It's Always So

1

"In formation!" Aslan yelled, lifting up his gun and preparing himself, aiming. His voice sounded muffled through his mask, but his comrades have been with him long enough to know every word that came from his mouth.

Lance heard a collective amount of gasps and cries of alarm from the crowd below him, and he heard the rustle of his men's uniforms as they settled into place next to him. The crowd began to shift into a mass of panic, people started to run as they tried to escape, but nothing was faster than Aslan's words and a gun's bullet.

"Shoot!"

Lance noticed that his captain always aimed at the little ones. The toddlers of the young moms who screamed and cried to let their children live—he always killed them.

It wasn't because of some indisposed fascination Aslan had with children—Lance knew that it was with a sick thought that maybe, if he killed the children himself, his comrades wouldn't have to cry so much at night. They wouldn't have to bear the guilt of snuffing out new life, and instead only think about how the people they'd killed had already lived thirty or more of their years.

Lance watched through the lenses of his mask as all the children—the ones with so much hope, were shot down by the person not even a centimetre away from him. Aslan's arm pressed up against him was warm, and Lance wondered how someone so cold could be so warm.

He himself aimed for all the teenagers.