Apologies in advance for any mistakes that you may find regarding the weaponry, the battle, etc... If you can correct what I did wrong, please PM me. Thanks!


His own conscious and wildly unattractive reality belonged to the nightmares that numerous other men, women, and children had dreamt up. A bayonet in one hand, a flag of dreams and hope and opportunity in the other: he gripped both items desperately, clung to what little resolve and sanity and innocence he knew and tried to escape the battlefield he stood on with his imagination, but even his mind, now damaged and contaminated and weak from war, could not carry him away from this condescending and repulsive scene. Of guns, of violence, of hatred and loathing for the simple fact that the colonials wanted their freedom from Britain, he could still not understand the outbreak of such conflict and tragedy. Was it wrong to crave freedom that no one else wanted to give?

He tried to think his way out of it, to remember the beautiful things as they were, and forget the ugly as they came. His thoughts would not allow it. He closed his eyes and tried to think of roses, red and blooming, growing into something delicate and wonderful and beautiful and pure, but his thoughts took him back to the hideous sights he'd seen. To vermilion blood on mangled, unrecognizable faces who would never see their families again, to tears cried in a soldier's final moments, to the red of the uniform the British soldiers wore, and crystalline dew drops began to blossom in his own eyes.

He tried to think of blue, of the sky and how he watched countless birds soar above him on wings made of white crystal. He tried to remember the water, the sea, and how clear and reflective it had been of his own face, but the only blue he could remember now was that of lividity on corpses. Their blue lips and their blue skin and their glossy eyes that stared up at gray skies, unable to switch focus and look elsewhere.

Greens and golds had always been soiled and stained. Grass and leaves were not the things he saw when he saw green. All he saw were sorrowful, yet angry, emerald colored irises blaring down the nose at him. He did not find gold to be an attractive color either. No number of glittering coins in his hand could change his opinion.

Every color was infected with some disease with only two being an exception, but even they were not entirely excused.

The only colors that had yet to be tainted were black and white, colors that did not see death nor life, colors that remained neutral on both sides. They were colors that wore no faces, and yet, to some extent, they were the cruelest colors of all. They were the colors that brought you to life and sought after you in death. They looked for you and gave some sort of cruel care as they suffocated you. They were the colors of night and day, of good and evil, of harmony and balance, and yet, they were the colors that separated everything and severed ties.

And yet, now, Alfred could only hate the colors of the rainbow, colors that once represented beauty, because now all they represented were the calamities of vicious antagonism and slaughter. They watched men die and filled them in as they did so. They stretched outside of the lines and colored in various directions and left horribly sloppy marks across what used to be a face. A face that smiled and cried and was angry. A face that once wore an emotion. A face now shaded in with all the wrong colors that war brought.

For six years, Alfred had stood upon these hills, obeyed orders, did as he was told. He was a soldier and a civilian, living, breathing, and he fought for the sake of his country. He fought for what his people desired, for what he longed for, and yet he didn't realize until that very moment just what it meant to fight for what he believed in. By being a soldier, he was giving up everything. He had given up the right to see in high definition, the right to see everything as it should have been. He had dutifully resigned himself to a gray scale life where he saw only misery and mourning. He saw things the way they were never meant to be. "Alfred. Alfred Jones," a masculine voice said and he shuddered in familiarity and recognition.

Still clinging to his bayonet and to his flag, he got into a defensive stance. He would fight, even if it meant death. He would fight, even if it meant more sorrow, because he'd already cast aside too much to turn back now. He didn't regret his decision to leave Britain behind because liberty, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness were superior to anything and everything he had ever known. "Arthur," he replied carefully, as if to avoid choking on that name...

There was no bite to his voice, as there had been to the Briton's. Alfred wore a mask over his weary expression and hid the tears behind a layer of inconceivable blankness. His eyes were hollow, his gaze empty, and a bitter smile stretched across his lips. "Stop this war, Alfred. Come back home."

"You know I can't do that, Arthur... For six years, I've let my people die... This land is rightfully theirs and it is rightfully mine. I can't turn away from it just because you want me to, and even if I could, I wouldn't do it! I want my freedom, Arthur... Whether you give it to me willingly or if I have to rip it away from you with force, well, I'll do either! This is my land and these are my God given rights!"

"And I'm your God given guardian! Shut up and just go home, Alfred! This isn't your war!"

"Yes it is," Alfred yelled, dropping his flag and his composure. He raised his musket up so it was pointed dangerously at the British soldier standing opposite of him. His temporarily placed mask crumbled. "I'm the one who left you! I'm the one who forsook Britain and England and convinced people to come here! I'm the one who dreamt of a land where you didn't make the rules! I dreamt of a land where you didn't interfere with what I wanted in life, because all you've ever done is screw me up and over!"

The shock in Arthur's emerald irises, the stupor and the devastation, at Alfred's words hit him, but they had still not broken all the way through. He still could not believe that Alfred, once a child, and now a man, stood before him with a gun aimed at his chest. But even if Alfred did fire off a musket ball, the physical pain would never compare to the mental and emotional distress.

This was war in all its glory. It tested loyalty and bonds while it broke hearts and severed ties. It distorted bliss and created images of false joy.

Cheerless and dull, Arthur asked Alfred this time, practically begged Alfred, to come back. He did not order. He did not demand. He simply asked the man who used to be a child to return home with him, but to this, Alfred stood firmer. Something cold and dangerous and distant began to burn in Alfred's blue eyes and his finger quivered around the trigger. "I'm not a child anymore, Arthur, nor am I your little brother. I've made my decision and even if I die, I'll die fighting for it... You don't understand how much I've given up just to be able to stand here... I refuse to go back to Britain so my people can be tried and executed."

"Alfr-"

"You've exhausted me and you've exhausted yourself, as well as your funds... You should have chosen more carefully, Arthur. With money going to Prussia for Frederick the Great's campaign, you have none left to supply yourself with weapons or food... Your soldiers have all but been expended... You have nothing left... "

It was only at this that Arthur noticed Alfred's heavily fatigued eyes, as well as the enormous bags beneath them. Alfred slumped. His posture was not as straight as it had once been and his shoulders rounded themselves off. He was tired, but determined, and even in such a terrible state, he was willing to fight.

Arthur knew very well that he could not pull his trigger, and he was absolutely certain that Alfred could not pull his. So it was with a heavy heart that he lowered his musket and turned to walk away. He stopped and glanced back at Alfred only once, before he shook his head, and vanished into a sunset of reds and oranges.

The American stood stiff, watching as the British soldier disappeared. It seemed like an eternity before he was able to lower his bayonet and pick up the flag he'd dropped so carelessly before. He'd be sure to burn it later and get a new one. This one was tainted, like all the colors of the world, and he hated that he'd allow such a precious object to become so dirtied...


That night, Alfred tossed and turned beneath the uncomfortable shelter that his tent offered him. Even in the darkness, there was no solace, no peace of mind. If anything, that's when he had to be most careful, most alert, most aware... It would be another sleepless night of worrying and wondering and asking why the war wasn't over yet. It should have been over by now. There seemed to be no end to this madness nor did there seem to be an end to this eternal cycle of death and pain.

He wanted to be done with it all. He wanted this nightmare to be gone. Maybe after this, when the war was won, and the British were gone, he could try and restore the colors he once knew. Maybe he could finally see the beauty in things the way he used to, though it would never be the way it had once been. Times of blissful ignorance were gone. He was no longer a child. He'd watched humans be slaughtered. He'd watched cannon balls blow off heads and arms and legs. He'd touched their blood as it splattered across his cheek. He'd listened to their final words, been there in their final moments, and been the last person they saw before they passed away. No, nothing would be the same.

He accepted that fact, but cast all other negative thoughts aside. Surely he'd be able to repair his now damaged view of the world around him, even if but a little. There was beauty. He just had to forget all the ghastly, ugly things he'd seen. How hard could it be to forget? How hard could it possibly be to leave those sorts of things behind?

What he did not realize, as young and naïve as he was, were that the threads of an old lifestyle could not be picked back up. Try as he might, those threads were frayed and unraveling and were now far from his grasp. What he'd been through, what he'd endured, he could not walk away from. This was his life. These burdens were his own. They were his shadow, permanent, and with him forever and always.

With the weight of the world resting on his shoulders, Alfred forced himself to roll over. He wanted to stop thinking, if only for a moment so he could at least relax, but it was an impossible task to say the least. He was sure at this point that his head was entirely its own entity.

For the rest of the night, he was wide awake, and all he saw were Arthur's pleading eyes... All he could hear was Arthur practically begging for him to come back home, but what Arthur didn't understand was that this was Alfred's home now, as devastated and in ruin as it was. He'd rebuild it, restore it, even if it were only him left to do so. And with the way this war was going...

Alfred sighed and rolled over again, still unable to find a comfortable position that would allow his rigid muscles to seek recreation. Maybe he didn't show it, and that was probably for the better, but he did feel awful about what he was doing to Arthur. Yet at the same time, his remorse came in spurts, few and far between, because Arthur could have just granted him his freedom. There would have been no war, no fighting, no death... Colors would still be bright and vivid and beautiful and wonderful. There would still be emotion on mangled faces, something that wasn't fear or anger or regret. Those men, those countless brave soldiers, would still be alive if not for this war. "Captain?"

Alfred's ears perked and he forced himself into a sitting position. Standing in the opening of his tent was a young teen, handsome in face, but dirtied from the wear and tear six years had put him through. Shocked though they both were at each other's youthfulness, they greeted each other accordingly. "Captain, General Washington's got 'is seventeen thousand troops all rounded up and they're all gettin' ready for battle, sir. He told me to come wake you up."

Nodding, dead to the world and to himself, Alfred finally stood up. He ran a hand over his tired and pallor face and let out a miserable groan. "I'll be out in just a moment, Private."

"Yes, sir. I'll go and tell the General, sir..."

As the 'Private' turned on his heels to take his leave, Alfred stopped him. "Tell me... what's your name and your rank.. I just assumed you were a Private..."

The boy smiled. His eyes were full of life, full of color, and Alfred wished he could be like that again. Did that young man see a rainbow of beauty, or did he, too, see a rainbow of misery? "My name is Allen Watson and I'm a drum major, sir."

"A drum major, huh?" Alfred asked, combing his fingers through his hair. "I wanted to be a drum major when I enlisted, but a bunch of different things stopped that from happening... What's it like?"

Allen looked down. Tufts of knotted brown hair stuck out, unkempt and unclean, and his brown eyes locked with the ground beneath him. He'd only recently woken up himself... "I guess it'd depend on how you looked at it, sir... On one hand, I really like drums and music, so getting to play is really nice... And at the same time..." Allen trailed off, his voice wavering and tears filling his eyes. "I can't stand it... Every time I strike my drum, it seems another twenty men fall to the ground and they just don't get back up, sir. Apologies if I'm speakin' outta line... I just figured since..."

"No, no, it's fine," Alfred interrupted with a mirthless laugh. "And the name's Alfred. You can relax while you're around me."

A dry smile grew on Allen's face. "Alright, Captain."

"No. Just Alfred. Leave the ridiculous formalities aside. We're all human. We're all equal and no title changes that..."

The two chatted for a little while longer, before Allen excused himself and left Alfred's tent. In the meantime, Alfred stood there, redressing himself and fixing his hair and clothes and whatever else needed some sort of adjustment. When he was done, he stepped into the crowded camp, and thousands of soldiers looked his way. He simply looked back.

Briefly he wondered if this was all worth it, sacrificing all these men for this cause. They all had names, families, stories, and here they stood, ready to give everything they had. But then again, he thought, if this wasn't worth it, then how many lives were thrown away? How many countless men had died for this country for absolutely no reason? The number was unfathomable. So he decided that it had to be worth it and such a realization gave him more strength than he'd had in quite a while.

Several other Captains approached and greeted him, shaking his hand, and saying good morning, before he was handed a mug of black coffee and a piece of stale bread. He ate and drank and when he felt he was ready, he escorted himself over to General Washington. They exchanged a look of pity. Both were worn and extremely fatigued, yet neither had been subdued by it. General Washington stood and motioned for Alfred to follow him and follow him Alfred did. "Tell me, Captain Jones, what do you think will come when we reach the end of all this conflict?"

"I know you're giving me two options here, General. Truth be told, I don't know anymore... We either surrender ourselves, get on our knees and lower heads to the British, or we win this fight and finally claim our freedom. But right now..."

"Right now, at this very moment, because of Francois, our French fleet has landed on Chesapeake Bay, just as Cornwallis has chosen Yorktown as his base."

"You mean-"

"I do," General Washington confirmed with a small smile. "This is our time to act. We can surround the British; we can isolate them. The French naval fleet will block the British escape by sea, while we prevent escape on land. What do you think?"

"I think it's about time this war came to an end."

And Alfred meant it. More than anything did Alfred mean it. He was tired of burying people who still had long lives ahead of them. He was tired of looking into glazed eyes and listening to fragmented whispers of farewells and nearly inaudible 'I love you's.' He was tired of touching cold skin and washing the blood off of his hands in a murky stream. And dear God, he was absolutely sick of people dying because of him and for him. It was time this war reached a conclusion, no matter how bitter the end may be.


I'm not entirely sure where this is going.
Bear with me.
But this is not the end.
Thanks again for reading! It means a lot.
The next chapter will be out and up whenever I have the time to write it. c: