Prologue

to Lost Soul, Distant Goal

A woman in military uniform plodded down a wide dirt road. The air was piercingly cold, and the ground was soft from not only the recent rains, but blood. Blood of the bodies that were strewn about on the path. Each appeared as though it had been rakishly thrown around, like a child's toy.

The woman made her way down the street, a feverish haze over her head, which painfully contrasted against the sharply frigid air that she breathed into her lungs. Whether the haze was the gradually forming mist, or entirely in her own head, she could not decide.

She was "surveying" the aftermath of a skirmish, but in reality, it was a torturous review of the after effects of conflict and prejudice. All this, the officer thought, just from misunderstanding and rashness. It was all so unnecessary. The lives lost and the blood shed. So far, everyone she had come across was dead. The majority of the death toll was those of the city, whom she was fighting.

It really hadn't been a skirmish. A brutal massacre was a more befitting description.

The deathly mood was only added to by the utter silence that lay across the vicinity. It seemed almost a sin to make noise. The tender earth took away what little sound she could make with her foot falls. It was in this maddening shroud of silence that the female officer began to slowly lose her mind, yielding to the consuming atmosphere. Her awareness of her surroundings gradually dulled, despite the fact that she had been ordered to find survivors.

But something in her peripheral vision brought her consciousness back. Something stirred in that walk of death. The officer's eyes widened. A survivor! It seemed to make a small moan of pain. Without further thought, she rushed over. The source of the sound was a male. A civilian, judging by his clothes.

"Sir, are you all right?" She asked earnestly. He made no response. Quickly, she pulled him towards the wall of an abandoned store, and attempted to adjust his position so that he may lean against the wall, but once she began to bring up his upper body, he grunted in pain. The officer pulled off her blue jacket and folded it into a makeshift pillow, and carefully placed it beneath his head. With deftness she began to check his vitals. He was alive, but just barely.

"Can you hear me?" His eyelids twitched; it seemed as though he was trying to say something. He was probably too weak to talk. She waited, until her brief patience expired, and finally resorted to other means. But just as she was about to call for aid, she heard him speak. "Please, don't... move... me."

Her eyes widened with wonder. As fast as her cold hands could manage, she set aside the front parts of his black jacket and lifted his shirt to see that he had suffered a bullet wound in his side. How he had managed to stay alive, she didn't know. "It's all right, sir. I'm gonna get you some help." She began to fumble through the pouches on her belt for a whistle to signal for assistance.

"No... It's too late."

"There's still time, sir." She replied assuringly.

"Ma'am, just end it." The officer froze before she could blow the whistle.

"Sorry?"

He spoke slowly and roughly, and his responses were always a bit delayed, for it was very difficult for him to speak. "My time has come. Just pull out your gun. My pain will end sooner that way."

"You still have a chance to live." She said firmly, "There's still time."

"Just do it."

If he has strength to argue, she reasoned, then he can still make it. But it had been a long while before she had come across anyone in war who was that determined to die. He looked like he could be thirty. He still had a life to live out.

"Don't call anyone."

"Sir, if I don't find someone soon, you'll bleed to death."

"I'm," He made some throaty noise that resembled a cough. "...in a lot of pain."

"You shouldn't speak too much, sir," she replied as calmly as she could manage. "It won't do you well."

But he simply would not cease. Talking was most likely increasing his pain and bringing him nearer to death.

"I'd rather die now than go on in this torture."

The officer would wait no longer, she put the whistle to her lips and blew. Help would come.

"Pull out that gun now."

She could not have been more surprised at his persistence. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she may be doing a favor for him by granting his wish. The medics probably would not be able to help him, and the very thought of enduring such suffering in vain for so long sent a shiver up her spine, and this time it wasn't from the cold. Subconsciously, her hand fell to her pistol, and as her mind in the swirling cold and fever began to succumb to the dying man's philosophy, she found herself holding the gun with both hands in her lap.

"Shoot." He coughed again. "Now."

She felt lost between moral values and sympathy. The ideals of society seemed so distant in that mist. More and more, her pity began to overcome her.

"What's your name?" She finally asked.

For a brief moment, there was no reply. "Roni."

After pausing, she crawled backwards on her hands and feet, and with both hands she aimed the pistol. She felt drops of sweat falling down the back of her neck, chilling her skin as it went. Something was holding her back. It seemed like an hour that she stood there with that gun. Until finally, being so close to giving this man what he wanted, she lost her nerve. She had fired a gun many a time. But there was something about looking at this person, this human, being so close in range, and then firing a gun at him that drove her away from the logic that had been pushing her. The gun returned to her side; she forced herself to extend the chance of life to him once more. "Roni, are you absolutely sure you would rather not wait until you can get help?"

Speaking of which, where was the aid she had called for?

Roni opened his mouth, but only one sound ensued, and it certainly wasn't his croaky voice.

BANG!

She felt her stomach flip over. There would never be another gunshot that she would remember so vividly as that one.

"Lieutenant Roland! Are you alright?"

Throwing militaristic customs to the wind, she leaped up and wheeled around, and shouted, "You idiot! What have you done?"

A private whose name she could not recall stared at her with wide and somewhat frightened eyes. "Pardon, Lieutenant? I thought you were in trouble."

"Well, evidently," she snapped back, "I'm not."

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant. It was an honest mistake." He quickly bowed his head in shame.

Lieutenant Roland turned back around to see Roni's completely limp body. She knelt at his side, the anger in her eyes melting away to regret. No, she thought. There is no saving him now.

"Lieutenant?" Said the private timidly. "They're waiting for us back at the camp."

"Go on ahead, I'll follow you in a moment." Roland replied after a sigh. She stood up, brushing dirt off her pants, but she could not bring herself to move on just yet.

"Yes, Lieutenant. The Colonel has work for you to do when you arrive." The private turned on his heel and started off towards the camp. And, he thought, I have my own work to do.