Cannon Fodder

Prologue

I'm dying, I think.

Sharp metal has pierced through my fragile skin, ripping through my body. I hear the shouts of 2895694 and 2895692 around me as I fall. I'm 2895693.

Our ranks are falling now, all around me.

I feel my instincts react first, weak vines shooting across the ground, headed towards my soon to be killer, a Hephur with metal shards clinging to his hands, weak like me. My power hasn't grown, not properly.

I've been told it's impossible to grow, the best thing to do is practice, to make it precise, to make it instinct, so that even as I die, I will take another down with me.

At least then, I have a purpose.

There are no medics for me. They shouldn't waste their time with someone of little rank, and less power. It is better they save it for the generals, the lieutenants, those whose power and skill can be used to better the war.

I am merely there to move it along, inch by bloody inch.

"War is a tragic victory, but to die for it makes it all the sweeter."

I've heard that, before, after the battles. When we mourn those we've lost. I remember the day we lost 2895672. There hadn't been a body to recover.

That had nearly been the death of 2895673 as well. My brother, entering service before me, though only by a few months. We are in the same legion, but not the same division.

He is in the 2895670s. I am in the 2895690s.

Was.

I must remember to say was.

I am dying, after all. There will be no present left for me, and it's fading fast, the dull sounds of metal crushing and fire burning, lightning striking and plants strangling, people drowning in their own blood filling my ears.

No bodies hit the ground beside mine, as I blink up at the storming sky, conflicting with the powers of the Plors, swirling with bolts of lightning and pelting hail. I feel more blood seep from the open wound.

I feel some small relief that at least my death is near, that I will not suffer long.

As my heart beat begins to slow, I choose not to remember my name. It is better to die nameless, as solider 2895693, than to die known. Then there is less to mourn.

I look up at the sky one last time. Then my eyes close, and I see nothing.