When Given a Lemon

Part 2

I hate conflict.

Not because I'm a pacifist or have no backbone; I've had my fair share of rough and tumbles back home when it was necessary. More honestly it's because I don't believe we are fighting for a valid reason. Whoever these "monsters" are most certainly aren't what the reports say, meaning we are probably fighting people. And by people I mean a group that we can't openly admit to fighting. Hence the monster alias.

That and I may be afraid of sharp objects coming at me.

Even if we never actually see any conflict, the idea of wasting my time searching for clues on a monster hunt doesn't sound much more appealing.

I wish I had an excuse to stay behind to monitor the leaky countryside instead of following my new orders that will certainly ruin all my plans to do nothing while enlisted.

I know I am being dramatic, but I am not naive enough to forget that there is a real conflict happening somewhere out there where real living people are fighting and dying for unknown reasons. I had hoped to avoid all of it.

They didn't care for my opinion though and I ended up spending the night before we left scrubbing the floors by hand for opening my damn mouth.

The trek out of the camp is more slippery than any of my walks on the deer trails to the different posts I had manned while here. My sore knees don't make it any easier either. We all march together; the fifty odd new recruits along with our new officers. The banged up squad they brought in was getting a muddy vacation back at the barracks we just left. We don't have official squads like that yet. We've only been serving in training units which consisted of about 25-30 people while a regular squad was closer to 6-8 people including the squad leader.

My unit has three others from the same area as me and though none of us explicitly knew each other, we had all at least passed by and greeted each other before coming here. We've stuck close together, finding comfort in the familiarity now that we are out on the open road. Mirth walked next to me. She was named so by a parent that fancied themselves a poet, or that's what she tells everybody. Both of us have spent a fair few minutes slipping and wobbling our way through the hazardous puddles before we finally reach more stable ground. This is supposedly one of the highways that connects this region to the next but out this far has fallen into disrepair.

The energy for once is buzzing with anxious excitement. Some are thrilled to finally have the chance to go fight while others more conservative like me are dreading it. Mirth has yet to express how she feels. Because of this I'm hesitant to say anything though I'm sure she knows by now what I think. It was no secret what I was being punished for. Since everyone already knows, I've acquired an assortment of different looks from other soldiers. Everything from sympathy, apathy, to disdain.

We are being sent to some borderland – a whole group of noobs – because supposed “monsters” had been baraging the area and they wanted to ensure none tried to slip through into this gods forgotten land while the more seasoned fighters stayed in the “hot zones” where the conflict was spawning from.

Despite the buzz, our units were abnormally quiet. An oddity that had taken me a while to figure this fact out, unable to put my finger on what it was that was so strange about this march. No one is really talking. I've barely caught a whisper here and there.

"Why don't we sing a marching song or play 'spy the object I See'?" I asked quietly to my nearest companions, tired of the silence as soon as I noticed it.

"Quiet in the ranks!" Someone bellowed. Well that's rude. And unnecessary.

Then another voice piped up from right behind my shoulder;