The Garden

War. One word would send the world as you know it out of balance. Send everything and everyone you love up into flames, leaving only ashes scattered across the ground.

I had only been eleven when my cousin Mitchell slammed a hammer into his leg, breaking his femur. 'Coward' and 'Worthless' were whispered behind his back when he'd only done it to protect our family from what would happen if he left. I'd been twelve when his leg healed over, when they shipped him off to fight in a pointless war that's dragged on for two years with no progress and thousands of lives lost.

Posters hung on cork boards and littered walls, all saying the same thing: Be a Hero. "Be a Hero" might have been a good slogan if you're saving a kitten from a tree or puppies from a burning building but not for a war. "Be a hero" is not meant for men who are dragged away from homes with no training in combat to fight against an enemy who has been preparing for this their whole lives. Being a hero shouldn't get you a bullet to the brain, stopping your heart and leaving your family to mourn over a life that could've been spared.

When I was thirteen, barely a year later, we got a man at our door to tell us that Mitchell has been killed serving a power-hungry and treacherous country. Of course he used words like bravery and honor but they were all lies used to decorate a dead man's corpse.

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A/N: The cover art is not mine and also the description is vague because I have an idea where the story is going but no actual clue so you'll be just as surprised as me with each chapter😂. This was originally only supposed to be a short story and end with the prologue but I wanted to expand on it so I'm posting it here! Welp anyways bye!