I push a few buttons, feeling their engraved letters on my fingertips. Red, Green and Black, in respective order.
I twist a dial, from nil to twenty, my ears detecting the satisfying ticks it makes on the panel. I undock the squat little microphone from its hook.
I take a moment to untangle the cable before raising it to my lips. I hear nothing but static. No emergency calls. No orders. Nothing.
A duo of tears escape my eyes, sliding, making their way down my cheeks, before falling onto the stone floor below me. As I watched them, time seemed to slow down and I looked on as they splashed onto the hard surface, without a sound. . Ive never cried before. My first tears will be my last. I hold back the rest and bring forward the strength to speak.
I hit record.
"Personal log 112. Time is..." I take a shaky glance at my watch, before remembering the cause of its shattered display, small shards left scatered around the edges like jagged teeth. I look up again.
I continue.
" Date is..." I try to remember the day, but weeks of battle and blood have blinded my memory to this fact. Not to the violence. Nobody could ever forget what Ive witnessed. The friends Ive lost, the enemies I´ve torn limb from limb with strikes of my sword. Bombs that rip appart. Colosal tanks that crush the skulls of the fallen under their tracks. I close my eyes as to clear these images but they persist, clear as ever. More tears threaten to break through.
I try again.
"Somewhere in February, 3067." I hurry my words, knowing I dont have much time. "Resistance soldier Aurelio Jade, making the last log. We are finished. The Resistence is finished. Whatever hope of freedom that we held onto, is finished."
At these words my tears start breaking through, beggining in shallow sobs. Everything I love and fight for has been crushed, annihalated. "The tunnels have been destroyed. San Salvador is in ruins. As I lie in the rubble of the Underground, as the Empire's ressurrected men swarm through the streets above me, slaying all they see, I realise one thing. Something that's been hiding in plain sight from us all these years." I hate myself for what I'm about to say. But it's the truth. "We can't win this war."
I hear the sound of cracking and smashing, as rock is torn appart and concrete shatters. It emanates from the hallway behind me. I dont even bother to look. I know they're there. They know I know. They know everything. Their mechanic eyes see through walls, see through souls.
The hollow thud of steel capped boots, accompanied by the steel clang of metal paws flood into the room.
I turn around, facing them with all the hatred I can muster,all the hatred possible. Hatred for my slain comrades, my murdered family, but most of all, hatred for the Empire.
My screams echo throughout the underground simultaneously to the sound of gunfire and guttural, metalic howls.
