Tyranny: Onwards

Chapter 124- Battlefield

Now I am in a battlefield, bodies scattered across the vast plain of spiked, ridged, dull grass underfoot. Crimson and scarlet shades sparkling from wounds and mutilated bodies, spears, swords and arrows flashing from the carcasses. The sun is pale and weak, there's a fog not obvious above me, thin and frail filtering any light and hope.

Is this what people call the art of war? All the mothers, father, wives, husbands, daughters, sons and so on laying dead and unseen? Their lives forgotten? How can it be an art?

All that breaks the wide plain are the line of perfectly placed trees behind me and the dark smudges that indicate forest far off. A red beaming glow taints the airs opposite of me as a village on fire or battle torches lit and flaring.

Something is on my face, it feels as a tear running down my skin, but when I touch it with my hand, the fingers are painted in deep, dark reds, smelling of the rusty hue I know to be blood. This smell lifts from the ground and sweeps through the still airs silent but deadly.

My eyes widen, my mind freezes, my heart feels to have died, cold and dormant, I can't move, my eyes are wide and terrified, the blade I carry weightlessly in my other hand I drop, it sticks into the soil and I clench my fists, squeezing my eyes shut. I need this go away, I need this to stop, I need to forget this! Right now!

The pain leaves tears in my eyes, which proceed to stream also silent but deadly down my cheeks, leaving scars I cannot ever cover or erase, scars that are a piece of my heart and soul now. But why would I want to do that? Am I ashamed? I should be. I did this. I took part in this. It started as defending, trying to end conflict with conflict, to save the lives of those we care about; but we didn't consider the fact that the people we would battle were also people with those who care for them and whom they are protecting. A double edged sword.

This is what a restricted mind does, this is what a lack of understanding and empathy does. This is the damage of mistakes with lives, this is what playing with death and life does, thinking you control it, what happens when you screw around with others lives like you own them.

I was merely following orders to survive, to protect. But so were the others, the opposition. I went out, knowing I would survive. They killed all my allies, all my 'team', my side killed most of them, and there I was. A lone soldier against part of an army. And I slaughtered them all.

The tears running down the faces as they threw themselves at me in an attempt, knowing they were leaping into the claws of death. I stabbed them and they fell off my blade to the ground, crying out for a child or wife, husband or parent. My ears decided to lock and my mind was so hard.

Why did I do this. Is it worth being the survivor if I killed them all, when I could have tried negotiating?

Bodies and detached limbs about me, piles of them. In fact, an arm sits at my feet, staining my light boots, a tormented face screwed into a dreadful expression on decapitated head next to me, tears fresh on the cold skin. A body with a leaking and gaping hold in the chest close by, and on it goes. Every time I see a body, I know I was the reason. You might call me the flower of death. As of now I stand with limbs and deserted shells of skin and bones having all fallen back and away from me, all feet to me and heads pointing away, like the petals of a flower, where I am the center.

The center is always the hard piece of any plant, with a greater lack of colour and hue generally, the part that survives and allows the petals to wilt and fall, to decay at the roots.

I did this, I am the cause, and I am the reason. A scream of rage and despair escapes my mouth, clearing my body of all air, echoing in the emptiness, radiating in my heart, I belt out again and again.

"I'M SO SORRY, I'M SORRY SORRY, I STOLE YOUR PRECIOUS LIFE!" I scream and cry, ruining my vocal cords, and on I still yell with all my power, all my regret and agony, all my guilt until my vocal cords cannot make another noise whatsoever; yet still I cannot stop.

I cannot stop shattering and tearing apart inside, I cannot stop gasping and chocking for air as I cry and shred my mind, I cannot stop my fingers from being curled and bringing blood from my palms, I cannot stop from collapsing to the ground, wishing the grass would slice me up. Because this, this is a pain no one can ever grasp or see, this is a pain I must bear alone, this is a pain I cannot describe.

The air begins to grow black as voices rise and I feel like my heart and head will explode from the emotions and agony so strong coursing harshly through me.

"CLAIRE!" I shoot up, standing now, heart broken and hurting, banging with the torn grief still and see those around me. Immediately I want to at least save them but need to leave, afraid to hurt them.

I gasp and try hard to catch my breath once more. My fingers are numb and I grip the fabric over my heart, bending and breathing, yet continue to stagger away. I need to recollect my thoughts and work through this now.

However, this was no simple nightmare, this dream, this is what I did in reality. I remember going into that battle when I was young, that was all real, it was a true and solid memory I bear from my past.