Remembrance
1 I lean on the rail, looking out at the ocean. I have been gone many years, separated from my friends. I was taken to prison for the crimes I committed, the people I killed. I have been gone too long. I turn to the young man beside me, not so young anymore. His long brown hair is gone, shaved off in the prison. They were worried about any lock-picks he may have had hidden in his braid, which actually he did. His pride and joy, the only thing he had left to hold onto to remind him of who he was and is. Gone.
No one besides the other two of us, the other two soldiers, knows what has happened to us. One of us is dead. I never really knew him. He was very secluded and fought on his own. Our wives wait at home, thinking we are off on a delayed mission. If only they knew that the last mission we ever were on was actually 10 years ago, five years before we were captured. The Gundams have been destroyed. Our missions were actually frauds, plans to keep moving, to keep from being caught. We would leave, sometimes for months, then return when all was well. Our wives never knew this of course.
The Sank kingdom is looking for us. Oh no, they were not working with those who locked us up like animals. Those were rebels. No, the Sank Kingdom doesn't know of our five years of imprisonment. They will have been searching for all this time. Maybe they will have given up. I doubt it. Relena Peacecraft doesn't give up easily. Or maybe I should say Relena Kushranada. I'm not used to her being married to Treize. I still remember the fifteen-year-old girl, princess, then queen, of first the Sank Kingdom, and then the World Nation. But then…
We betrayed her. We sold the secrets of the Sank Kingdom to OZ in order to release one of us whom they had captured. It was the hardest decision any of us made. So now they are looking for us. All four of us pilots. There used to be five, but one is gone. Dead. Killed in battle.
There are so many painful memories that kept resurfacing while I was in that prison. I couldn't keep them out of my head. It drove me crazy, having to relive the bloodshed, sweat and tears. In the cell next to me, the longhaired one would bang on the doors and the bars. We were driven crazy, forced to relive our past. The one thing that kept us going was the promise of freedom. We were caged, like animals. And maybe we were. I can't help thinking that maybe, if the Sank Kingdom had caught us, we would have been better off. Maybe we still will be, if they catch us one day. Maybe we should stop running. Maybe we should be resigned to our fate.
But the soldier I used to be rises within me. I do not give up. I fight for as long as I can stand, and then I continue to fight in order to get up again and fight some more. Fighting is not the way out of war and bloodshed, but it is a way out, to keep from thinking. You aim, you fire. If you miss, fire again. Life isn't as simple as war. If you miss, you have to back up and try all over again, and sometimes you only have enough ammo for one shot. I remember war. I remember fighting against my friends, although I didn't know they were my friends, and then having to fight against them in order to stay alive, to keep the illusion going. But there are too many memories, too painful to endure.
I look at the sea, boiling beneath me. It would be quick, I tell myself. Throw myself off of the edge of the ferry. The propellers would churn me up in seconds. But I am a fighter. I will go down fighting.
Down the railing, another passenger does jump off. Screams of man overboard fill the air. More death. It is not so different from war. People mindlessly ding because they don't want to face the truth. I can hear his last dying scream, magnified to ten times it's loudness because that is what I am listening for. I close me eyes, and see an OZ soldier being engulfed in flames as his Mobile Suit blows up. I see the first pilot, the first one to die, falling from his Gundam and being burned away to nothing as his body entered the atmosphere. I open my eyes. The water below me is filled with blood, mingling with the whitecaps. War is pointless. Death is pointless. I look ahead to the horizon, to the shore covered in fog. I know it is there.
Within minutes we are off the ferry, standing once again on solid ground. There is no one to greet us. No one knew where we were, when we would be coming back. And the other two of us can't risk coming out. That's understandable. It's every man for himself in our situation. I hear a strangely familiar voice. The young man beside me shouts out a curse and turns to me.
"Its them," he says, voice strangled. then he runs. I turn to look into the eyes of Lucrezia Noin.
"You are a prisoner of the Sank Kingdom," she tells me. "I have authorization to take you to our holding facility." Facing my fate, I follow her obediently. All around I notice Sank soldiers. Somehow they knew. Then one of us, one of my alleged friends, I see pocketing money given him by a soldier. I cry bitter tears, for I understand now that I have been betrayed by my dearest friend. He looks at me apologetically then turns to go.
"I don't think so!" the soldier yells, and pulls out a rifle. A shot rings out, and the pilot's body falls to the ground. "Those who betray their friends don't deserve to live."
I keep walking. Is this my fate as well? I would rather die in battle or commit suicide then be murdered in cold blood by those who used to be my friends. I pull out the jack-knife I keep in my pocket always. I knew this day would come. Resigned to my doom, I quietly slice my wrists. I will die slowly, but I will die because I want to, not because someone else chooses when and where. Faint from lack of blood, I faint to the ground. Noin turns to see me lying there, the haze of death creeping into my eyes.
"NOOOOO!" she screams, and runs to my side. I think one more time how beautiful she is. I never did want to marry Dorothy. I had to. It was Noin all along who held my heart, I tell her all this with my last shaking breaths. Then I lie down my head and die.
1 I lean on the rail, looking out at the ocean. I have been gone many years, separated from my friends. I was taken to prison for the crimes I committed, the people I killed. I have been gone too long. I turn to the young man beside me, not so young anymore. His long brown hair is gone, shaved off in the prison. They were worried about any lock-picks he may have had hidden in his braid, which actually he did. His pride and joy, the only thing he had left to hold onto to remind him of who he was and is. Gone.
No one besides the other two of us, the other two soldiers, knows what has happened to us. One of us is dead. I never really knew him. He was very secluded and fought on his own. Our wives wait at home, thinking we are off on a delayed mission. If only they knew that the last mission we ever were on was actually 10 years ago, five years before we were captured. The Gundams have been destroyed. Our missions were actually frauds, plans to keep moving, to keep from being caught. We would leave, sometimes for months, then return when all was well. Our wives never knew this of course.
The Sank kingdom is looking for us. Oh no, they were not working with those who locked us up like animals. Those were rebels. No, the Sank Kingdom doesn't know of our five years of imprisonment. They will have been searching for all this time. Maybe they will have given up. I doubt it. Relena Peacecraft doesn't give up easily. Or maybe I should say Relena Kushranada. I'm not used to her being married to Treize. I still remember the fifteen-year-old girl, princess, then queen, of first the Sank Kingdom, and then the World Nation. But then…
We betrayed her. We sold the secrets of the Sank Kingdom to OZ in order to release one of us whom they had captured. It was the hardest decision any of us made. So now they are looking for us. All four of us pilots. There used to be five, but one is gone. Dead. Killed in battle.
There are so many painful memories that kept resurfacing while I was in that prison. I couldn't keep them out of my head. It drove me crazy, having to relive the bloodshed, sweat and tears. In the cell next to me, the longhaired one would bang on the doors and the bars. We were driven crazy, forced to relive our past. The one thing that kept us going was the promise of freedom. We were caged, like animals. And maybe we were. I can't help thinking that maybe, if the Sank Kingdom had caught us, we would have been better off. Maybe we still will be, if they catch us one day. Maybe we should stop running. Maybe we should be resigned to our fate.
But the soldier I used to be rises within me. I do not give up. I fight for as long as I can stand, and then I continue to fight in order to get up again and fight some more. Fighting is not the way out of war and bloodshed, but it is a way out, to keep from thinking. You aim, you fire. If you miss, fire again. Life isn't as simple as war. If you miss, you have to back up and try all over again, and sometimes you only have enough ammo for one shot. I remember war. I remember fighting against my friends, although I didn't know they were my friends, and then having to fight against them in order to stay alive, to keep the illusion going. But there are too many memories, too painful to endure.
I look at the sea, boiling beneath me. It would be quick, I tell myself. Throw myself off of the edge of the ferry. The propellers would churn me up in seconds. But I am a fighter. I will go down fighting.
Down the railing, another passenger does jump off. Screams of man overboard fill the air. More death. It is not so different from war. People mindlessly ding because they don't want to face the truth. I can hear his last dying scream, magnified to ten times it's loudness because that is what I am listening for. I close me eyes, and see an OZ soldier being engulfed in flames as his Mobile Suit blows up. I see the first pilot, the first one to die, falling from his Gundam and being burned away to nothing as his body entered the atmosphere. I open my eyes. The water below me is filled with blood, mingling with the whitecaps. War is pointless. Death is pointless. I look ahead to the horizon, to the shore covered in fog. I know it is there.
Within minutes we are off the ferry, standing once again on solid ground. There is no one to greet us. No one knew where we were, when we would be coming back. And the other two of us can't risk coming out. That's understandable. It's every man for himself in our situation. I hear a strangely familiar voice. The young man beside me shouts out a curse and turns to me.
"Its them," he says, voice strangled. then he runs. I turn to look into the eyes of Lucrezia Noin.
"You are a prisoner of the Sank Kingdom," she tells me. "I have authorization to take you to our holding facility." Facing my fate, I follow her obediently. All around I notice Sank soldiers. Somehow they knew. Then one of us, one of my alleged friends, I see pocketing money given him by a soldier. I cry bitter tears, for I understand now that I have been betrayed by my dearest friend. He looks at me apologetically then turns to go.
"I don't think so!" the soldier yells, and pulls out a rifle. A shot rings out, and the pilot's body falls to the ground. "Those who betray their friends don't deserve to live."
I keep walking. Is this my fate as well? I would rather die in battle or commit suicide then be murdered in cold blood by those who used to be my friends. I pull out the jack-knife I keep in my pocket always. I knew this day would come. Resigned to my doom, I quietly slice my wrists. I will die slowly, but I will die because I want to, not because someone else chooses when and where. Faint from lack of blood, I faint to the ground. Noin turns to see me lying there, the haze of death creeping into my eyes.
"NOOOOO!" she screams, and runs to my side. I think one more time how beautiful she is. I never did want to marry Dorothy. I had to. It was Noin all along who held my heart, I tell her all this with my last shaking breaths. Then I lie down my head and die.