The book is dusty. No one else pays the journal any mind. It belongs to a grunt, after all. She does, though. She picks it up. It's leather is tattered, the cover covered in blood. She opens the cover. A name, written neatly. Property of Desmond Price, it says. She flips to the first page.
Sometimes I wonder if the Milita has the right idea. We call them Terrorists, but I can still remember the colony. Men, wives, children, even infants. We didn't spare any of them. How can we be the innocent party when we did something like that? Does forgiveness extend to child killers, I wonder? I don't think it does, most days. Other days, I hope against probability that it does.
Thing is, we always show up when the Militia attacks. But they don't. Some places we wipe clean, and the Militia isn't so much as hinted at having been there. We say we're better than the robots, but can we really say that's true? They're programmed to do IMC's dirty work at least. We're not programmed, but we do it anyway. I don't sleep at night anymore. Not normally, at least. It's fitful and disturbed. An hour here, two awake, maybe another two there, then three awake. Yet others sleep soundly, and peacefully.
For all my sleepless nights, nightmares, and agonized cries though, I can't leave the IMC. Militia has to bring their families along with them, to the fight. The bullets, Titans, Pilots, and other unspoken horrors. Worse, there's no money involved. How do you feed your family without so much as one credit? I can't force Amy though that. Little Walter deserves better too. So maybe her husband is a killer, maybe his father a monster, but I love them none the less. I have to press on. Even if I hate myself for it. I love them too much.
They say forgivness covers all blemishes. I pray they're right, whoever they are.
- Price