The last to go

4

The lone soldier looked up at the sky. It was undisturbed now that all the helicarriers were gone. Bright blue, enough to hurt eyes. Not a cloud in sight, allowing the two suns to reach their full potential. The sky curved over Xanbu. Kyra felt a headache build behind her eyes and a cramp in her neck. She was big, easily reaching the roofs of the houses without standing on her tiptoes. Her uniforms were tailored and still a bit too short. The sky was closer to her than anyone else. Her hands were large enough to cover the suns. She closed her eyes. 

She felt tiny and insignificant. 

Kyra was just an ordinary soldier from a simple background. She would get a name on a marble plate, with a date next to it showing that she had become all of twenty-two years old. Whomever had not survived would join her on the list. It would not be a very big list, perhaps they could all fit on a single tile. Her planet would receive a copy while the original would join the many other plates in the memorial site on the planet Leonidas.

Rows of tiles in various sizes were laid out there in the comfortable shadows of the ancient Gucha trees. Every day the creamy stones would be scrubbed and polished until they shone. New soldiers were always led around the memorial. A veteran reminded them of the sacrifices made by others. Not every student could handle it. Kyra had been unable to sleep that night. In the morning, when she sat bleary eyed in her first philosophy lesson, her teacher had smiled at her and told her that no life was without meaning. Even in death it was valuable. It took her forever to understand his subject, but eventually Kyra passed the test.

At her graduation, not a single teacher smiled anymore. They all stood grim and stoic in a row as the trainees collected their badge. The teachers were strict, as if they did their best to keep the soldiers in the camp. They often spoke of their previous students and then looked out of the windows towards the memorial. They carried each lost live as a weight on their shoulders. Her trainers at the military training camp would now have one more student they had outlived. One more student to remember during class. One more tile to pause in front of.

In the end, the fallen soldiers would be nothing more than memories. They might be remembered for years to come, or just mere minutes. Strangers wouldn't even recall her face. If Kyra's face ended up in one of their nightmares they might not even realize it. She would be nothing more than a memory they wished to forget.

Those who loved her would never be able to forget her, she hoped. Her father would definitely come and visit the monument every year. He would rub the indents and press his forehead against the cool surface. He would shed tears until he ran out of them and his green eyes would be red rimmed. His frizzy hair would change its color, revealing the many years he had lived. The lines around his eyes would become deeper and permanent. His skin would dry out, because without Kyra to remind him, he would forget to hydrate.

Their pet dragon- Po- would be confused at first, but then understand and change the colors of her scales to match Kyra's skin, as was the custom for dragons. Po would fly around the house only to fall asleep in Kyra's bed. She would keep her father alive in the upcoming years.

Maybe they would find a picture of her, snuggling with Po on their couch. Young and innocent, dreaming of a world so far from this one. That young Kyra would never imagine destruction like this. She would never think of herself injured in a way that went beyond physical pain. The Kyra of now would die in a battle that was never hers, a battle she never understood.

Perhaps she'd get a picture in a museum or her school. Maybe the students and visitors would understand what she had died for. It could have been politics. Something higher than the terrorist attack. It could've been a decision of the High Council, a group shrouded in shadows who ruled the rulers of galaxy. Officially they didn't exist and were nothing more than a conspiracy. Unofficially they controlled everything and were responsible for many unexplained deaths. Kyra hoped the reason wasn't because of them. They were cowards who hid behind governments and let them do the dirty work. 

She'd rather blame her own foolishness even if she might not get a name on a plate. Only the brave and smart were honored and buried on Leonidas. The idiots were hidden in statistics, their bodies anonymously transported back. Her body, if there was one left, would be brought to her home among imported goods. It would probably be buried in the ocean, wrapped in the cloth that was once wrapped around her when she was just born. A quiet place where her body would slowly become part of the bright coral reef. Her father wasn't able to swim there though, Baldor needed the ground at all times. He might be able to see her from the surface.

Kyra wanted to at least get a medal from the Royal Family, welded to her gravestone. A mention in the local, maybe national or even international news. A grave in the Garden of the Soldiers, in the ocean's darkest point, guarded by the serpent. The garden belonged to the temple of the Healer, a God who tended to fallen warriors and kept them there until it was time to return to the living.