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✲꘏ ꘏ ꘏ ꘏✲
"Try to get some rest, miss," the Black soldier urged gently.
"I can't promise that."
"You'll have to be up early tomorrow."
"I get up early every morning," I replied, narrowing my eyes slightly. I walked past him, but then stopped and turned back.
"And every night I go to bed late. Sometimes I don't sleep at all. Not only because every third night I'm assigned to the night shift, but because of everything that's happening during these terrible times."
"You're not the only one who's suffering, miss," he said sympathetically. "These are difficult days for all of us."
"Private James died tonight," I answered quietly.
"What?"
"You probably didn't know. How could you? He was sent on a classified mission, and the command didn't seem to care that the enemy was only a few feet from where they deployed him. They don't care about any of your lives, even though they pretend they're defending the country."
"Miss..."
"No."
I raised my hand, stopping him.
Closing my eyes tightly, I inhaled the polluted air before slowly letting it out again.
When I opened my eyes, they were already filling with tears.
"No sympathy. I don't need any. The ones who deserve sympathy are the children, parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, and all the families waiting at home—the very people you're all fighting to protect. The ones who pray you'll come back alive. The ones whose hearts are shattered when they learn that their son, brother, grandson, fiancé, husband, or father has died a meaningless death at the enemy's hands."
The tall soldier said nothing.
He simply stared at me with his nearly black eyes, perhaps already wondering whether I had finally lost my mind.
Perhaps I had.
I had begun wondering the same thing myself.
Maybe witnessing so many casualties, so many innocent people and soldiers dying, had slowly blurred the line between truth and illusion, reality and nightmare.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, lowering my gaze.
"I shouldn't have lashed out."
Without even looking to see whether he was still watching me with that uneasy expression, I walked back toward the barracks where we all slept on narrow cots placed barely an inch apart.
That was simply how war worked.
It didn't matter whether you were a soldier, a medic, or a lieutenant—at night everyone slept in the same room, side by side.
