Every time I close my eyes, I try to recall her face. I can't remember the details anymore, but I can remember the warmth. Even in the midst of this waking nightmare, I am guided by the light of her smile.
Still, I wish I could remember the rest more clearly.
Crunching.
The dull pain grows with every day. Your voice is growing faint. What happened? What's this silence that's come between us? I want to hear your voice more than anything else. It's what I remember most lucidly.
Dead of night. The armor crawls through the darkness. The enormous human forms lie in wait. It is not yet their time.
I've never known this kind of pain. I thought at first that it was mere longing, but this is something different. Its persistence is forever.
A wind through the treetops.
My only happiness in this haze of faceless death has come from reading what you've written to me. I hang on to every flippant little word, if only because you wrote it. I believed that through it all, beyond the fire, there was still someone out there who cared about me. I live today. I will live to the end of this, if only to see you smile. If only to hear your voice.
The hulking machines arise from their hunkering. Yellow visors illuminate the night.
Now your voice is so distant. I never knew how alone I was until now, with your voice fading into the recesses of my memory. Have you forgotten me?
Blind, unfeeling. The giants crash through the ancient life. The old homes are crushed underfoot.
I can't expect you to wait forever. I never asked anything of you, and I certainly won't ask for the impossible. I just want to know about this gulf that separates us. So sudden, so complete. I want to carry you with me, but you won't let me anymore.
A clearing. The hills are red, but the night is absolute. They trudge ceaselessly.
I lived my life with no will. I let the currents pull me along. I accepted my fate. I had given up, given in. Nobody cared about me, and I didn't care about myself. But I met you that day.
Memories of the Alabama girls before bullets scream through the foliage. The darkness flees in brief flashes, but returns far too quickly.
To find someone who not only cared about, but was overjoyed by my mere existence, was, I realize now, the most important day of my life. Maybe I took it for granted that I was everything to you. Is that what it is? Was I too callous? I would take it all back for one more inane letter from you.
Hitting dirt. Men of leadership roar their commands. Trees shatter with hateful force.
Do I still matter to you like I did back then? If we were to meet right now, would you still choke with self-consciousness? Would you still cling close to me, eyes begging me wordlessly to love you? I wish I hadn't been such a coward; I would've told you long ago how I really feel. If I had only stopped hiding in plain sight, we would have been truly inseparable. Even across this insurmountable distance, across the bullets and blood and bombs and machines, I can still hear your voice.
Fuel ignites. The glare of rockets over the treetops. Screams, both human and titanium.
Am I dead to you? Is this silence the past few months your funeral for me? Please, say anything to me. More than anything else, I can't bear the silence. I'd rather have a spiteful goodbye than to be cut out of your life without warning. To disconnect without a word; I've never known anything that could so profoundly deepen my aloneness.
The sickening snap of metal as a limb flies free. Men with rifles are reduced to paste where it lands.
Do you still care the way you used to? Am I still important? Do you still love me? Can you recall my face at all, or is it fading?
Fingers of fire reach into the starless sky. Heavy breath. The Zekes appear to recede. Move forward, you wave of man and flesh and machine and metal.
If I could see you now, would you have the answers? Would you even speak to me, or would you turn away? Do I even deserve to look you in the eye, knowing I have this blood on my hands?
Forward. Always forward. To look back is to die. The pink spots of light in the distance have nothing left to lose. Round after round tearing through us. It's over.
Do I matter anymore?
Falling. Crushing.
Can you still hear my voice?
Blackness. Forever blackness.
1st Lieutenant Steven Queen was found critically
wounded in the cockpit of his damaged GM after a heated nighttime
skirmish in southern California on the morning of December 3rd, 0079.
He was rushed to medical facilities in Vandenberg, where he remains
in a persistent vegetative state as of February 11th, 0081. Marlene
McCann, a woman with whom Queen frequently corresponded throughout
his military service, was killed four months prior in England during
an aerial bombardment.
