to be taken under Orion’s wing and fought savagely to keep their lands, so Orion had no choice but to leave them alone. However, when a civil war erupted in Gemina a decade later, the opportunity was taken to intervene and annex the territory, thus creating the Gemina District under Orion. I wondered if the Geminans hated us. I had never been to the east coast.
Reading the last section surprised me – the Ursans had a whole chapter for themselves in a textbook about Orion. In 1842, they came from the northern seas and quickly invaded the Canis and Circinia districts. The Orionites were able to fend off the Ursans and regained the Circinia District, later negotiating a treaty to stop fighting. The book ended there.
That couldn’t be the end. I thought, What happened in the next half-century? Did the Ursans really keep our territories for that long? Then, I noticed the book was published in 1850; it was old and did not have present information. Disappointed, I closed the textbook and put it under my bed.
It felt depressing to continue living under the smoke, even as the war had ended. Sarah had come to terms with the fact that we were going to live like this for a while longer. She didn’t care anymore and had lost her joyful energy. We did practically nothing for a long time as the smoke kept us trapped indoors.
Army representatives and officers would come and go to tell us the progress they had made in extinguishing the oil fires. Despite their efforts, the smoke did not become thinner. Soot covered the streets, and the blackish-gray air persisted.
One day, someone knocked on our door. I was certain it was another officer, but upon opening the door, a soldier stood at the step. His head was half-covered in bandages, which also went over one eye. He wore a side cap and a dirtied tan uniform. The man towered over me, and his skin had splotches of reddish scars. I backed away, astonished by his monster-like appearance.
The soldier stepped into our house and clutched me. I was about to yell for help, but then he said, “Peter.” He did not grab me aggressively but rather hugged me tightly. “I missed you, Peter.”
It was then I realized the unknown man was Father. “Dad?” I said quietly. Water began to well up in my eyes as I hugged him back. He did not let go of me for a long time. Father’s skin felt rough, accompanied by a strong smell of tar. I couldn’t believe he was back after all this time.
Sarah walked in and stopped. She stared at Father, not recognizing him immediately as I did. But she wasn’t afraid and walked toward him – Father embraced Sarah in his arms and said, “It’s me, Sarah, it’s daddy.” She began to cry as Father, the man who had been gone for two years, held the both of us. “It’s okay,” Father said.
“John?” Mother stammered. She came out of her room to check who had knocked, only to find Father hugging Sarah and me. He approached Mother, wrapping his arms around her as he had done to us.
“What happened to you, John?” she cried, seeing Father’s battle scars.
“It’ll heal, Marie. Don’t worry.”
Mother kissed him for a few seconds. Then she asked while in tears, “Where were you?”
After what felt like an hour of hugging Father, we let him get cleaned up and dressed back into civilian clothing. He would tell us in the dining room about what he saw during the war. One odd thing that he asked was for the candles in the room to be put out.
“Those bastards lit the oil on fire when they retreated,” Father said.
“Language,” said Mother.
“Sorry. Anyways, they also laid a lot of landmines when they retreated, and I mean a lot. I don’t know how they did it, but they covered almost every yard of that desert with a mine. Something or someone blew up every minute.”
He stopped talking. He was staring blankly at the wall.
“Dad?” I said.
Father looked at me, and I peered into his eyes. They were empty. Soulless. He sniffed and continued.
“Lot of my friends died,” he said with a shaky voice. “Not to landmines, but to oil. They were blinded and poisoned by the fumes. It rained oil wherever we went.”
He stopped again.
“I think I'll go rest,” Father said, and quickly walked to his bedroom. Mother accompanied him.
The oil fires did not stop until a year after the war’s end. Father’s injuries healed, but he was blind in one eye. During the war, his army platoon attempted to seal a burning oil well. Without first putting out the flames as trained firefighters had done, a steel cover was lifted over the hole of the well. It over-pressured and exploded, sending heavy bits of steel flying everywhere and killing those close to the well, as well as scorching Father. He was transported to a hospital camp, where he stayed for three weeks. Soon enough, the oil fire smoke began suffocating the patients in the camp, so they and Father were relocated to another hospital in a border city. He would spend the rest of the war recuperating.
I was able to see photographs taken during the war at an exhibit in the town’s library. Most of the black-and-white images were blurred with smoke, but a few clear shots showcased the environment of the battlefield. There were burning geysers of oil, the ground was on fire, and soldiers were covered in soot and black liquid. The photos seemed to give a visual of what Hell would be like.
One photo revealed to me the brutal degree of the war. In it, a convoy of military trucks drove away from the burning oil geysers in the background, and in those trucks were piles of dead bodies, burnt and mutilated beyond recognition. The trucks looked like they were carrying animal meat rather than dead bodies. Soldiers marched alongside the convoy with ragged and oil-soaked clothing; some did not have their helmets or gear on. This photograph stuck in my mind for decades after the war – I was sure Father had seen worse things during combat.
Word went around that the Ursans had evacuated back to their mainland and the Orion Navy had let them escape, much to my confusion and disappointment. A new country was forming from the territories Ursa used to control, and they were calling themselves the Hydrus Commonwealth. It surprised me that the Orion government didn’t try to take more land after the war as they had previously done.
However, the smoke still did not fade away, so a few days after Father returned home, he and Mother told Sarah and me to pack our belongings. With a surplus army truck borrowed from one of his platoon friends, we moved south to Venatia, the capital city of Orion.
And as the smoke dissolved away the further we drove, I saw the sun for the first time in two years. I grinned as I felt the sun's heat on my skin and its light shining in my eyes. The world looked brighter than ever before.
These moments, from the start of the smoke to the move to Venatia, would remain a clear memory for the rest of my life. A journalist had asked me in 1932 about my experiences, twenty-seven years after the war, which they had called the “Grease Wars.” The journalist, named Ms. Lowell, attempted to interview a few other war veterans, but they refused to share their stories. Her purpose in interviewing these ex-soldiers was for an article about the effects of combat; she was an avid anti-war activist. During this time, another conflict broke out in Centaura, and the Orion government was split on the decision to intervene. Ms. Lowell was one of several millions of citizens who advocated against intervention, arguing that the interests of the Centauran countries did not align with Orion’s.
War is a horrible thing, not just for the soldiers on the frontlines but also for the civilians. I was part of that civilian group in 1904, which is why I had been eager to share my story with the journalist. Now, Ms. Lowell was not born until after the Grease Wars, so she would never know the true extent of the suffering endured during the conflict. Nevertheless, she listened attentively as I told her my account.
“Thank you, Mr. Millan,” the 25-year-old journalist said to me after the interview. I shook her hand and left the building.
Out on the sidewalks of Venatia, I was surrounded by several office structures that reached into the sky and several businessmen and women walking about. More automobiles with tuned engines filled the city’s streets than the roads of my hometown before. But looking up, past the towering concrete buildings and the noises of an advanced society, to see the blue expanse, I saw that it was speckled with clouds and illuminated by a bright white star hanging overhead – a fire in the sky.
| Summer's End | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
1912
Aeminiva-Ananteria Express
South of Lake Spekulum
“During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man.”
Unknown
The boy didn’t know much, for he was only four years of age. But he knew he hated being in a train carriage. Even in a closed coach compartment he struggled to breathe the noxious air, which was stuffy and smelled of smoke from the pipes the grown-ups used. Not long ago, in sheer curiosity, he’d put an unattended one in his mouth. The feeling was so awful he coughed on the floor and cried. He cried again right after when Lady Valeria yelled at him for doing something “only for grown-ups”. He didn’t like it when Lady Valeria yelled at him, far more than he did the smoke. The smoke always went away. The sting of crying lingered with the sense of failure and wrongdoing. It made him feel inadequate, unbecoming of a prince. That wouldn’t do. He had to be strong, like father and grandfather.
Presently, Lady Valeria was speaking to his mother, who was trying to calm a fussy Ezra in her lap. His brother had been cranky the entire morning and was even more restless than he was. It was times like this that needed both his governess and his mother’s full attention. But the smell was too much. He slowly stepped over to their side and stood upright.
“Mother, Lady Valeria,” he asked them. “May I go to the observation car?” He put on his best smile, one he knew earned adoration from most. Even Lady Valeria occasionally fell for its charms. He remained still, waiting for a response as the two turned towards him.
His mother showed no emotion, only a hint of tiredness. Lady Valeria’s face, meanwhile, had the slightest scowl. Now there was something he knew. The smile hadn’t worked. She wouldn’t yell, but she certainly wasn’t pleased.
“Kaden Tau,” she said. “Haven’t I taught you not to interrupt when adults are speaking?”
He nodded sheepishly. “Yes, Lady Valeria. I’m sorry.”
“Then you should know the answer is no. Patience is a virtue that a prince needs. Sit down and wait.”
He sat back in his seat, resting his chin on his hand and looking around for something to do. He tried to hide the disappointment on his face. He was bored, and the stench grew stronger by the second, probably from the fat man in the compartment across the hall. He didn’t dare say that out loud. He sniffled and rubbed his nose, then tried, for a moment, to lay down on his seat before catching himself. He couldn’t do that. It was boorish.
“Kaden?” His mother’s voice, soft and so rarely heard, caught his attention at once. “Would you like to take your brother to the observation car?”
He nearly lept out of his seat, a surge of life pouring into him. “Of course!” he said. He reached over to take his brother’s hand as his mother let him down.
Just as he grasped for the door, his mother spoke again. “You will not be going alone, do you understand?” She stepped out into the hall with them. There were a pair of guards posted by their doors, whom he recognized as Falstaff and Whelan. They had the golden collars with the scorpion on them, the mark of the Kustodes Viatoris. “Sergeant, do you know which of your fellows are currently idle?”
“Yes, your majesty,” Whelan said. “Shall I summon them?”
“A pair will do. Good men, if you will.”
“As you command.” He marched off to a different car, returning a few minutes later with two new guards in tow. One was very tall, and the other was large, but not fat. He looked strong. Both bowed and stood at attention. Sergeant Whelan motioned to the tall man. “Your majesty, I present to you, Corporals Staller and Arkwright.”
“Your majesty,” they greeted his mother, “and esteemed princes. We are at your service.”
His mother looked at them for a moment, scanning them. “Gentlemen,” she said, “would you be so kind as to watch over my sons in the observation car?”
The guards froze for a moment, their eyes moving to look at each other. Luka broke the silence. “Of course, your majesty. It would be the highest honor to guard our princes as they… admire the beauty of our Imperium.”
His mother nodded. “Thank you both. Truly. Kaden, Ezra, promise me this. You are both to stay with them and listen to them. Do not run off.”
“Yes, mother,” Kaden said. Ezra replied in kind.
“I want both of you back before sunset. And gentlemen,” she said, looking at the guards. “I’ll put a good word in for you both after.”
They both seemed particularly happy to hear the last part. “No trouble at all, your majesty.”
“Wonderful! Now, have fun, you two, and remember what you promised me.”
They marched down towards the observation car, the guards flanking them. Kaden knew all of the other passengers were gentlemen and ladies of repute. There was little–if any–danger from them.
He turned to the guard on his side, the taller one of the pair. “What’s your name, corporal?”
“Luka, my prince. Luka Staller.”
“And what about you?” he asked the other guard. Ezra had latched onto the man’s pant leg as he walked, which the man didn’t seem to mind.
“My given name is Kaden, my prince.” He paused for a moment. “Ah, same as yours.”
“May we call you by those names?”
“Of course, my prince. It is your prerogative to call us whatever you please.”
“What does that word mean?” he asked. It was one he hadn’t heard before.
“It means it is your right.”
There was another pair of guards at the observation car’s entrance, who waved the four of them thoroughly with a courteous smile. The back of the train was a thing of beauty, with great panes of glass surrounding most of the car. The afternoon skies were clear and the sun shone through the windows, leaving them gleaming like jewels. The other passengers inside seemed to be at peace, basking in the view. They rose to their feet when the princes came in, Luka setting them at ease.
The princes took their seats along the right side of the cabin, the guards standing by them.
“Kaden look!” Ezra said. “Bird! Bird!”
His little brother’s fondness for birds was a well-established trait. His sister Maya, currently with their father onboard a different train, liked to say Ezra inherited it from their maternal side of the family.
Kaden looked over to where Ezra was pointing. Soaring above was a pretty bird, red and orange with a streak of gold. Just like their flag.
“Yes, my prince,” the shorter guard replied. “You have a good eye. Those birds are called parrots.” He lowered his gaze to see Kaden looking at the birds too. “Oh, my apologies. You meant to draw your royal brother’s attention. Forgive my presumptuousness.”
Ezra giggled. “Big word. But you big,” he said. “So you Big Kaden, and brother is Kaden.”
“I think that would be a wonderful arrangement, my prince.”
“Why Big Kaden have same name as brother Kaden?”
“My father was named Kaden,” Big Kaden said. “And his father and grandfather were named Kaden too. In fact, I am the seventh one in my family.”
“Too many Kadens,” Ezra said.
“I’ll consider naming my son something different, my prince.”
Kaden saw Luka stifle a laugh before speaking. “There should be a river coming up soon, my princes. The Rubikon, named so for its reddish color. I’m sure you’d both be interested in seeing it.”
“Red river!” Ezra said.
The train arrived between a series of hills. Kaden could see them laid thick with trees, birds flying around them, nesting and singing. Ezra looked enthralled by the sight and cheered. Big Kaden pointed out different birds for him, each one more intriguing and colorful than the last.
“You know a lot about birds, corporal,” Kaden said.
“Birdwatching is a hobby of mine, my prince,” Big Kaden replied. “It's hard to find birds other than pigeons in Ananteria, so I enjoy the opportunity to leave the city.”
“Big bird!” Ezra said. Everyone turned to look at it. He was right. It was an incredibly large bird, but quickly they realized it was something else.
“That’s no bird, my prince. It’s a plane!” Big Kaden said.
“Plane?”
“They’re a new kind of vehicle that lets you fly. Like a bird.”
“Me fly?”
“You could, yes, if you were aboard a plane.”
Ezra began hopping up and down excitedly. “I want plane! I want plane!”
Big Kaden chuckled. “One day, my prince. One day I’m sure you’ll get to fly in one.”
The plane began to move out of sight above the observation car. Ezra tugged at the corporal’s shirt sleeve frantically. “Plane leaving!”
The corporal looked awkwardly at his fellow guard for a moment. “We may be able to keep seeing it from the dining car, my prince. Shall we go there?”
Ezra nodded eagerly as Big Kaden looked over to his fellow for confirmation.
“I’ll keep watch over Prince Kaden,” Luka replied.
Ezra waddled along with Big Kaden back into the mass of passenger cars. Luka and Kaden sat in silence, watching the hills pass by. Kaden glanced at the guard, who had a pensive look on his face as he scanned the hills.
“Is something wrong, corporal?”
Luka’s head turned like a pivot. “It’s nothing, my prince. Just keeping watch.”
A jolt from the front shuddered through the train, shaking it violently and nearly throwing them both out of their seats. A sound rumbled through like thunder. Then everything fell silent. The birds stopped singing, the clicking of the rails was gone. The train had stopped. The other passengers began murmuring to each other.
“What was that?” Kaden asked.
“I’m not sure, my prince,” Luka said. The corporal looked around cautiously. “A noise like that means the engine may have burst.”
“Will everyone be okay?”
“I certainly hope so. We need not worry. If anything serious has happened, I’m sure we’ll be sent help in no time.”
A burst of sharp, clanking noises rang out. Then another, and another. Several, from all around. Luka’s expression turned dark as the glass shattered around them. Kaden was no fool. They were being attacked. Those were the sounds of machine guns. He’d heard shooting before, when his family attended demonstrations for the Army. But who would dare attack them? And why?
“Everyone stay down! Away from the windows!” Luka hissed. He lept at Kaden, pushing him down off the seat and onto the floor as the bullets found their mark on the observation car. Kaden’s head turned away from the windows towards the rest of the carriage as Luka covered him.
Hot lead screeched as it met cold steel, sparking through the frames of the train and drawing noises of fear from its inhabitants. The first death that Kaden Tau saw was a man knocked off his feet, a salvo of red erupting from his chest as he spun around onto the floor.
The second and third were an elderly gentleman and lady, both embracing each other, seeming out of habit, before a crimson hole bloomed where their shoulders were. He saw fear engrave itself into their face before the rest of the burst tore them to pieces.
He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth, biting into his cheek on accident and tasting blood. Luka, meanwhile, covered him, shielding him as best as he could.
A lull in the shooting gave the pair a moment to breathe. The air felt thick, far worse than the smoke in the other carriages.
“What do we do?” Kaden whimpered.
“We stay low. We can’t let them see us, whoever they are.”
“But what about Ezra? And mother? And Lady Valeria?” And Big Kaden, and Sergeant Whelan, and Corporal Falstaff, and the fat man in the other compartment, an-? The list ran through his mind.
“They’ll be fine, my prince. I’m sure. Sergeant Whelan could tear a man in two with his bare hands. If he’s with your mother and governess, they’re the safest women alive. Arkwright’s a good man. Your brother’s safe with him. Now, I need to keep you safe. Do you understand?”
Kaden nodded.
“Good,” Luka said. The shooting started anew and the bullets raked along the body of the train once more. Kaden covered his ears and pulled himself under the seat. He swore he heard more screams.
Luka grabbed his arm and shook him to attention. “The next time they stop shooting, we’re going to run for the river. If you hold onto me, we can float downstream. There should be towns around the banks.”
Kaden’s eyes widened. “But we can’t leave the rest behind!”
Luka clenched his teeth. “I understand, but you are the Crown Prince’s firstborn. You cannot die here.”
Even if your mother and brother are left behind.
Those words did not need to be said.
A few more seconds passed, then several. Then a minute. He saw Luka’s face turn from grim determination to confusion. The corporal slowly inched over to the shattered window and peeked out just enough that his eye could see over the rim.
He immediately dove back down and turned to Kaden, finger over his lips and eyes sharp with emphasis. The corporal crawled behind a set of seats, motioning Kaden to do the same. Kaden inched his way under the middle row. There was the slightest sliver of room to see from there, and he saw why Luka had reacted that way.
Two men dressed in green were circling the observation car. Their clothes were ragged and dirty, their faces stained with soil and covered in uneven beards. They each wore a hat–no, helmets. Shaped like a turtle’s shell and covered in a net. They carried a gun he didn’t recognize. It was strange, with most of the steel on the bottom instead of the top.
One climbed into the car through a broken window, looking around. He stepped cautiously over the broken glass and began looking around the interior, prodding at the dead with his bayonet. Kaden held his breath as he saw him approach a man laying on the floor. He clutched at his stomach, wheezing.
“Please, mercy! I never did anything to yo-”
The bayonet thrust into his chest and silenced him. The green man’s face betrayed no emotion. A few shots rang out in the distance, further up along the train, making him pause for a second. He looked outside the carriage towards his companion. They said something he struggled to make out.
Then the man in green walked towards where he was hiding. The bloodied bayonet hovered above the seats, dripping. A drop fell next to him, splattering on the floor. He saw a small reflection of his face in it and gulped. The moment he heard himself swallow, time stopped. The bayonet turned, he looked up and saw the man’s head turn towards him. His face changed thrice in a few seconds. First, confusion and worry, then, as their eyes met, red to hazel, a smile creeped into his face as the barrel hovered above Kaden’s forehead.
Luka slammed into the man like a pouncing lioness, one arm pushing at the man’s throat and the other twisting the barrel away from Kaden. “RUN!” he yelled.
He tried to stand, all of his might pouring into his legs as he willed them to move. But they wouldn’t. He beat at his legs, trying to bring feeling back into them. No use.
Luka leveraged the arm around the other man’s throat to slam him against the wall, disorienting him enough to wrest the rifle from his hands. There was no hesitation in putting the barrel against his chest and firing. Bits of the man sprayed out, lung, heart, and spine, all churned into a pink splash across the floor.
One down, one more to go. He swung the rifle towards the dead man’s surviving companion and lifted his open palm towards the bolt. Training and duty overrode all fear. His movement was perfect, not an inch of motion wasted. But his hand did not catch the nonexistent bolt. He looked at the rifle, quickly, and realized his error. He flicked his hand down, hooking into the lever and starting to push down.
The shot punched through Luka’s upper left chest, sending him stumbling back and spitting out all the air in his lungs. He felt the lever hit its nadir and yanked it up, hearing the click of a newly chambered round. His bore aligned with the man’s torso just as they chambered a new round of their own.
Two shots rang out, only the heavens sure of who was first to fire. Luka fell on his rear, a hand raised to his throat as his lifeblood welled between his fingers. The other man, however, stood there. Kaden felt a lump in his throat as the man lifted his gun and glanced at it. A face of annoyance appeared on his face, quickly turning to fury. He dashed towards the train and began climbing into the carriage through the same window his companion had. As his gun came into view, Kaden saw why he hadn’t shot back. The middle of the gun has warped, metal twisted out like a jagged flower.
A man’s head came into view. The stare burned into Kaden’s soul while turning his blood to ice. The prince reached towards the gun Luka had dropped as the man shouted in Librae, pulling himself up. Accent or not, he understood it all.
“Verminspawn! Crow’s bastard!”
A shot rang out from the entrance of the observation car, jolting him. He slumped over the window, his face tilted and barely looking ahead as blood began to run down the wall. Kaden snapped towards the door to see a few of his family guards standing there. Sergeant Whelan’s gun smoked as he typed it pointed at the would-be assassin. The rest, too, had their weapons drawn, eyes scanning the horizon. One ran over to tend to Luka, eyes wide with worry turning swiftly to sorrow.
Seconds later, after an eternity had passed, one guard turned to him. “Are you hurt, my prince?”
He stood there for a moment. Looking at the man. “No,” he wanted to say. “No, I’m not.” He should have said these things. But he didn’t.
Instead, he remained still as stone. Something ran down his face. Blood? No, he wasn’t hurt. They’d never even touched him. He ran his hand along his cheek. It was clear. Water? His vision blurred, he felt a hiccup in his throat as the guard’s face smeared in his sight.
He was crying. He couldn’t cry! Not here, not in front of all these men. Unbecoming of a prince, shameful and weak! But he did. He cried and shouted, and wouldn’t stop until his mother came and picked him up. She didn’t yell at him. She said nothing, and carried him back inside. He never figured out when he stopped. Perhaps he never did.
| CASSIUS | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
“So, you spell it with a ‘C’ and not a ‘K’?” asked Porter. “Wouldn’t that mean your name’s pronounced ‘Sass-ee-uhs’?”
“No, it’s pronounced like how you normally would,” I replied.
“Well, then why wouldn’t you use a ‘K’ instead?”
“First, my parents named me; I had no say. Second, the same reason why we use ‘C’ and ‘S’. Why do we use both if they’re pronounced the same way?”
The three other men in the foxhole gave the question some thought. After a few seconds, Davis spoke out.
“I know what we’ll call you,” he began. “Sassy. Get it? Like the short name Kassie, except you spell it with a ‘C’, so it’s Sassy!”
I sighed. “Don’t call me that.”
“Sounds like you’re gettin’ a little sassy now.”
“Shut your mouth,” I said, cringing. I didn’t want to say anything more that would make that nickname a permanent title. The others in the foxhole were grinning stupidly, so they probably had it in their minds to keep it.
“Just fuckin’ around with you. We’ll think of a better name,” Porter said. “Maybe.” He then let out a chuckle, probably still thinking about “Sassy” in his head. I couldn’t believe this man was my squad leader.
I returned to my foxhole, where my assistant gunner was curled up. Kaelius was reading a book, her eyelids heavy and almost closed.
“Why don’t you get some shut-eye?” I said as I crouched down in the hole.
“This book is too intriguing,” she answered, not even lifting her eyes from the page.
“You don’t look very intrigued.”
Her eyes finally moved to look at me. They had a red tint, almost longing for sleep. I was unsure why she had kept herself awake.
“Would you like to know what I’m reading?” she asked, ignoring her tiredness.
“No. I need to get some rest,” I replied. I unbuckled my helmet and fell flat on my back against the unearthed soil of the foxhole. My eyelids seemed to shut by themselves.
“Okay, well, see you in the morning.”
A page flipped.
“Kaelius,” I muttered, my eyes still closed. “Put that book away and go to sleep.”
“Fine,” she said. I could sense some disdain from her movement as she tucked away the novel and shuffled into a sleeping position.
The next morning, I awoke to see Kaelius sitting up cross-legged, the light-tan face of the 18-year-old looking directly at me. Her black hair was neatly tied back in a bun.
“Have you been watching me sleep?” I grumbled. My hand rubbed my right eye.
“Hm? Oh, no, I wasn’t doing that,” she explained. “I woke up early and really don’t have anything to do until everyone else wakes up.”
“Okay, well you don’t have to fuckin’ sit right in front of me and stare at me like that.”
She scoffed. “Well, what else was I supposed to do? We share this hole and it’s not exactly the most spacious place to be.”
“Look somewhere else, it’s not that hard!”
“Wow, okay, sorry. Didn’t know you’d be so damn pissed off about it.”
“No— that’s not what I mean, alright? Just surprised me to see you right there, first thing when I wake up.” I rubbed both of my eyes. “What time is it?”
“Uh, I’m not exactly sure. But everyone else is still asleep.”
I took a deep breath. The sun had begun to shine, cresting over the mountains to the east. The birds in the shallow forest surrounding our camp had started chirping. As I glanced around, I caught myself looking at her face, and she was looking right back at me. Her eyebrows were furrowed.
“Now you’re the one who’s staring,” Kaelius muttered.
In the afternoon, I was stuck in the chow line with Davis. Porter and Rooster were a few men behind us, so we would get our lunch before they did. I wasn’t looking forward to what was being served – a poorly cooked potato stew – but it was all the cooks could come up with.
“So, how’s your little girlfriend?” Davis whispered.
“Who, Kaelius?” I turned my head to see her reading her book in our foxhole some few yards away. “She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Whatever you say…”
I decided to ignore the obvious taunting. “Startin’ to get on my nerves a bit. She’s very…” My brain thought of a word to describe her, “Idle. It doesn’t feel like she does much.”
“The frontline’s no place for a girl like her. I wouldn’t blame her for being so lost.”
“She’s not lost – I wouldn’t say that. She has some idea of what she’s doing.”
Davis took a sip from his cup. “The rest of the platoon doesn’t think so.”
“Who cares? They have their own shit to deal with in their squads, and we have ours. It’s none of their business to care so much about a woman who, should I mention, is on our side.”
“You seem very defensive of her,” Davis grinned.
“I’m not defensive, it’s just that she’s fuckin’ stuck with us and we gotta make do,” I explained. “Not like I wanted her to be my assistant.”
“Yeah, what’s up with that? Why does she get to be the assistant while me and Rooster are ammo bearers?”
“Doesn’t fuckin’ matter, they’re just titles. Push comes to shove, we all get to use the Emma-Gee.”
I obtained two bowls of stew and treaded carefully back to our foxhole. Kaelius saw me approaching and set down her novel before taking one of the bowls from me. “Thanks,” she said.
The bowl felt hot in my hands, so I kept holding it to take advantage of the warmth.
“No spoons?” she wondered.
“No spoons,” I said. “Just drink it from the bowl.” I could tell she wasn’t used to eating out in the field. My guess was, she came from some middle-class family where everything was neat and proper. She ate with table manners, something she’ll have to lose if she wants to eat food out here.
“What about the potatoes?” Kaelius asked. This question definitely confirmed my theory.
“Just eat it however you fuckin’ want. Make a mess, I don’t care. As long as the food’s in your stomach and you aren’t starving,” I instructed her. “And try not to spill anything on our equipment.” The machine gun was tucked under her arms, and several ammunition boxes were leaning against her leg.
“Okay, Sassy,” she snickered.
“Don’t fucking call me that!” I raised my voice. At once, her grin went away.
“Sorry.” Kaelius drank her soup with guilt.
By the time we had finished our lunch, Lieutenant Porter approached our foxhole with a concerned look on his face. “We’re moving into the forest. Don’t bring any boxes with you; Davis and Rooster will bring ammo,” he ordered.
“Yes, Lieutenant,” we both answered.
I admired Lieutenant Porter. He was a good and easy-going man, something not common in officers. But when it came to combat, he really made sure there were no fuck-ups and followed tactics by the book – he expected us to follow his exact orders and nothing less. At least his commands were made simple enough to understand, unlike other officers I’ve heard about.
Once Porter walked away, Kaelius donned her helmet, slung her rifle, and hauled the machine gun’s tripod over her shoulders. “Let’s go,” she said.
As our machine gun section left the camp with two other rifleman squads, we marched in a single-file line with Porter at the front, then Rooster, me, Kaelius, and Davis.
“I cannot fuckin’ believe you told her about that idiotic nickname,” I whispered to Rooster.
Rooster turned his head to the side. “Who said I was the one who told her?”
“Davis wouldn’t. Only you would spread the word. That’s why you're called ‘Rooster’.”
“Forgot about that,” he giggled like a moron. “Still, I don’t get why you’re so annoyed by that name. It’s no big deal.”
Kaelius had apparently overheard and butted into the conversation. “Yeah, Sassy.”
I sighed. I was going to have to keep that nickname.
“Be quiet,” Porter scolded from the front. “You’re all too loud.”
We arrived at our defense point ten minutes later. The other machine gun section had noticed us and began packing their equipment, making room for our squad to set up. In less than sixty seconds, the men had cleared the spot and began walking on the trail back to camp.
One of the men, carrying his squad’s tripod, passed by us. “The fuckin’ whore’s here,” he muttered under his breath.
I turned my head to him, but he was too far down the path before I could say anything. I glanced at Kaelius, who was behind me. She looked at me with confusion, more likely wondering why I was staring at her. Perhaps she didn’t hear the soldier’s comment.
The assistant gunner set down her tripod behind the sandbag emplacement, prompting me to carefully mount the machine gun to the top. Rooster handed Kaelius an ammunition box, which she hastily fixed to the weapon. She then fed the bullet belt into the receiver before I charged the handle back. The machine gun was now ready to fire.
“Have fun watching the trees for an hour,” Kaelius said.
“Hey, hey, we’re taking turns,” I retorted.
My eyes peered over to the left where she was leaning against the sandbags, and to my surprise, she had her novel in her hands! “You don’t go anywhere without that damned book, do you?” I asked.
“It passes the time,” she said.
The other men in our section had holed up to the left and right of the sandbags, facing forward and watching the treeline. The two rifleman squads that came with us were a few meters away, watching the right incline of the forest. There was no sound but the rustling of leaves and Kaelius shifting around every few minutes to make herself more comfortable.
It was very boring. I somehow realized it was better to be at camp doing nothing rather than having to watch our perimeter. Once an hour had passed, I tapped Kaelius on the shoulder.
“Time’s up, your turn,” I said.
She folded the corner of the page she was reading, closed the book, and moved to take control of the machine gun. I sat beside her, still watching the treeline. Her novel was on the ground; I picked it up to inspect it.
“So, what’s this book you’re reading?” I asked.
“Oh, now you want to know about it?” she scoffed.
“I didn’t realize how dull this thing would be. Can I take a look at it?”
“Didn’t know you could read,” she joked.
My hands opened the cover of the book. On the inner page was a hand-written note which I assumed to be from a friend.
Dear Alma,
Happy birthday! I read this novel in January and thought it was–
Before I could even get past the second sentence, Kaelius grabbed the book away from my hands.
“Hey, don’t read that!” she hissed.
“How did you even know what I was looking at?” I asked.
“I can hear you whispering while you’re reading.”
Oops. She flipped the book a few pages forward and handed it back to me. It was the first chapter of the novel.
I didn’t actually bother reading the book. I never had a thing for books, and I certainly wasn’t going to bore myself even more out here. So for an hour, I did absolutely nothing while Kaelius kept watch on the machine gun. I could tell she was getting tired; she most definitely did not get enough sleep last night.
Porter had walked over to me from the right. “We’ll switch out and return to camp in another hour,” he said to me and Kaelius. His head then snapped left to Rooster, who was caught asleep in his hole. Davis noticed the lieutenant and widened his eyes — he began to violently shake Rooster. The sleeping beauty did awaken, and the first thing he saw was Porter’s face glaring at him for falling asleep on watch duty.
“Sorry, Lieutenant,” Rooster gulped as he wiped his forehead. He turned over on his stomach and continued to scan the forest beyond.
“Make sure this cocksucker doesn’t take a nap again,” Porter said to Davis.
“Yes, Lieutenant,” Davis replied.
“Kaelius,” I said. Her head perked up as soon as she heard her name. With my hand, I gestured for her to move over so I could assume control of the machine gun. She shifted to the right and tried to grab her book, which was on the left of the weapon, from under the tripod. It was too far for her to reach, and she gave up with a sigh.
“Can you?” she started. I slid the book under the tripod into her reach. Kaelius grabbed her book and without hesitation, flipped to the page she had marked with a fold.
“So, what did you think of it?” she asked.
“Of what?” I said. She then made a little wave with the novel in her hand. “Oh, yeah, interesting,” I lied.
She immediately saw through my lie. “You didn’t read it, did you?”
“No,” I said guiltily.
“Why did you even ask about it if you weren’t gonna read it?”
“I was more interested in why you keep this book around. You don’t do anything in your spare time but read it.”
“It was a gift from a boy a few years back. I’m very certain he was obsessed with me, but he was just a little odd. I didn’t feel very comfortable around him.”
“Still doesn’t answer my question. Why do you keep it if you don’t like him?”
“Probably because I’ve read everything else back at my parents’ home? This book was the one thing I hadn't read until I got sent here.”
“Is it good, at least?”
“Like I said yesterday, it’s intriguing.”
“You still talk to this boy?”
“No.”
I had no further questions. It was obvious she didn’t want to talk about it, so I stopped asking.
“Movement, movement!” whispered Porter. Kaelius immediately dropped her book and crawled to the other side of the machine gun, crouching and peeking over the attached ammunition box. I focused my eyes on the treeline to watch for movement. My hands tightened their grip on the handle, my forefinger making its way into the trigger guard.
Davis and Rooster had their rifles readied, their eyes shifting around to look for the enemy. Nobody made a sound.
Kaelius was nervously fidgeting with the ammo belt. I slowed my breathing with the hope of hearing my surroundings more clearly.
The next second, a soldier appeared from the bushes a few feet in front of us and stopped dead in his tracks. I saw his face — a young man’s face, his eyes shaded by a Columban helmet. He stood directly in front of the machine gun’s barrel, his expression turning into fear within a split second.
Then his face turned into a deep red mush as I pulled the trigger. The high rounds-per-minute of the machine gun meant that the slightest trigger pull fired at least three bullets.
As soon as I destroyed his head, the soldier’s body fell to the ground. The sound of my gunshots echoed through the forest, followed by counter-fire a second later. Bullets flew overhead from the treeline, and I could see many muzzle flashes among the bushes.
Instinctively, I held down the trigger and swiveled the machine gun around, spraying blindly into the general direction of the gunfire. Porter, Davis, and Rooster were firing their rifles toward the forest, as well as one of the rifleman squads who had come over to support us. Kaelius remained crouched behind the sandbags, sifting the ammunition belt through her hands to make sure the gun didn’t jam.
The machine gun stopped firing, though the enemy gunfire continued. “Empty!” I yelled.
“Davis! Davis! Ammo!” Kaelius screamed. She forcefully detached the empty ammunition box from the machine gun as Davis tossed another box to her. Why didn’t they just keep the ammo near us?
“Load the fucking gun, Kaelius!” I screeched. The bullets kept flying overhead, and some hit the sandbags that protected us.
Kaelius scrambled to attach the new ammunition box. Her hands were shaking, making it difficult for her to properly fasten the box. “Fuck!” she yelled.
“Load it!” I shouted. “Load it! We’re going to fucking die if you don’t load it!”
“Get that machine gun firing!” Porter called out.
“I’m trying, I’m trying!” Kaelius panicked as she accidentally dropped the box. She picked it back up, ducking her head lower in fear of getting hit. Her shaky hands finally fixed the box to the gun, and she began to feed the belt into the receiver. “Set!” she yelled.
I charged the handle back and held down the trigger once again. This time, I tried to aim wherever I saw muzzle flashes. I lifted my finger off, then held it down again, firing in bursts to conserve ammunition.
Rooster began yelling out in pain, but I could not break my focus from the treeline. Kaelius stopped holding the machine gun’s ammo belt and crawled toward Davis and Rooster’s foxhole.
“Get the fuck back here!” I barked. I didn’t want the machine gun to jam. The enemy gunfire didn’t stop, but neither did I.
Kaelius quickly returned with two more ammunition boxes in reserve. She dropped them on the ground and attended to the bullet belt once again. The lid on one of the boxes clattered open, and the belt within spilled onto the dirt.
“Cease fire!” one of the men in the rifle squad shouted. The command was repeated by Porter, cueing me to stop holding the trigger. Upon lifting my hands from the machine gun, I exhaled loudly. It felt like I had held my breath during the entire fight. The machine gun breathed too, smoke rising from the entire length of the barrel. I switched hands, now using my left hand to grip the weapon’s handle. I had to stay ready in case there was more to shoot.
Kaelius was curled up behind the fixed ammunition box, leaning against it with one hand supporting her. She was hyperventilating, breathing so quickly in and out. She looked forward past the sandbags, grasping the rifle that was still slung around her shoulder.
“Everyone alright?” Porter had walked over from the right foxhole, ducking down as he approached. Kaelius gave a thumbs-up without even looking at the lieutenant.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Reyes– Reyes needs a medic,” Kaelius stuttered, referring to Rooster by his actual name. At once, Porter went towards the left foxhole, where Davis was applying pressure to Rooster’s wound with a cloth. He crouched down and inspected the wounded man.
“You’re fine, you’ll live,” our lieutenant said to the ammo bearer. I didn’t see where Rooster was shot, but I assumed it to be somewhere like the arm.
Our shift had ended early, and we found ourselves sitting in the foxholes back at camp half an hour later. Rooster was getting patched up by the medics, and Porter and Davis were in their hole.
Kaelius stared blankly at me, and I returned the gaze.
“I shouldn’t be here,” she started. She buried her head in her knees. “What am I doing here?”
I couldn’t say anything to her, because I had the exact same thoughts.
Kaelius tilted her head up, her mouth still covered by her knees. “I don’t know if it bothers you,” she said. “The fact that we’re all replacements.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Means almost every soldier in the entire company before us was killed.”
“Don’t think about it like that.”
“I’m going to get hit out there, I know it.”
“Don’t think about it,” I repeated.
Her tone lowered into a whisper. “I should have listened to my–”
“Hey!” I blurted out. She lifted her face from her knees. “Shut the fuck up, don’t think about it,” I said for the last time.
Her eyes were nearly welling up with tears. She blinked and took a deep breath.
“Just keep doing your job like you did today,” I added. “Do your job, and you’ll live.”
Kaelius gulped. I knew my words weren’t enough to convince her.
“Rooster didn’t do his job, that’s why his ass got shot up,” I attempted to joke. It didn’t help, and she stared at the dirt with a downcast expression.
She rubbed her eyes and said, “I’m going to die out there.”
“I said shut the fuck up! I’m thinking about the same shit you are, but you don’t see me moping about it!”
“Sorry.”
“Where’s your book?” I looked around the foxhole. “Take your mind off of things, distract yourself with reading.”
Kaelius didn’t bother looking around for it. Instead, she took off her helmet and fell over sideways, resting her head on her hands. “I left it out there,” she explained.
I sighed. I put my hand on her arm and looked into her face. “You did good today, alright?” I assured her.
She stayed silent for a few moments. “I’m scared,” she mumbled.
“I know.”
There was nothing else I could say.
We sat in silence, the faint thuds of gunshots and artillery fire echoing through the mountains all throughout the evening.
Short Stories
| Telegram | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
“Dear Mr. Major,” Ralph whispered as he wrote. “It will have been another month by the time you receive this. I suppose I could take this time to continue studying conductive materials, but with this letter, I intend to ask you if you could send me–”
Ralph stopped writing. He thought for a few seconds, dipping his quill into the inkwell and tapping the extra flow against the lip of the jar. Continuing with his letter,
“about a couple hundred meters of copper wire.” Two hundred meters of wire was not too little, yet it was also not too much to ask for. Ralph imagined how large such a package would be. Two hundred meters of wire wrapped and coiled should be about the size of a satchel.
When Ralph finished writing, he stood up, folded the crisp beige paper into an envelope, and wrote Mr. Major’s address upon the face of the envelope, along with his name and date, 19 March 1846. He walked out of the front door of his home and was greeted by the orange-blue light of dawn – the sun was just cresting over the mountains. Conveniently, Ralph had lived right across ways from the post office. Within five minutes, he had stamped his letter, given it to the clerk, and returned to his house.
By mid-May, Ralph received his package. He had forgotten about his request over the two months he waited. Along with the parcel of copper wire, Mr. Major had sent a letter with words of encouragement for Ralph’s experiment.
Now with the materials Ralph required, he would in the next three months create a prototype machine with a key and receiver. The key was set upon his study desk, and with the copper wiring from Mr. Major, Ralph routed the line into his neighbor’s house, one-hundred-and-twenty-seven meters down the street. The neighbor, whose name was Mrs. Parley, kept the machine’s receiver in her kitchen. In September, the prototype was ready for testing.
Mrs. Parley waited in her kitchen, watching the receiver. Her eyes followed the copper wires which ran from the receiver, across the counter, down to the floor, across the hallway, and out the bottom of the front door of her house. Click, clack, went the receiver. Click, clack, click, clack, click, clack, click, clack. Minutes later, Mrs. Parley caught a glimpse of someone running across her front lawn. Subsequently, Ralph knocked on her door.
“Did it work?” he asked just as the door was opening. His eyes darted from the copper wire on the floor, to the kitchen, then to Mrs. Parley.
“Yes, it made some noise, if that’s what you intended for it to do,” she replied.
“What kind of noise?”
“Clicking.”
“How many times did it click?”
Mrs. Parley hesitated, trying to remember how many clicks she had heard. “Ten, if I recall.”
A large grin grew on Ralph’s face. He began to laugh with joy as he ran back to his house. Mrs. Parley stood on her porch, watching the man run down the street. Confused, she crossed her arms and muttered, “What an odd boy.”
Later in November, Mrs. Parley would understand the importance of Ralph’s experiment. His machine, which would be named the telegraph, would make it much faster for messages to be sent across the mountainous countryside of Columba. Letters that usually would have taken a few weeks to a few months to arrive now came almost instantaneously within seconds. A week after his experiment with Mrs. Parley’s assistance, Ralph had his telegraph officially patented, and the system was set up between major cities and waypoints in the mountains. Soon enough, the telegraph’s design was improved and exported to other nations in the continent of Centaura and across the ocean to the Orion Republic in the east.
In 1878, about three decades after the invention of the telegraph, the telephone would be created by one of Ralph’s disciples. Together, the telegraph and telephone systems would cover the entire continent with thousands of poles and miles of wire.
| [Unnamed Story] | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
He had seen too much. Plains of grass colored red, plumes of smoke rising into the sky, and his own hands covered by a film of mud and blood. It wasn’t his blood. Maybe it was — he didn’t know. The only things he did know were that he wasn’t at home, he was surrounded by bodies, and his mother had suddenly appeared in front of him.
“Mother?” Kalvin stuttered. What was she doing here, in the midst of this chaos? Her hair was smooth, unadulterated by the dusty, gunpowder-infused air. Her clothes and skin were clean, unlike his; it was as if a messenger from the heavens had come down to meet him. He dropped to his knees, looking up at the woman who had raised him for years.
“Kalvin,” she whispered. She knelt down and embraced her son, who began to shiver and cry. The soft silk threads of her dress seemed to flow over Kalvin’s skin. The man hugged his mother back, burying his face into her shoulder and sobbing.
After a few seconds, his mother stood up again. Her clothes had not been dirtied by the mud that covered Kalvin. There were no blood marks from his red-stained hands, nor were there any wet spots from his tears on her shoulder. Then she faded away just as fast as she appeared, and a view of the burning horizon replaced her image.
“Mother,” Kalvin cried. “Mother! Don’t leave me!” The grown man fell on his side, curling into a ball and wailing for his mother.
There was no sound but the crackling of embers, the soft gusts of wind, and the cries from the 19-year-old man.
He returned from the war a few months later, but the war followed him home in his mind. He couldn’t feel anything — his father, the emperor, celebrated his return with a parade, but Kalvin could not be proud of what he went through. He pitied the fresh and newly recruited soldiers who marched in the parade. They would never and could never understand what they volunteered for, not until they experienced it for themselves.
When Kalvin saw his mother again, she was wearing the same dress that he had seen her wear in the field. His eyes watered up again, but he did not let a single tear fall.
“Why did you leave me?” he gulped. He was still questioning himself, was his mother really there in the field?
“What do you mean, Kalvin?” she asked as she hugged her son.
“You left me.”
“You know I would never leave you.”
Even with assurance, Kalvin still felt abandoned. Did she abandon him, or did he abandon everyone? He began to think it was the latter. He left his dead comrades in the field, he left his dignity, and he left his soul. But he knew he couldn’t go back to retrieve them; the land had already absorbed what was lost.
Decades later, when the emperor passed away and Kalvin rose to the throne, he vowed to get revenge. Revenge not against his enemies, nor his god, but humanity. He was sickened by the endless conflicts that had taken place since the beginning of mankind. How could a man kill another like himself? It was illogical. It was insane.
Kalvin decided he wanted to end the concept of war as a whole. The continent of Centaura had always been at war with itself; numerous countries made up the north and south of the landmass, and they were all empires whose goals, naturally, were to expand. Borders always changed every year, caused by the gains and losses of any one nation. But with those gains and losses, it was always a guarantee that lives were lost.
The thought of a species killing itself is what angered Kalvin. He knew that war was caused by conflicts between different ideas, ideologies, and politics. If he were to somehow unite all of Centaura under one ideology, there would be much peace for the years to come, he thought. But in order to accomplish this goal, that meant having to subdue his opponents; there were nine empires on the continent excluding his own, and he couldn’t possibly convince them all to surrender their beliefs.
The only way to end war is with war, Kalvin thought. He was deeply saddened that the only way to achieve his ambition was one that contradicted his beliefs. But it had to be done.
In 1911, the Antares Imperium, under the rule of Kalvin Tau, began what would come to be known as the greatest conquest since the fall of the Libran Empire: the Centauran War.
| Abyssus, Part I | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
NORTHWEST COAST OF CETUS
Upon a beach on the outskirt of a coastal town, three men stood by the seawall—a constable and two biologists. They looked across the empty sands to the carcass of a whale, beached on the shore.
"Figured you both'd wanna take a gander at the thing before they clean it up," the constable said.
One marine biologist, Miles, stood with his hands in the pockets of his coat. "How thoughtful," he replied.
"You don't seem too interested."
Miles drew in a breath. "Well, when you've been studying these animals for more than a decade, and others before you have done the same, you'd think there's nothing new to discover."
"There's always somethin' new. You just gotta look hard enough."
There was some irony about a constable telling a scientist how to do his job. "Believe me, I have been doing that for quite a long time," Miles scoffed.
The other biologist, Ellis, kept watch of the whale corpse with a pair of binoculars. He was not as experienced in the field as his partner and was more fascinated by anything that wasn't inside their office. Dissecting species of fish was fairly tame compared to seeing a whale, even if it was dead.
"I'm going to take a closer look," Ellis grinned as he stepped onto the sand.
"By all means, go ahead," the constable called. "It's the whole reason why I called you both out'ere."
The two marine biologists walked carefully on the beach as to not get sand in their shoes. They stood on the dorsal side of the carcass, for they knew that a dead whale could explode—most commonly on the ventral side.
It was a gray whale. Two large scratch marks ran along the length of the whale's back.
"Looks like it's been in a fight with a giant squid," Ellis commented.
"Sperm whales fight with squids, not grays," Miles noted.
"What else do you suppose could've done that? It's evidently tentacle scratches."
"If the tentacles had broadswords for suckers, possibly," Miles said with a hint of sarcasm. "These wounds look like they reach into the blubber!"
Ellis stepped around to the front of the carcass, which had been facing away from them. He stepped back, startled by what he had seen.
"Good Neptune, look at that!" he yelled.
Miles hurriedly stepped up to where Ellis was staring. The gray whale's entire lower mandible was missing, as if it was bitten off. A decaying inner mouth was exposed with flies orbiting the carcass. The sight surprised Miles, who thought that he had seen everything.
"I don't suppose a squid could have killed this whale?" Ellis said in amazement.
"Most certainly not..." Miles muttered. "Neither would an orca be able to accomplish something that drastic."
He stood still, deep in thought as he remembered reports in previous decades about whale corpses being found by fishermen in the ocean. The dead whales had all sorts of giant bite marks and missing limbs inconsistent with those of orca attacks.
Miles stared out into the ocean. No ships, no animals diving above the water. It seemed normal, yet something felt off.
| Abyssus, Part II | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
INANIS OCEAN
~200 MILES WEST OF THE ANDROMEDA ISLANDS
1894
A man and his wife headed west into the ocean, having departed from the Andromeda Islands off the coast of Cetus earlier that morning. They took a small sailboat, relying on the wind to propel their vessel.
“Why do you think you’ll find something out here?” Minnie grumbled.
Roy looked along the empty horizon. No islands for miles—only water as far as the eye could see. “You wanted to explore, did you not?” he said without breaking his focus.
“I didn’t mean this! We are in the middle of nowhere, Roy.”
“There’s a chance we may find something.”
“I want to go back.”
Roy glanced over to Minnie. “But we’ve already made it this far.”
“And I don’t want to go any further! I am not going to allow you to risk our lives trying to find something you’ll never find! The children expect us to return! Do you know what the Inanis means, Roy? It means ‘empty’ in Old Librae! Void! There is nothing here to see!” she complained.
The man set his eyes upon the distant horizon once more. “The Librans may have thought it was empty, but do you know what I see? I see an entire ocean with life underneath the waves, and that is most definitely not empty!”
“And how do you plan to see them, Roy? We cannot swim in the ocean. There are sharks in the water.”
“Some of these animals come up to the surface. Wouldn't you want to see a whale shooting water from its spout, or a dolphin leaping over the waves majestically?”
Minnie was in disbelief. “We did not come all the way out here just to see whales and dolphins,” she scoffed.
“You’re right—we didn’t. We are searching for a sea beast!” Roy exclaimed with halfwitted pride.
She was not going to entertain his thought. “Why did you have to take me along? I want to go back! I do not want to get lost out here!”
Reluctant to argue any further, Roy steered the ship around, heading east toward the mainland according to his compass. Once the sailboat had completed its full turn, he noticed something in the distance.
“Did we pass an island on the way here?” he wondered out loud.
Minnie stared at the floorboards of their sailboat. “I don’t know. You’re the one navigating.”
“That island wasn’t there before,” Roy pointed forward. “If it was, I would have noticed it!”
With that statement, Minnie turned her attention to the island that he had seen.
It was far enough that the atmosphere had given it a bluish tint, yet large enough to be visible. It looked fairly curved for a landmass; no trees were discernible from that distance.
Roy scrambled to check his map. There were no marked islands wherever they were.
“Minnie, I may have just found an uncharted island!” he exclaimed.
“Great, can we dock there and take a short stroll? I have been sitting on this godforsaken wood beam for half a day!” complained Minnie.
They sailed toward the island, but no matter how much they sailed, they did not seem to get any closer. Half an hour had passed without significant progress.
“How much longer until we get there?” Minnie asked, lying on the floorboards of the vessel. She covered her eyes with her forearm to protect against the glare of the sun.
“Patience—I should be closing in on its shores,” replied Roy.
Yet another half hour passed, and they still had not come any nearer to the island.
“It’s gone!” Roy shouted.
Minnie sat up and glanced ahead of the boat. The island had disappeared, replaced by a blank stretch of water. They were still correctly heading east, however.
“Where did it go?” she mumbled.
“I don’t know—it was there one moment and gone the next!” Roy panicked. “I know I wasn’t imagining it. You saw the island too, didn’t you?”
Despite this oddity, hours passed without them ever finding the island they saw. Instead, they eventually reached the Andromeda Islands, only to never talk about the island again, for they thought it could have been a hallucination. Still, a part of their mind considered that it wasn’t.
| Unknown Cetan corporal | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
“The air has not cleared. It has been three days — the air is getting to our minds. We’ve been in it for so long that the pungent smell of pepper and pineapple has gone away. We can no longer smell it, but we know it’s still there.
And we wait. During these three days, men have gone mad and taken off their masks, only to cough their pulped, bloody lungs out minutes later. But orders are orders, and we have been ordered to stay and protect this village. We do not know when the enemy is coming, but I know that they will storm over us like an unstoppable stampede. We are not the strong and able men we were three days ago.
We cannot eat. Our food has been contaminated, and in order to drink, we must take off our masks for no longer than five seconds, somehow managing to get a sip of water in that length. Even then, we can still feel the poison burning our throats, little by little.
We cannot hold out in this green air for much longer. Without food and proper health, I fear that our officers have ordered us to die.”
| A DECLARATION OF UNITY | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
The night of February 10, 1911 was one of darkness. All lights in the capital were ordered to be shut off by official decree; those who did not comply were promptly fined or detained by the police.
With all electrical lighting turned off, the black sky became visibly speckled with stars. If one could search between each white dot, they could possibly find the constellation of Scorpius— their god, watching over them at that very moment.
The previous nights had heard rumors of the Imperial Army preparing to mobilize, with an abundance of vehicles and soldiers sent away toward the northern borders.
In the main square of the capital, hundreds of thousands of citizens gathered in the darkness, eagerly watching the dimly-lit podium toward the front. A faint silhouette of the imperial palace could be seen in the background, though it was multiple streets away from where the rally was being held. The square smelled of fragrances and aromas from the plethora of men and women who stood dressed in formal attire.
Across the city, a chime and eight rings echoed through the roadways, marking the eighth hour of the night.
A man walks onto the podium. He is dressed in a white ceremonial coat, a red poncho-like garment draped across his shoulders, a symbolism of Antares' imperial family.
All waited in silence.
"Descendants of Scorpius," the man addressed the square.
"We gather here tonight in the presence of our Guardian and, it is with His benediction that I express my aspirations for His nation and His people."
"The lands on which we stand at this very moment were bestowed upon us by our Guardian. It is our sacred duty to nurture them, to protect them from those who wish to bring harm. It benefits no one for foreign armies, who do not share our ways, to clash on our soil and destroy the fruits of our labor. The devastation of war, with its loss of life and the destruction of all we hold dear, serves no good purpose."
"Since the beginning of time, humanity has been at war with itself. We fear what we do not know, and out of fear, we fight. It is then in our best interest that we rid ourselves of the unknown, so that we may continue to thrive and prosper for millennia to come, free from the fears that once divided us."
"But let us not be mistaken— we cannot just hope that these fears disappear. We must take action, together as one people, to overcome them. Tonight, I stand before you to declare that we, the children of Scorpius, will no longer be divided by fear or by the fragmented ideologies that have torn our continent apart. The time has come to unite under one nation, one belief, and one purpose."
"Our enemies seek to impose their inferior gods and religions upon us, to fight against us if that is what it takes to get what they desire. We shall not allow this. The time has come to confront our adversaries, not out of a desire for conquest like them, but out of a commitment to the enduring principles that define Antares and its people."
"This coming war is a solemn duty, a necessary step to protect our way of life to bring stability to our continent, and to bring an end to the needless cycles of violence. Believe me when I tell you: there is no other way."
"With the guidance of our Guardian, we shall undertake this mission with the strength He has blessed us with, to ensure that our nation emerges unified and steadfast, and to secure a legacy of peace and prosperity for generations to come. By the hand of Scorpius, we shall be victorious!"
The speech ended with the audience cheering. The speaker, who was revealed to be the Emperor Kalvin Tau, had stepped off the podium, retreating back into the darkness of the unlit square.
"Per manus Scorpii!" came a yell from one citizen in the crowd. Others began shouting the same three words, until the entire square chanted along.
"Per manus Scorpii!"
"PER MANUS SCORPII!"
"PER MANUS SCORPII!"
| Antares-Aquila Border | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
A scrawny young man climbed into the back of a truck which had already been filled with eight other soldiers. The soldiers wore dark gray uniforms, with helmets fastened to their heads unlike the man who had just entered. The young man did not wear the uniform of a soldier, rather, he wore a white button-up shirt and black slacks — one could mistake him as a member of the clergy.
“Who the fuck’s this geek?” said one of the soldiers.
Another soldier who seemed to be older than the rest answered. “Shut your mouth. He’ll be writing down everything you’re saying.”
“Oh, another one of them fuckin’ journalists, huh?”
“I said shut your mouth, soldier.”
No one spoke for the rest of the ride. It seemed like other trucks to the front and back were alive with conversation between the enlisted men, but the truck with the journalist kept their silence. The young man took a mental note of this.
Once the convoy had reached their destination, all troops disembarked from their vehicles. The older soldier approached the young man, holding out his hand.
“Sergeant Thomas Rourke,” he introduced himself.
The young man shook his hand. “Lloyd Tucker, Venatian Times.”
“How long will you be with us?”
“Until I have enough to write an article. I don’t suppose you could introduce me to your unit?”
“Should’ve done that earlier. We’re marching to the frontline now.” Rourke looked the journalist up and down. “Are you sure that’s what you want to wear out there?”
Tucker looked down at his outfit. It didn’t seem rugged enough for whatever he might be doing. He had been accustomed to journalism in civilian populations, not in a military. It was at this moment Tucker realized that he was being watched, not only by the sergeant, but by almost every soldier in the unit — they had their heads turned toward him as they whispered among their comrades. “Uh,” was all he could say.
“I’ll get you something,” Rourke said before walking off toward one of the trucks near the rear of the convoy. A minute later, he had fished out a pair of boots, dark gray trousers, and a helmet. He returned to Tucker and held the items out for him to take.
The journalist hesitantly grabbed the clothes and equipment. He inspected the steel helmet in his right hand. “Should I really be wearing this? The Aquilans might mistake me as the enemy.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Rourke explained. “They’ll shoot at anything that isn’t coming from their lines. You’re no exception. Besides, that helmet’s going to save your life. Keep it on.”
Tucker felt uneasy. He didn’t feel safe, even with all these soldiers around him. It was much out of his comfort zone compared to the cities.
“I suggest you get those trousers and boots on. We’re moving out in a minute,” Rourke instructed.
The young man scurried to get the clothes on, hiding behind a truck as he did so. He was unsure if he should tuck his pants into the boots, seeing as he had never done that with civilian clothes. The soldiers did it with their uniforms, so he thought he should too.
By the time Tucker returned to meet the sergeant, he had been greeted with stifled laughter as the other Antarean troops looked at him. He was unaware that he looked even more out of place and improper, with his white shirt contrasting greatly with the other soldiers, and his pants being tucked too tightly into his boots. It was not bloused properly, and so he had difficulty moving his legs around. He didn’t look like a soldier, but rather a factory worker with a helmet.
The sergeant pursed his lips upon seeing Tucker, trying to hold back a ridiculous laugh. “Good enough,” he said nonetheless.
| Prisoners of War | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
AQUILA, EAST GOLDLAND PENITENTIARY — In the middle of a courtyard stood an Aquilan Army officer and a section’s worth of enlisted men. The prison’s guards stood by on the sides, clad in storm-blue uniforms. They did not want to mix themselves amongst the beige-colored personnel, who had visited the compound for reasons they could guess.
Almost all of the four hundred inmates of East Goldland Penitentiary stood in rows opposite of the Aquilan soldiers. Dull-colored brick walls which had kept the prisoners in for years surrounded the courtyard. The officer in charge bellowed out in an authoritative voice:
“YOU WILL BE GIVEN A SECOND CHANCE TO PROVE YOUR WORTH TO THIS COUNTRY!” He walked around the crowd of prisoners with four soldiers trailing him.
“IF YOU MAKE IT OUT ALIVE BY THE WAR’S END, YOU MIGHT JUST BE ABLE TO EARN YOUR FREEDOM!”
On a watchtower, the prison warden glared down at the military officer. There was no guarantee that any of the convicts would be set free— most of them had been incarcerated for serious crimes.
“THE ARMY NEEDS TOUGHENED MEN!” The officer continues. “MURDERERS! GANGSTERS! MEN WHO WILL NOT HESITATE TO KILL! THE ARMY NEEDS YOU!”
Each prisoner standing in the crowd donned black-and-white stripes, almost like jail bars printed upon their clothes. Some looked excited for a chance to leave the prison, others stoic or determined to serve with another goal in mind.
“UNDER ORDERS OF KING SILVA, THE ARMY HAS REQUISITIONED THIS PENITENTIARY AND ITS DETAINEES FOR THE WAR EFFORT! YOU WILL EACH BE UNDER MY STRICT SUPERVISION, AND YOU WILL EACH LEARN HOW TO FIGHT LIKE A SOLDIER!”
The officer draws in a breath. “THERE WILL BE NO FUCK UPS! ANY ATTEMPT TO DESERT OR RETURN TO YOUR OLD WAYS OF CRIMINAL LIFE WHILE IN THIS KINGDOM’S ARMY WILL RESULT IN YOUR DEATH!”
———
In early 1913, Aquila had mobilized convicts from prisons all over the country into penal battalions. These units were named according to the prisons they came from, for example the East Goldland Battalion or the Volucris County Battalion. They differed from the regular army units, which were numbered rather than given proper names.
These convict-soldiers were under constant supervision due to the nature of their status. They served mostly as frontline troops, almost comparable to cannon fodder yet still had adequate combat abilities. By the end of the war in 1914, many of the surviving convicts had successfully fled into the wilderness, invigorated with revenge against the occupying Antareans.
| The Seige of Talona | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
A low rumble emanates from the ceiling of the bunker. The lights flicker with each faint impact of a high-explosive shell as the officers in the concrete room glance about.
“The civilians should have been evacuated,” notes one major.
At the end of the table in the middle of the room, the commanding general sits in a chair, rubbing his forehead stressfully as he thinks.
“No, Major,” the general states. “The troops must fight hard to protect them. If we keep the civilians here, it will motivate them to give every last bit of effort into defending this city.”
Dust falls from the roof as a distant explosion shakes the bunker. The lights shut off for a moment, before slowly relighting the room with their dull colors.
“Do you hear that, General? There won't be anything to defend when the shelling is over!” the major retorts.
The other officers in the room agreed with the major, though they were not vocal about it. One colonel lays out a map on the table to present to the general.
The colonel explains as he points to various locations on the map, “The Antareans are coming from the south, west, and east. We have one opportunity to retreat to the north, or negotiate for terms of surrender.”
The general’s eyes widen at the mention of surrender. “I will not surrender,” he mutters with a clenched fist.
The capital of Aquila had just fallen months before. Talona was one of the last few major cities standing to the northeast.
“Our citizens are dying as we speak,” the major speaks again— his voice almost pleads with the general. “Are you just going to let them be killed for the sake of your pride?”
“I will not stand for this disrespect!” the general snaps, standing from his chair. He looks around the room to each and every officer. “We will fight to the death. For Aquila.”
Morale had dropped significantly. None of the officers wanted to fight anymore. They saw there was no longer any point in doing so.
The major was adamant, and the only one who would speak up. “If we continue giving them resistance, they will destroy this entire city and everyone in it—”
A shot suddenly rings out in the enclosed room. The major drops to the floor, with the officers near him recoiling back from his sudden death. The general’s pistol smokes at the end of the barrel.
“Who else doesn’t want to fight?” the stubborn general inquires.
Not a word from a single person in the bunker. Perhaps their hearing had also been affected; after all, the general fired his sidearm in such a claustrophobic area.
———
The battle of Talona would end up becoming one of Aquila’s worst defeats in terms of casualties. None of the civilians had been ordered to evacuate under orders of the commanding general. Antarean artillery did not discriminate, killing more civilians than soldiers over the span of the city’s bombardment. It was not until halfway through the siege did the Antareans realize they were starting to kill Aquilan civilians, mistaking them for soldiers in the windows of each apartment.
This decision to not evacuate civilians stumped even the Antarean commanding officers, who soon after relayed instructions to cease artillery barrages and disallow unnecessary property destruction. Ironically, the Antareans would do more to preserve the lives of civilians than the Aquilans.
| [Unnamed Story 1] | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
Three soldiers huddle up in an abandoned pub. They sit around a radio after having looted the numerous bottles of alcohol left in the establishment. Cracks of distant gunfire and artillery echo through the streets, though they are faint.
SPT. PARKSON: (Sarcastically) So much for our spirits being “untouchable”.
Parkson takes a swig of his beer bottle.
SPT. SIMON: It’s not even a new broadcast.
SPT. PARKSON: What do you mean?
SPT. SIMON: It’s an old speech playing on loop. He said “the enemy is at our gates”. They’re well past the gates at this point. They broke through what, two days ago?
CPL. HAYES: Two days… Has it really been two days?
No one responds. To all of them, it felt like they had fought for a week in the city. Corporal Hayes stands at the shuttered window of the pub, keeping watch of the empty rubble-filled streets.
SPT. PARKSON: I’m just waiting. Waiting for broadcaster to say that it’s over. That we don’t have to fight anymore.
SPT. SIMON: That order is never going to come. For all we know, the broadcaster is already out of the city. Or dead. Either way, it doesn’t matter.
Parkson continues drinking the alcohol. The troops wait in silence, waiting anxiously for the unknown.
SPT. PARKSON: We could leave. Book it out of here. I’m not going to die for a cause that’s already lost.
Simon and Hayes glance over to the drinker. They could never have the courage to desert, but the idea had crossed their minds more than once.
CPL. HAYES: And then where are we supposed to go? We’d be shot if the officers catch us. They’re not even letting the civilians leave.
SPT. PARKSON: (Mumbling) Anywhere. Anywhere but here.
Parkson lifts the bottle up, drinking the last drops of the beer. The bottle shatters suddenly— a bullet had pierced through his hand and broke the glass. He yells in pain as the soldiers scram, rushing out of the pub’s back door. Shots echo through the street, bullets penetrating the front walls of the pub.
The pub was once again abandoned. The radio repeats the same broadcast yet again. But nobody was there to listen.
| 27 Miles Out | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
27 MILES OUT
A typist clad in a brown uniform approached a soldier who was sitting and smoking a cigarette.
"Que horas são?" asked the typist.
The soldier lifted the brim of his helmet up, squinting as his eyes were no longer shaded from the sun.
"Porque é que me está a perguntar?" he scoffed. "Uma pessoa como tu não devia ter um relógio?"
"Não. Caso contrário, não perguntaria."
The smoker pointed at the sky. "Olha para o sol. Aí está o teu relógio."
A distant but close explosion sounded off, causing both of them to flinch. Their heads turned from side to side in confusion as other troops in the camp were suddenly on alert. Oddly, nobody had a clue as to where the explosion had come from. It did not hit the camp directly, but missed several hundred yards away in the surrounding hills.
This was the rear, nowhere near the frontline. The defenses at *El Muro* had not been reported to be breached, and there was no way Antarean forces were advancing this far up without some sort of warning from forward scouts.
10 MILES OUT
Two children of a rural family were exploring the forests around their home. They collected wild flowers as a pastime, and each carried a small bucket with the flowers they had plucked.
One of them stopped, tilting his head up to the sky.
"Isabel, estás a ouvir aquilo?" he asked.
"Ouvir o quê?" replied his sister.
"Ouve."
They stood silently, listening to their surroundings. Aside from the rustling of leaves and the far-off birds chirping, there was something they hadn't heard before. Up above, high in the sky, was a faint whine. It passed momentarily, but they would be hearing that noise again almost an hour later.
5 YARDS OUT
An ear-splitting boom of the railway gun shook the surrounding trees, causing a flock of birds to fly out. The Antarean troops cheered as the cannon fired its first shot.
One soldier turned to his friend, rubbing his slightly-deafened ear. He asked, "How do we know if they're hitting the target?"
His friend, still applauding and eyes glued to the gun's barrel, replied, "We don't!"
| Winter of 1914 | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
Upon a hill not too far from the coast, the soldiers of Vega have bunkered down in a small village with makeshift fortifications. With several machine guns, field guns, and anti-aircraft defenses, it seemed that no Antarean troops would be able to take the village, not without heavy casualties at least. Enemy air support was deterred by the presence of anti-aircraft, and the newest light tank models of Antares that had been brought ashore were too weak to fight against the large field artillery of the Vegans.
For the Antareans sieging this village, bombardment by railway gun was not an option. All railway guns within range were preoccupied with other larger and stronger fortifications deeper inland. The Vegans also knew that the Antarean battleships had no sightline of the village, and thus could not bombard it either despite being in range.
In one house, a team of Vegans with radio equipment intercept a message:
BYWXOS ZVOLLF KVQBGA YSJCFN PHXRHV TJPNES FSOKVC ESLBNI VZLODN RXNKSY VVUVAG EOMAGA DREXST GPMMEK WMKTFD EKIOXA IKEENW OOSFWB JA
It was unable to be deciphered; they had used every known method of breaking encrypted messages, yet none would yield any results. It could have been an order to attack the village.
For hours, the Vegans waited for a potential battle. They knew the Antareans were in their trenches across the open field, though not a single movement indicated an attack. Oddly, sharpshooters with scopes were unable to see any enemies at all in the trench, but it could be that the Antareans decided to keep their heads low.
When the clock struck ten, the distant booms of large guns echoed through the fields. Shells landed on Antarean positions, much to the surprise of the defending Vegans, but they would soon realize the shells came nearer and nearer to the village. A creeping barrage.
...
By half past ten, the entire village was flattened. A multitude of craters filled the surrounding area— no trees, no grass, no houses, and no soldiers. A complete decimation of what was once an impenetrable stronghold.
Then the Antareans marched toward the village. They did not emerge from their shelled trenches, but rather further away in the treelines, safe from the bombardment that had occurred just then.
| UNA TUMBA TEMPRANA | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
Ten miles in, they saw nothing but beige and blue. No cloud in the sky, no landmark for miles—only the twelve skirmishers who walked amongst themselves. They, too, were beige.
"Beban," said the group leader. The rest of the soldiers reached for their canteens, taking a small swig of water to quench their thirst. They did not dare take more than two sips, for they had to conserve their supply. "Continuen."
They marched across the empty plane, occasionally checking their compasses to ensure they were headed in the right direction. Sweat dripped from their foreheads, where their skin met their helmet liners. Some could not decide whether keeping their helmets on made the heat worse or if it kept them cooler without. The wind made no difference; it was always hot.
The leader stopped again, and the group slowed to a halt. He grasped a pair of binoculars off his webbing and peered into the horizon. The men wondered what he was observing. Was it the enemy?
"¡Palas! ¡A cavar, a cavar!"
At once, the soldiers dropped their gear and began shoveling at the ground. It was hard like dirt, unlike the dunes deeper inland. They prodded at the ground until a small, hollow dip was excavated.
When they looked back up to the horizon, they saw smoke. Not smoke—a cloud. A cloud of sand as tall as a mountain, moving toward their location. They had nothing to hide behind except the holes they had just dug.
"¡Métanse en sus agujeros! Mantengan las mantas sobre sus caras," ordered the group leader.
One by one, the skirmishers laid down in their ditches. They unrolled their groundsheets from their field packs and spread them across the tops of their bodies. All they could do now was wait.
The bright day became pitch black in a near instant. The winds howled, and the sands slammed against their groundsheets. Their eyes and mouths were dry, but they could not let go of their covers to drink water, for they would blow away.
...
One hour had passed, and the sunlight began piercing through their sheets. The group leader threw aside his cover, brushed the sand off his body, and stood up. He did not immediately check on his skirmishers; instead, he scrambled for his canteen and drank. His thirst nearly finished his water supply, but he stopped before it was emptied.
"¡Levántense! ¡Recuento!" he shouted.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Eight soldiers sat up from their ditches, coughing and wheezing. Parts of their hands and arms were blood-red, the sandstorm having sanded their skin off. The wounds were superficial, but they would pain the men for the rest of the mission.
Three men were not counted. A pair of boots lay buried in the ground. A hand stuck out, buffed away by the wind. A half-buried face with dry, red eyes protruded from the sand. They were buried alive by the storm.
"Tomen sus cantimploras," one of the skirmishers mumbled. "Las necesitaremos."
Reluctantly, the men dug up the corpses and took what extra gear they could carry, most importantly the water.
"¡Continuen!" ordered the group leader. And so they marched further through the desert, leaving the bodies of their three comrades to the sands.
| Capitulation | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
CAPITULATION was the word that filled most newspaper headlines in February of 1912. What started as a battle in 1908 between the Empire of Cetus and the Corvus Confederation ended in a massacre by a larger power unforeseen by many. Even though Cetus had dominated the western coasts of Centaura for centuries, it took only four years for the country itself to be defeated. It did not fall by the hands of the Corvuns, but by the hands of the empire to its south – the Antares Imperium.
In 1911, three years after the start of the Corvus-Cetus conflict (dubbed the “South Corvus War”), the Corvuns sought an alliance with Antares. Kalvin Tau, the emperor of Antares, readily accepted the offer and began mobilization of his military into southern Cetus. While the majority of the Cetan army was locked in fighting with the Corvuns in the north, the Antareans swept through the south within months. The underfunded Cetan army became sandwiched between the Corvuns and the Antareans, soon to be utterly demolished.
This is what most Centauran newspapers believed had happened, with accounts of survivors and politicians further proving the events. But the thing that had made the war so special was the cooperation of two separate countries to defeat a common enemy. In Centaura, it was unheard of for any nation to ally with another. In addition, there were unconfirmed reports that the Corvun government integrated with the Antareans. Fear began to envelop the Centauran countries south of the Columban mountain range, paranoid that they might become the next target of the Antares-Corvus conglomerate.
Their fears became true after the defeat of Cetus. The Antareans began surrounding the neighboring country Aquila, and within two years, the Aquilans had fallen. Next came the kingdoms of Vega and Grusa. By 1919, Antares had conquered the entirety of southern Centaura. Half a continent was now under their control, but only one factor stopped the Antarean war machine from progressing further north: the Columban mountain ranges. These were tall, harsh mountains that spanned the entire width of the continent. For the millenniums before, no northern country was able to invade a southern country (or vice versa) because of the mountains – it was physically impossible for any large army to penetrate through the steep rocky elevations with success.
As Antares took control of southern Centaura, international news correspondents from the Hydran continent (where Orion was situated) relayed information about the war back to their home countries. Nobody on the other side of the world had given much thought about the conflict, but as Antares took more and more territory, their status as a potential threat became a controversy in the East.
In 1920, pro-intervention protests begin gaining traction in the Orion Republic, prompting the creation of anti-war groups to counter the pro-war advocates. The main argument of the pro-intervention side was that the Antareans, if not stopped, would invade Orion once their conquest of Centaura was completed. Joining the war would prevent this future war from occurring, a sort of pre-emptive strike. On the other hand, the anti-war side argued that a war against Antares would be pointless and that it would be immoral to send Orion soldiers to die in a pointless war – not to mention the economic consequences of engaging in such a conflict.
Unable to get through the Columban range, the Antares military resorted to mass aerial bombings of the mountains in hopes of clearing a path for foot troops. By 1924, the Antares air force had dropped almost half a million tons of bombs on the Columban mountains.
| [Unamed Story 2] | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
A soldier in his dark gray field uniform enters the office of the overseer. Gold stripes line his sleeves— the mark of a senior officer. On his head lies a peaked cover with a red upside-down triangle stitched onto the band of the hat.
The overseer of the occupied territory of Aquila lifts his head up to the officer who had just entered.
“Colonel,” the overseer addresses. “What a surprise, what can I do for you this afternoon?”
“I thought you would have known I was coming,” replies the colonel as he takes his cover off. “Did you not receive a telephone call from General Archer?”
The overseer adjusts his reading glasses, glancing back to the paperwork on his desk. “I did,” he answers, obviously not amused with what Archer had talked to him about.
“Then you must know why I am here,” continues the colonel.
“I do, yes.”
“So what will it be?”
“Colonel, you must understand the… effects of such an order. It is why I am hesitant to agree with Archer, seeing as he is no longer in charge of operations in Columba, if I do recall.”
“General Archer is no longer in charge of Columba, that is true. However, he is still a general and would not have gone ahead with this plan if it had not been approved first by Cervantes.”
The overseer takes his glasses off and leans back in his office chair. “Then why hasn’t General Cervantes given me a call himself to confirm this plan?”
“Cervantes is busy doing his part in the war,” the colonel’s tone changes. “Now I am here to ask if you will comply and contribute to the war effort. All it takes is one signature. Have you not already talked this through with Archer?”
“I spoke with Archer to set this meeting up. I did not agree to anything over the phone,” retorts the overseer. “I am not signing any papers unless you can convince me to, Colonel. After all, that is what you are here to do, is it not? Please, take a seat.”
The colonel steps up to a chair, pulling it out to sit.
At once, an explosion filled the room, instantly killing both the officer and the overseer. Flames and wood chunks burst out of the side of the building, startling passersby on the street below. The screams and yells of panicking citizens and the blaring fire alarms from the administrative offices rang through the air.
Two streets away, a man watches the commotion take place. A grin forms on his face as he disappears down a side alley to tell his acquaintances of their success.
| The Red Staff | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
After one brutal fight in a Columban town south of the mountains, a boy and his father had been heavily injured from an artillery blast. The boy, whose leg had been crushed by debris and subsequently amputated, had lost much blood. The father, on the other hand, sustained lighter injuries and carried his son to an aid camp on the outskirts of the town.
The camp was packed with civilian and military casualties who were all being tended to by the few doctors and nurses running the field hospital. Soon, the man and his son were redirected into a tent, where one nurse awaited. The boy's amputated stump was promptly bandaged, and the bleeding had stopped— however, his skin had grown pale from blood loss. The father stood by as he watched the nurse tend to his son.
A blood bag was retrieved for transfusion, and the nurse prepared a sterile tube needle to give blood to the boy.
However, the Columban had heard previous news and rumors of Antarean doctors poisoning foreign patients, resulting in agonizing deaths for whoever had been treated. It was said that it was part of a chemical warfare experiment which had been running for years. Remembering what he heard, the father suddenly grasped a scalpel off a nearby operating table and held it at the throat of the nurse.
"Do not..." he said with a shaky voice. "Do not give that to him."
The nurse froze, needle still in her hand as the blade was held an inch away from her neck.
"If I do not give blood to him, he will die," she tried to reason with the father. She was surprisingly calm, despite being threatened with a knife.
"You—you're going to kill him." The man was crying, in part due to his injuries, but mainly because he couldn't imagine his son dying, either by poison or bleeding out. He didn't know what to do at this point, acting blindly from the mental trauma he had just experienced.
The nurse glanced to the hand that held the scalpel to her throat, and then to the man's eyes. "You have to let me do my job in order to save your son," she breathed.
"I—I'm not letting you poison him!" the Columban snaps.
The Antarean nurse was confused. She had no clue why the man thought she was going to poison the boy. She takes a deep breath, knowing he had been through a lot— perhaps he was not thinking clearly, she thought.
"If they wanted to kill your boy, they would have shot him. And you. And everyone else in this camp," she continued reasoning. Time was running out, and there were probably more patients waiting for the occupied tent. "Please, let me."
The man stepped back, sniffling as he dropped the scalpel. He sat himself on the ground, and only then did he begin to cry harder for his son.
The nurse went ahead with the blood transfusion, giving the much-needed liquid to the injured boy. Afterward, she helped the boy's father with his own injuries, namely an open gash on the top of his head and small lacerations around his arms.
———
Starting from the Cetan campaign, major assaults against cities and populated centers had been followed by a mass of medical personnel to treat wounded soldiers and civilians from both sides. Whether this was a propaganda effort made by the Antareans, or genuine humanitarian aid, was up for debate.
The enemies of Antares, not wanting to lose their citizens to foreign assimilation, frequently spread false rumors of Antarean aid camps being nothing more than testing grounds for chemical warfare. Thus, they tried to convince their citizens that it was better to fight and die quickly rather than to be subjected to a slow, grueling death by unknown chemicals.
| Southern Riaa | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
Kaptain Sill’s company (4-2-2) had been waiting over five days for resupplies despite repeating requests for them twice. The headquarters camp which Sill requested supplies from told him that he would receive them within the same day, yet the supplies never came.
A disgruntled Sill drives back to the headquarters camp himself with one truck. Upon disembarking from the vehicle, he hurriedly stomped toward the command tents.
KPT SILL: Where are my supplies?
Kolonel Minor Dellus, in charge of the battalion, is surprised by the appearance of one of his company commanders. He looks up from the paperwork on his desk.
KOL DELLUS: (Sarcastic) Greetings to you, too, Kaptain.
KPT SILL: Where are my supplies?
KOL DELLUS: Is that any way to greet your superior?
KPT SILL: All due respect, sir*, stop avoiding the goddamned question. Where are the supplies I have been waiting for this past week? I have men starving and freezing their nuts off in their dugouts.
Kolonel Dellus sighs.
KOL DELLUS: If you want your supplies, you’re going to have to bargain with Mikkey.
KPT SILL: Kolonel Mikkey? The Shokks? Why do the Shokks have our supplies? You couldn’t have told me that any sooner?
KOL DELLUS: The logistics chains of the Shokk battalions have not yet reached this far north. Mikkey assaulted through more towns than he should have, and we are the closest supply depot to him.
KPT SILL: Okay, what about my men? They’re gonna freeze to death out there.
KOL DELLUS: Mikkey’s men were also in the same predicament as your company. No offense, Kaptain, but the Shokks a far greater asset for this army than the standard men of your unit. Correction, *our unit.
KPT SILL: So you’re gonna let our men suffer and maybe die just because shit-for-brains Mikkey is not where he’s supposed to be?
KOL DELLUS: I would choose your words carefully, Kaptain. That is a Kolonel of a Shokk battalion that you speak ill of.
KPT SILL: This is a company of your battalion that you’re neglecting for—
KOL DELLUS: (Interrupting) Kaptain! The decision has already been made. If you want your supplies, go contact Mikkey’s unit and hope that they still have something left for your men.
With that, Sill storms out of the tent and looks around the camp. To the far left of the tents, he notices several rows of crates, of which he discovers are boxes full of rations and blankets. How convenient, he thinks.
The kaptain orders a few men to load the crates onto the truck he arrived in. They do so without questioning, given his rank. He soon after drives back to his company with their much-needed supplies.
Four hours later, the headquarters camp receives a radio transmission from a different company.
```2-2 command, this is 3-2-2. Requesting update status on our supplies, over.```
When the logisticians checked the open storage to the far left of the tents, they found out the crates they had allocated for 3-2-2’s resupply are gone. It seemed that someone else had taken them…
| CRUX | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
“Vetus doctrinae — the old ways”
Almost two years into the Riaan campaign, the army of Antares slowly progressed northward into the cold grassy plains.
A convoy of troop transports drove along a dirt road, trees lined to the sides. Areas like these were usual spots to be ambushed, yet as the trucks continued on their route, no resistance was encountered. They were gaining ground for miles without seeing a single Riaan soldier. It was too easy, and so they had to be cautious. It could never be that easy.
After the ninth mile on the road, the convoy drove out into an open field. They saw figures standing atop a hill—it had to be the Riaans, they thought. The trucks slowed, and the men disembarked, rifles forward and at the ready. They watched the figures in the distance, wondering why they weren’t firing.
Upon marching closer, they discovered something else. It was not the Riaans, but rows of… wooden crosses, all lined up along the road as if it were an drive-by exhibit. There were corpses nailed to the crosses, rotting away in the open air. On each victim’s head was a black helmet with the unmistakable red triangle emblazoned on the sides. They were Antarean soldiers.
Signs were hung with the corpses, some written in Ursan and some written in Old Librae.
NVMQVAM ITERVM
ODIVM
ANTARI MORS
NON REDIBITIS
The crucified soldiers had been dead for days. Unnerved by the rows of crosses lining the road, the men of the convoy returned to their trucks. It was not their current duty to collect those bodies, and so they continued driving down the path. They were dispirited; it was as if their dead comrades watched their vehicles as they passed each wooden beam.
———
Starting from the first year of the campaign, Riaan forces sometimes crucified captured Antarean troops with intent to intimidate. The reason why they chose this primitive form of execution was not revealed until the late stages of the war.
During the Libran Empire’s occupation of the Riaa territories in ancient times, many Riaans were crucified under strict laws. Because of Antares’ close proximity to Libra and their heavy influence, to the Riaans, it was safe to assume that the Antareans of the 20th century were more or less the same as the Libran invaders of the ancient era.
The Riaans, with their historical hatred of the Librans, sought to brutalize Antarean prisoners via crucifixion. It would also send a gruesome message to the invaders; a literal translation of an eye for an eye.
| [Unnamed Story 3] | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
A soldier fights in the frozen forests of Tucana. His eyes scan the treeline with a finger on the trigger of his machine gun, ready to fire at any movement he saw. The winds howl in his ear as the icy air settles into his skin. His coat is not thick enough to prevent the cold from seeping into his core.
For days, he sits at his machine gun, waiting for the moment to shoot. His meals consist of two rations of bland, stale bread, consumed in little amounts day by day as he preserves what he has left. A cloud appears in front of his face with each exhale.
Snow settles on his uniform. The longest he had gone without brushing off the snow was an hour; so much had accumulated that one could assume he was buried alive. However, a simple swipe of the hand removed the white particles from his helmet and sleeves. It didn’t help that the snow numbed his skin as well.
Movement in the trees! The soldier swivels his machine gun, the sound of ice cracking as the bipod mechanisms break free of the frost. His eyes suddenly narrow down the iron sights of his machine gun— the cold metal of the stock stinging his cheek as he aimed.
Out comes the uniform of the enemy, clad in white to conceal himself in the winter environment. The soldier pulls the trigger!
But nothing happens. No matter how much he pulled the trigger, his machine gun did not fire. More clouds appear in front of his face as he breathes quicker, in a panic. His eyes move to the handle, only to see that his fingers were dead.
Frostbitten, gangrened, dead. He could not pull the trigger at all. His hands were stuck to the handle of the machine gun, his fingers unable to release their grip.
By this time, the enemy dressed in white had noticed the machine gun. The enemy raises his rifle at the soldier, and the soldier can do nothing but sit in his frozen foxhole. His eyes almost plead with the enemy to not shoot, lips quivering as he stared down the barrel of death. There was nothing he could do but sit with his hand frozen to the machine gun he operated.
The Tucani clad in white keeps his rifle aimed, wondering why the machine gunner was not firing. But he soon realizes the gunner was sent here to kill him and his comrades. Without further hesitation, the white enemy fires one shot at the machine gunner.
The machine gunner’s head recoils back, a hole in the front of his helmet and a single stream of crimson running down his face. His body stays in the same position, sitting in the snow with a hand on the trigger of his weapon.
No more clouds to be exhaled out of his lungs. The soldier becomes a statue of ice, stranded in the middle of the snowy forest like a monument. Here lies a machine gunner who could not fire his weapon.
| Lights Out | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
The moonlight dimly lit the surface of the vast blue field. The sound of waves rolling over each other filled the air. Hidden within the darkness of the ocean was a liner, the Fortisia, sailing eastward to anywhere.
It was hard to see the ship from a distance; its passengers were told to shut off any lights. Not even a lantern was allowed to be used— the deck was completely dark. Anyone walking around would have a hard time navigating the floors of the vessel, instead using the walls and railings to guide themselves along. Onboard the Fortisia, the faint sound of the engines whirring and rumbling could be heard. Other than that, the night was silent.
A boy and a girl sat on the starboard side of the ship, blankets wrapped around each of them for warmth. They were alone, their parents having been left behind; the Fortisia could not take any more people, they said. They would have to reunite with their families once they arrived somewhere— but no one knew what their destination was.
One could describe the Fortisia as a ghost ship. Unseen, unheard, unknown. On the contrary, they were known, but by who, the passengers were unaware.
Hundreds of meters away, a lone small boat watched the liner as it sailed through the dark ocean. It sat idle, waiting for the perfect moment. When the time came,
TUBE ONE, LAUNCH.
A hiss like a snake’s ran through the water. A thunderous boom followed, the creaking of metal and wood as the passengers were awakened.
TUBE TWO, LAUNCH.
Another explosion. By this time, the Fortisia was a beacon in the midst of the dark ocean. Fires had broken out as a result of the snakes, and its hull cracked in half within minutes. The conjoined, panicked screams of the passengers echoed across the waters, unnerving the sailors on the small vessel.
By the eleventh minute, the ocean was tranquil yet again. Nothing but the sound of soft waves and a whispering breeze.
| Excerpt from an unknown scholar | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
To say that “War is Hell” is an overstatement. War is not Hell, but rather a part of this life—an irrevocable part of humanity. We cannot even begin to imagine what Hell is really like.
Yet, no matter how much we acknowledge that War is terrible, nothing can be done to stop it. World peace is a goal that will never come to fruition, not in a thousand years or a million. Even if humanity were to die out, War would persist in nature among the animals and plants who partake in their own conflicts, unobserved by man.
But then, there are also those who admit that War is terrible while supporting it simultaneously. The reasons vary; they will say that the War is just, that it is necessary, or that it is righteous. They will ignore those affected by the War because, in the end, they won. They will emphasize the wrongdoings of the defeated and disregard the wrongdoings of the victors. In War, all sides are at fault, but only few will speak out against the victors. And yet, they will not be heard, and they will be shunned. Where ignorance is bliss, it is foolish to be wise.
Those who did not fight in the War will be fascinated by its mechanisms—the guns, the tanks, the soldiers, and what they carried. They will ignore what these mechanisms will do in War, because it is considered insensitive and taboo; the truth is often of these characteristics as well! And with their fascinations, they will still claim that War is terrible. I would be a fool not to call that hypocrisy.
It is disappointing to witness people romanticize conflict. If one is to claim that War is terrible, then one must be repulsed by any and all of its elements. If not, they would be liars.
Synopsis
| Anthill synopsis | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
The Murus Plateau bordering Aquila and Vega is a natural wall-like entity that serves as a barrier. The Vegans have constructed many defenses along the plateau over the course of a decade.
It is 1914, and Aquila has just fallen. Antares Shokk divisions are not pausing to regroup and are charging forward to attack Vega.
The story begins with a telegraph operator, whose name is Mateus, inside a dimly-lit concrete room. There are no windows in the room and a single lamp gives light. An incoming message appears: “Antares has crossed border. Prepare troops. Cruz.”
Mateus writes the message down on a piece of paper and runs out of the room. There are concrete tunnels with Vegan soldiers walking about. Some of the soldiers see Mateus running in a panic and ask him what his message says. He does not respond and continues running toward the officers’ quarters.
Once he finally arrives, he yells for Captain Rocha, who promptly appears. Mateus composes himself and salutes, handing the message to Rocha. The captain says something in Vego and hurries out of the quarters. Mateus hears shouting in the tunnels and an alarm bell ringing.
He runs back to the telegraph room and closes the door to drown out the noises. He then sits back down at the telegraph table and waits for another message. Minutes later, a soldier walks into the telegraph room and says something in Vego to Mateus. Mateus cannot understand Vego, having been raised in a town near the Aquilan border, so he only knows Librae.
Mateus gives the soldier a confused look and says “no vego” to him. The soldier then sighs and speaks Librae, calling Mateus a “damn nico” (nico is a slur for Vegans who only speak Librae. Most Vegans are taught to be bilingual and can speak both Vego and Librae). The soldier then tells him he will be Mateus’s runner so Mateus doesn’t have to abandon the telegraph every time he receives a message.
Mateus finds out the soldier’s name: Paulo. For the next hour, they wait in silence for another message. Paulo then breaks the silence and asks how Mateus doesn’t know Vego at all. Mateus claims he knows a few phrases in Vego and says them to Paulo. Paulo facepalms and sighs, saying Mateus isn’t even pronouncing the words properly. He says it sounds horrible and that Mateus has no accent, which makes it even worse. Mateus asks Paulo to teach him how to speak Vego with an accent and Paulo calls him an idiot. Paulo cannot teach him how to speak a language because Mateus should have done that since childhood. Mateus argues that it’s not too late for him to start learning it.
The room begins to rumble. Fighting has begun, but Mateus and Paulo are to remain in the telegraph room. The light flickers as explosions go off. They both wait for the fighting to stop, knowing the Antareans couldn’t possibly penetrate the plateau defenses.
Two hours later, the gunfire and explosions stop. Captain Rocha enters the telegraph room and asks Mateus if any new messages have come. Mateus replies no and Rocha tells Paulo to head directly to the section commander if a message comes. He should not be wasting time going to the officer’s quarters unless the message is directly addressed to an officer. Rocha exits the room but leaves the door open. Paulo goes to close the door but Mateus tells him not to, because he wants fresh air.
An hour later, another telegram arrives: “Antares regrouping. Stay alert. Cruz.” Paulo leaves the room with the message and returns after a few minutes.
Paulo asks Mateus how he became a telegraph operator if he doesn’t speak Vego. Mateus replies that all telegram messages are to be sent and received in Librae, so there’s no requirement to speak Vego. Paulo says that Mateus should learn Vego as soon as possible, and Mateus asks if Paulo can teach him. He agrees and starts off with basic words.
With the door open, Mateus sees soldiers carrying bodies through the tunnels. Some of them have dark grey uniforms that don’t look like the Vegans.
Over the next month, no activity is reported from the Antareans. The telegraph has also stayed silent for weeks. Meanwhile, Mateus has learned enough from Paulo to say basic phrases and questions in Vego. Mateus begins to complain about how boring his job is and that he should have taken up a combat role. Paulo disagrees but does not say why.
Paulo asks Mateus when the last time he’s seen the sun was. Mateus answers that he had stayed underground for the entire time he’s had the telegraph operator job, which was about six months. Paulo is shocked and tells him he needs to go outside immediately and see the sun. Mateus replies that he needs to stay at his post for incoming telegrams, but Paulo says there won’t be any telegrams since there haven’t been any for the past month. Besides, they were only taking a break for maybe half an hour. Mateus hesitantly agrees and they both walk out of the telegraph room. They travel through the tunnels and up several staircases before making it to the top of the plateau.
Outside, Mateus is blinded by the sun. His eyes take some time to adjust to the brightness, and all he can see is a great plain of grass and the metal hatch they came through. He turns around and sees the edge of the plateau, like standing on the edge of a cliff. Down below, he can see barbed wire and explosion craters which already have grass regrowing in them. It’s been that long since the last battle.
Paulo is staring at something else instead. Mateus approaches him and sees what Paulo sees. There is a ditch with dozens of piles of dead bodies, rotting away and some so decomposed that the skeleton had begun to show. But what was surprising was that they were the bodies of Antarean soldiers. They still have their dark grey uniforms and helmets on. One of the corpses had its face still almost perfectly intact while the rest of the body was a rotten and shredded mess.
Mateus throws up at the sight of the bodies and Paulo scoffs at him. Paulo tells Mateus that he’s safe in his little telegraph room while the rest of the troops have to see death. He says Mateus should consider himself lucky and to not complain about the boredom of the telegraph room. Any soldier would be willing to take on Mateus’s role if it means avoiding the sight of death and destruction.
Mateus is on the ground crying and calls himself a coward. Paulo tells him that every soldier is a coward, that every soldier fears dying. He tells Mateus that there is no shame in being a telegraph operator who’s safe in his room, because his job is what helps all the soldiers live. Without the telegram orders, more soldiers would have died and the Antareans could have even taken over the plateau.
Paulo holds out his hand and helps Mateus get off the ground. He pats Mateus’s back and they both walk back into the hatch.
| Brisa del desierto synopsis | |
|---|---|
| Author | |
| Date | |
| Content Warning(s) | |
In 1915, Antares begins their siege of Grusa. The desert poses a difficult challenge, and it takes a few years for the Antareans to penetrate the arid environment while facing resistance from the Grusan army.
Rafael is a fisherman living on the northern coasts of Grusa. He spends his day at sea on a small boat, close to the shore. He usually catches small fishes and sells them at the market every week.
The story is written in EnglishLibrae, but all the characters are speaking SpanishGrusi.
Rafael has competitors who take bigger risks and fish out in the distant ocean. They usually come back with large fish or even sharks sometimes. Rafael doesn’t want to go far into the ocean on his little boat. It wouldn’t be able to handle rougher seas.
The fisherman returns home after a day of fishing. He did not catch much fish that afternoon. His brother, Alvaro, confronts him about it. Alvaro sternly reminds him that he needs to either catch more fish or catch fish that would be worth more on the market. They are barely able to pay rent, let alone supplies for fishing like bait or nets. Rafael asks why Alvaro doesn’t help him with fishing instead of complaining about it. Alvaro replies he has his own business going on, but Rafael knows his “business” isn’t making profit. If it was making profit, Alvaro would be helping with the bulk of their expenses.
Alvaro reassures Rafael that he will get money soon, but Rafael has heard that same promise many times before. He doesn’t believe Alvaro will get money. The next day, Rafael goes out to sea again. As he waits to catch fish, he watches one of his competitors sail further into the ocean. Their ship has green markings and is much larger than Rafael’s boat, but it operates as a fishing trawl. Of course they’d get more fish out of each trip.
Rafael is so busy watching the large trawler get smaller as it goes further into the sea that he doesn’t notice his line being pulled into the water. The reel reaches the end of its roll and jerks. Rafael realizes a fish had caught on and tightens his grip on his rod before it gets pulled out of his hands. He reels the line in, and after seconds of struggling to pull it in, the fish jumps out of the water and lands in Rafael’s boat. It flops around until it dies.
The fish he caught was an eel, an animal that was worth a lot of money on the market. Rafael laughs with joy after realizing what he had caught and continues fishing for extra profit.
By the end of the day, Rafael is tired. He sails back to the coast, where he sees the green trawler docked. There are several men unloading their catches of the day — a lot more fish than Rafael could ever catch in a week. He dreams of buying his own trawler to catch more fish.
Rafael was still happy, having caught an eel. The fish he had were kept in an ice box to keep them fresh, and he carries his box home. He arrives home and tells Alvaro about the catch. Alvaro is excited and brings out an expensive wine to celebrate. But Rafael questions where he got the wine, and how he was able to buy it, and with what money he bought it with. Alvaro attempts to dodge the question, but Rafael gets angry. All this time, Alvaro had money to help with expenses but spent it on other things that didn’t help their situation. Rafael breaks the wine bottle and tells Alvaro to get out.
The next day, Rafael goes out to sea again. He watches the green trawler pass by once more and his day continues as normal without any special catches. He returns to the dock in the evening, but the trawler was not there like it was every day. Rafael goes home and goes to sleep.
In the morning, he wakes up and realizes he misses his brother. However, having Alvaro out of the house did make Rafael’s life simpler. He goes out to the docks, but something feels odd about the day. Rafael shrugs it off and thinks it’s just because he hadn’t seen Alvaro at home.
Rafael goes out to sea, but he does not see the green trawler anywhere. He begins to feel lonely and regrets kicking Alvaro out to the streets. When he returns to the dock in the evening, the trawler is still not there. Rafael then realizes the dock felt odd because there were less boats around the place. He asks a bystander at the dock about the ships, and the man says he hadn’t noticed anything different.
Weeks pass and the green trawler had not made an appearance. Less and less boats are in the docks every time Rafael returns to the coast. One morning, Alvaro knocks on Rafael’s door before he goes out to sea. Rafael greets him and hugs him, apologizing for kicking Alvaro out. But Alvaro came to warn Rafael. He held a newspaper that said Grusan ships were mysteriously disappearing. Alvaro tells Rafael he shouldn’t go out to fish, for his own safety. Rafael dismisses the warning, saying that he needs some way to pay the rent.
He offers Alvaro to help with fishing. Alvaro hesitantly accepts and the two go to the docks, where only a few boats remained. Alvaro tells Rafael that he doesn’t think it’s a good idea to go out to sea, but Rafael is adamant. They go out into the ocean, but nothing happens. Rafael fishes as normal, with Alvaro helping with an extra rod. When they return to the docks that evening, they notice that every fishing vessel was gone.
The next few weeks see great profits for Rafael. He seemed to be the only one selling fish at that point, as all the other fishermen in the town disappeared like their vessels. The worth of seafood increases due to the shortage of fish on the market, and Rafael is happy being the only seller on the market. Having enough money, he buys a bottle of wine, just like the one Alvaro had, and brings it home. He shares it with Alvaro, and the two think about creating their own fishing business. Rafael tells Alvaro about his dream of getting a fishing trawler so they could get even more fish.
One day, Rafael is reading a newspaper. He finds out that all the fishing vessels that had disappeared were captured or sunk by the Antarean navy a few miles out at sea. Rafael then realizes that he never disappeared because he fished close to the shore rather than out in the ocean where the Antareans operated. But Rafael did not care. He was happy with his success and thought that just as long as he stayed by the coast like he had always done, there wouldn’t be any problems.
Sources
Note: All links here are related to google docs.
- Fire in the sky
- Cassius
- Summer's End (Normal English, Antarean Libare)