Just Until the End

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

--Fire and Ice, Robert Frost

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The battle had ended hours ago, but the images from the fight had yet to leave me. It was stupid to think they were going anywhere –the gruesome scenes were something that many soldiers had trouble facing. The bodies, broken, dismembered in some cases, missing random chunks of flesh. It wasn't so much how they were killed, either, but rather who they had been. Each of them had been human.

To some people, the fact that the casualties were human wouldn't be so surprising. Wars had been fought over the Earth for generations, and more would be fought as time passed. And someone leaving the world during a war wasn't that uncommon.

However, in a place where rats and humans were enemies –deaths were seen on either side often-- you didn't see humans battling other humans. It was such a very rare thing that a large amount of humans would be killed by other humans, and it was revolting.

'Even more than any other humans' death? Wouldn't it be the same?' I thought guiltily, but made no effort to change my opinion on the matter. It was much more sickening, killing a creature that was the same species you were, than killing something that wasn't human.

"Disgusting, disgusting," I chanted quietly to myself, running my hands under scalding water for the twelfth time in the past forty-five minutes. The flesh turned red and painful from the heat, but I didn't remove them. I kept them where they were, hoping the liquid would burn them straight from my arms.

When that didn't happen in five minutes, I removed my abused hands from underneath the tap. The towel I dried them on was white, so bright it was blinding.

I could still see the blade, though, I could still see the blood... I didn't want my hands. If I didn't have hands, I couldn't hold a sword. Without hands, I couldn't fight....!

The water came back on.

I felt no relief in the stinging pain. But my hands weren't clean. Mom always said to wash your hands with soap and water until they were clean. Spotless.

It wasn't supposed to take so long, however.

Wash your hands until they're spotless, and then come down to dinner.

"Spotless..." I mumbled, scrubbing my hands. My nails dug into the skin occasionally, and the little cuts would only make my hands dirtier.

"Wash your hands after using the restroom, before and after meals, and before preparing food," I laughed. "She never said to wash your hands after killing someone, though. Doesn't she know that AIDS is passed from one person to another from exchanged in bodily fluids?"

According to my reproductive health teacher, that is. I wonder if he has an STD...

I scraped my hand again, but I continued to scrub, trying to get the blood off of my skin. It wasn't coming off.

"Wash your hands before and after meals!"

I felt a hand grab my shoulder and pull me away from the sink. I wanted to protest –I can't eat yet!-- but I saw who the hand belonged to, and fell silent.

"What are you doing, Gregor?" Howard asked me, leading me over to a chair. I sat and laughed again, but now I could feel tears burning the back of my eyes.

"Nothing..." I sniffled, smiling at him. He frowned at me.

"It was not your idea, Gregor. And the rebels you fought with were in the wrong. You were right in what you did." Howard mumbled, ashamed that he was even saying anyone had the right to die.

--

"No!" Gregor snapped. "I wasn't! It was stupid! You asshole!"

Howard sighed and stopped the Overlanders' flailing limbs from hitting him.

"They attacked first," he reminded him.

"So?" Gregor muttered, wrenching his arm free of the others' grasp. "They're all dead, so it doesn't matter. We could have attacked first and you would still be against them . You're such a hypocrite."

If your hands are dirty... they need to be cleaned.

"But they won't," Gregor mumbled to himself, looking away from Howard and to the ground. The sterile hospital floor wasn't bloody, not like the ground of the battlefield. It appeared as though nobody had ever walked across it. That nobody had ever died in this room...

"Not, not, not!" Gregor hissed. "No...not! Isn't!"

Howard raised a silvery eyebrow questioningly.

"Can't, won't, needn't, wouldn't, couldn't, will not, never!" he mumbled quickly under his breath. "Will never, is not, will not, cannot, won't do."

Howard blinked at him.

"'Wash your hands after using the restroom, before preparing food, before and after meals, after a massacre'. 'Treat others as you want to be treated!'"

Howard grabbed Gregor by the arm, pulled him up and dragged him out of the room. It would take more than one doctor, surely...

But this wasn't the best situation, and this boy needed to be kept away.

Just until the end.