Dear Reader; Please Listen To Eluvium - Prelude For Time Feelers while you read along. It seems to suit this Fan Fic very well. Please private message me, and I will take this message down. Just wanted to let you know.
No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow. - Euripides
The four barricades that served as our shields would never protect us for long. Locust were swarming in from everywhere. We would never survive. The other members of my team knew that too. But no one would give up, or falter. It was what you had to do to survive. Kill. It was what a natural human would do in retaliation. I ducked behind the east barrier, and stuffed a magazine into my Lancer, blood-stained and worn from continuous use. Suddenly, a Grub jumped my barrier as soon as I got up. I switched my Chainsaw Bayonet on and stuck it in the stray Locust's head. It made a horrible screaming sound as warm and sticky dark red-colored liquid sprayed on my Gears Helmet. I closed my eyes and let the Bayonet do the work. Finally, the wailing stopped, and I let go. It collapsed to the ground in a crumpled heap, mutilated and a horrible wound through its head. The wan enemy that I ravaged seemed at peace. I looked at the wave I was facing and I began holding the trigger down, sweeping the weapon from left to right. Locust fell in the constant directions I swept in. My face was steely and unemotional. Killing was never the first option. But in war, it was. I took notice at the never-dwindling numbers of enemies. Suddenly, I heard three shots in the midst of all of the chaos. Three. Not one more. The noise of death, war, and blood began to slow. Everything began to slow. Three pierced my chest, breaking my COG armor. I felt absolutely nothing. Everything was still slowing. A beam of light hit the ground not far away, absolutely demolishing what it hit in a large radius. Finally, the COG reinforcements were coming. But they were too late. The Hammer Of Dawn, I thought, as the beginning of searing and sharp pain began to show it's ugly little face. What a beautiful name for a genocidal machine. Finally, the pain set in. I couldn't scream. I had been taught to go down quietly, or not at all. I felt warm, sticky liquid form up on my mouth. But even though my team-mates weren't showing any form of emotion for the almost-dead COG soldier on the floor, I knew, deep in my heart that I was taught not to have, that they felt something for me. Even though we were trained, bred and made to kill, we were still human. We had emotions. The pain began to leave, and the warmth of darkness began to seep in through my wounds. It was funny. The feeling of death was not painful in any way. You felt nothing. Just the warmth of the darkness embracing you in a world of frigid nothingness. Death, the feeling that we were taught to fear since the beginning of time, was nothing. At least, nothing bad would happen. The night was lit up with gun flashes, explosions and beams of light coming from the Hammer of Dawn. But in one spot, right above me, it seemed that the chaos and flashes of light that dealt death did not reach. I thought that it was the path for my soul to follow, wherever I was supposed to go. The stars twinkled, beckoning me to the heavens. No more pain. No more killing. No more blood. This is how it ends. Peacefully and quietly. I wanted my last sight to be the stars. The stars I looked up to as a child, and the stars I did see, the remaining witnesses to see my end. I closed my eyes, and with the remaining strength I had, I arranged my mouth into a smile, and let the darkness embrace me, carry me up into the heavens. And with that, one more soldier, brave and true, died in the way that he never thought he would've. Quietly. The Final Rest For Heroes and Murderers Alike.