One Less Hero
I'd forgotten about this, hidden away in my StealthyStories Author's Forum. By the way, does anyone else find the lack of formatting on ffdotnet (as it won't let me write it normally) to be bloody annoying?
The sun rose.
The city it rose over was the same as it never was; crisp, clean, beautiful under the thick layer of cleansing snow. But it was a lie. It was always a lie.
What had they really done in the time they had been here? Was anything really better? Was the city any less corrupt, the poor any less poor and alone? It looked so pure…but it's seething rotten underworld of Foot monsters and ordinary callous criminality made it so much cold untruth, one more obstacle to the ever-present task of living through the day.
It had been a long and courageous fight, but in the end, they had lost. They had failed and lost one of their own.
Where did they go from here? Should they stay in this unfaithful city that neither knew nor cared that one of it's staunchest defenders was gone? Should they leave? Go to Japan, home of their ancestors, in Path, if not Blood?
An eye narrowed in the darkness as a cry from below caught the turtle's attention. He glared downwards into the pre-dawn gloam; did the sleazy thuggishness and casual cruelty of this city's inhabitants never end? He contemplated ignoring it, such was his anger for the city and all it's people. But then…a voice, a thought? A whisper to him.
"They need you…You have a duty, bro…Please, help them."
The weapon in his hand- the only reminder of a brother who would now never know a time of peace, when there was only the fight for survival and the fight for others freedom.
It had been a short life, but a worthwhile one.
He smiled slightly, the pain of the last night etched still in his face. But now, finally, he understood.
"Thanks bro…"
A silent leap carried the grieving turtle to ground level where he went about his job, his duty.
The world would go on turning, it wouldn't stop because a band of four brothers was down to three. The sun would set and the Foot would keep on coming; although they had suffered heavy losses these last few months too.
A simple illness had been their downfall but that made the life no less heroic and no less extraordinary.
The sun rose again that morning, but it rose on one less hero in the city.
Short. Depressing. Ah well.