It wasn't a very good Memorial, to be sure.
It wasn't carved in stone, or set in gold, or any other of those fancy things that people got when they died in some war or another. It made him sick to look at the list- that's all it was, a (terrifyingly) long list on an even longer sheet of paper, set behind plexi-glass. The saddest part was that he recalled who belonged to a lot of those names. Too many, but, to exist was to grieve.
At the top it said In Memorarium, and at the bottom, A more fitting mural to the Fallen will be erected once we all are safely out of danger, so that their great sacrifices will not have been in vain. Har de harr harr.
He looked over the list- he didn't know the person at the very top, nor the last one on the bottom. There was just a name for each fallen Gear, which, he supposed, just didn't seem all right.
Boo fucking hoo.
About halfway down the first column (There were a dozen, each with he didn't want to know how many hundreds of names), he came across the name Carlos Santiago. Go figure.
He'd already grieved over those wounds- no time now to be putting salt into them again. A quarter way down the sixth column, Tai Kaliso. Goddamnit.
"Just sight-seeing, Fenix, or are you looking for new sniffling material?"
"Neither, Baird. I've had my share of both, either way. Why you here? Come to harass little old me?"
The blonde ran a gloved hand through his hair. "Just walking. I've got shift in half an hour, and I'm feelin' antsy."
"Think somethin's gonna go down?"
"Duh; something always goes down in this place. Wouldn't surprise me if a Brumak traipsed up to my position to play Frisbee with me."
Marcus chuckled lightly. "Yeah, that would happen to you, Baird."
The other Gear nodded, looking over the lists as Fenix had done moments before. He pointed to a point halfway down the third column. "Well, I'll be damned. Ben fucking Carmine." Above his grubby fingertip sat the little, almost illegible black ink reading Carmine, Benjamin. "Son of a bitch," breathed Baird.
"Yeah."
"I got your back, Sarge!"
"Son of a bitch," agreed Marcus.
Baird shook his head. "Hate to say it, but, for a while there, the kid was pretty good. Not much you can do when some damn God-Worm decides to swallow you, though."
"He was good, yeah. A good kid," he said dumbly. In his minds eye, he saw Carmine slipping along the listing Raven's floor, down, down, down…
"Fuck all this sadness shit. We're alive, they're not. That means something, right?" When Marcus didn't answer, he spat on the ground, turned, and walked away, mumbling something about his guard duty.
Port Farrall was cold. Always fucking cold.
"I got your back, Sarge!" Screams, gunfire, more screams. Fear and terror, afterwards. The roaring sound of a "God-Worm", as Baird put it.
Suddenly, the plain paper seemed even less appropriate then it had before.
"Goddamnit, Carmine."