"Last Generation"
We
stopped and left the car
The last thing I can recall
A raging
wave of light
Vaporised all this life
And we ran into the
field
Incapable to breathe
How it had come down to this… he wasn't certain.
But regardless… there he stood… surrounded by Elite Sangheili, Hunters… and James stood before him, gloating over imminent victory… seemingly oblivious to the countless fallen Covenant warriors that lay dead on the deck at his feet, a final Sangheili dropping to the deck as he shakingly slid his blade from the creature's chest… before a heavy fit of coughing wracked his body – something warm and wet splashed against the remnants of his polarized visor… he recognized the thin red fluid as his own blood.
He was bleeding… badly… he could feel the slick, warm, sticky crimson that was his life running down his back… along his stomach… down his legs… He wasn't certain how injured he was… or where exactly… but he trusted assuring himself that the wounds would undoubtably be fatal if left untended for long…
As if he would be getting the chance. He'd had nary a second to attempt to catch his rasping, labored breath.
They had lured him here… just like James had lured him away from his team once, long, long ago, in a game of capture the flag. John should have seen through it back then… chasing the older boy through the woods in a vain attempt to track down where the other team had hidden their flag… Before the older boy had dropped down on him from a tree, a hail of rocks preceding his descent…
Well… a Covenant Seraph was far from a tree… and the fire of plasma grenades was nothing similar to stones… but John had fallen for a variation on that same, tired old trick once again.
He'd fought tooth and nail… but they just kept coming… And all he had were his knives… Knives weren't even his purview… they were Fred's… but Fred was long since dead and gone…
… But John hoped he'd done his dear friend justice in wielding his signature weapons.
James took a step forward, his crimson eyes flickering in the unnatural light of the Seraph… Filled with rage, cold hatred… and John shakingly shifted his grip on his one remaining blade…
"… You're bleeding out, 117," James hissed, as he brought a plasma rifle to bear. "Make this easier on yourself…"
"… Never surrender…" John managed, before another fit of coughing overtook the SPARTAN. More blood against the remnants of the visor… long since shattered. He swayed on his feet for just a moment…
The two men made their move at the same time – James-059 opened fire on his former unit commander at the same time that John-117 lunged forward. Plasma spattered against thin air, the tell-tale whine of an alarm indicating to both of them as John grew nearer that the commander's shields were failing…
And as the last remnants of his shields died out, John-117 lunged to the side and plunged his blade deep into his former subordinate's abdomen… and let his momentum carry him forward, carry his blade through his subordinate's body…
Until a burst of plasma went off, point blank, against his stomach…
Rest
in peace it's all over now
It's the end of salvation
Memories
in the photographs
Of the last generation
Of the last
generation
He went down hard, biting back a scream as he fell… or maybe he did scream, he wasn't certain. So hard to tell if it was him or 059 as they both hit ground.
He was shaking, couldn't stop it… his body refused to obey his orders to rise again, to keep on fighting. Regardless of what the UNSC would have its soldier's believe, and regardless of what the SPARTANs themselves professed… they were far from unstoppable.
He couldn't keep his mind from wandering back… back to days that, though tainted with pain, were happier, simpler… When James-059 had been one of his most trusted friends, when James-059 had been determined, noble… when James-059 had never given up, and had believed that his commander would never have given up on him.
John-117 understood, as much as he didn't want to, James-059's position… If anything, perhaps he'd have felt the same. Having been left to die by one's unit, left for dead by the military whom one had given everything they ever had for… To be found by the Covenant and given a new life as a treasured member of its society, if not near god-like status as a savior…
117 almost wished that it could have been him.
But unlike James-059, John-117 had always had too much tying him to the UNSC, tying him to the human race. It had always been John-117, who wanted to do things, go places on leave that let them all pretend to be human… pretend to be normal… It was him who'd paid for the cameras to document everything they did, paid for the photos to be developed and duplicated… so that they would never forget how to smile and how to laugh… Never forget what it was they were fighting for.
He remembered the last photo they'd all taken together, on Minister… How James-059 had hooked his single, remaining arm around John-117's neck… how Kelly-087 had been standing beside him, laughing… how Fred-104 had ruffled John-117's hair by way of a 'noogie' because James-059's arm was occupied… It had made a wonderful picture…
… he'd never had the chance to give those pictures out. Because a week later, Reach fell and their lives were shattered forever…
James-059 was on him in a heartbeat, tearing the blade from John-117's shaking hands. He straddled John-117's waist, brought the blade up…
Then plunged it down into the unit commander's chest, again… and again… and again…
John-117's body jerked, with every penetration of the blade… but he was too tired to scream anymore. It was almost too much an effort to keep trying to bring his arms up to ward off the strikes… But James-059's rage was short-lived… as the larger man slumped forward, panting for breath with the blade buried deep in John-117's body…
"…" John-117 had thought it would hurt more, really… Yes, there was pain, a great deal of it… but he'd thought there would be more, something to make him afraid of letting go, of turning towards the sound of the opening door… to make him not want to turn to look up at the woman who'd entered the living room…
"...M…M…" John-117 rasped, and James-059 raised his head, eyes glittering with sick anticipation. "…M…Momma…?"
I've
seen this in my dream
A petrified family
Pointing hands at
me
Victims of the tragedy
Dust replaced their souls
Hearts
turn into stones
He was so small, sitting on the floor, playing with his toys… A man sat on the couch behind him, watching him and the television at the same time. The man's face was hidden in shadows… the television didn't cast enough light to illuminate him or the woman…
But John knew… he knew who they were…
"… Its past your bedtime, Johnny," the woman remarked…
"I'm… I'm tired… momma…" John-117 whispered, and James-059 shuddered as he straightened, his smile more of a grimace of pain, as he reached up to gently remove John-117's ruined helmet and stroked one blood-slicked hand over John-117's cheek, a mockery of comfort.
"… Can you see them, John…?" James whispered. "Can you see their faces…?"
"M…Momma… Daddy…" Crimson eyes were fixed somewhere far in the distance… focused on a time long since passed… Reliving moments of a life long since ended by the UNSC, by O.N.I. and the SPARTAN-II Project…
"Yeah, it is getting late, John-boy." His father rose, and knelt down beside him… He could just barely make out hints of features in the darkened room. "Lets get you to bed, yeah?"
"… Can Momma sing to me…?" John-117 whispered, too far removed from himself to feel the blood that spilled from his lips.
He knew what was happening… he knew it well, but he couldn't turn away… Not this time. Every SPARTAN who'd ever died… had seen their parents again, had remembered their mothers and fathers whom they'd been stolen away from… Had one moment of clarity and comfort in a life fraught with nothing but pain and lies. And though John-117 wasn't… wasn't ready to die, he couldn't bring himself to turn his eyes away from the people he'd wanted to see for so very long…
His father gathered him into his arms, and John instinctively curled up against the man… Warm, protective… he smelt like aftershave, wood, and just a little bit of sweat… He's a man who comes home every day and worked in his shop on this or that…tinkering with pieces of wood to eventually make the most fantastic things… John loved to help him, loved to have his father guide his hands with the saw, to start nails for his son for John to finish…
"Of course Johnny… I always sing to you, silly boy," His mother was by his father's side now… and she smelt of perfume, flowers… sunlight… books; Mother is a teacher, that's right… But she always has time for you…
"… I'm so tired…Momma…"
"…" James-059 closed his eyes, for just a moment, savoring the words with a sort of bittersweet satisfaction. He'd wished it didn't have to end this soon… but at the same time, he couldn't help but love hearing the desperate confusion in John-117's voice… the way it broke, the soft tone of a very tired little boy calling for his parents…
Rest
in peace it's all over now
It's the end of salvation
Memories
in the photographs
Of the last generation
Of the last
generation
His mother and father carried him up to bed… They always tucked him in every night, together. They carried him - past the sliding glass doors that looked out into their darkened garden… During the daytime, there were flowers and grass out there… there were even bees imported from Earth. John didn't like the bees, they were mean and hurt him once when he tried to catch one… But Momma said that the flowers needed the bees to help them grow, and John knew that Momma was always right. Even Daddy said so.
They carried him through the halls, past the room where the big piano that Daddy sometimes played on sat… He loved to sit there with his father, when he'd play. But Daddy didn't play much anymore, because he was so busy at work that sometimes all he wanted to do was to come home and work in his shop and play with John. But sometimes John would sneak in and he would play on the keys, trying to make the music that his father made so easily. And while it was fun making noise and making Momma laugh, he just couldn't make the piano make the same songs…
They carried him up, past pictures on the walls… of him playing, of him on the shore of some large body of water wearing shorts and carrying a shell of some kind… of him when he was a baby, being carried on his father's back… of his mother giving him a bath in the sink… of him covered in mud and grinning, holding a big amphibian of some kind up for the camera to see… one of his mother in a hospital bed, holding a blanket wrapped baby him… But their faces… their faces, he couldn't see their faces!
"… what are they doing, John…?" James-059 whispered, as he leaned in close… brushing his lips gently against John-117's forehead…
… Before he cruelly twisted the blade in John-117's chest, causing the other man to cough, spasm… thick, dark blood welling between his lips…
"… T…Th…M…Momma….I..Its…Its…d-d-dark, Momm-ma…" John-117 gasped…
Dust
replaced their souls
Minds turned into stone
"Shh, its okay, sweetheart…" His mother's hand stroked over his hair, as she and his father tucked him between the sheets, smoothed a warm blanket over him.
"The dark is nothing to be afraid of, son…" His father's voice sounded like he was smiling. "Didn't you want to try sleeping without the nightlight?"
"B…b-but i-its d-dark…and… I-I'm…s-s-sca-scared…." James-059 could barely hear his old unit commander's voice now… scarcely louder than the rasping breaths that he continued to fight for…
"…John, stop fighting it…" James-059 whispered soothingly. "You've fought for so long, just let go…"
"C-can… M-Momma t-turn on th-the l-l-light….?" John-117 coughed.
One of the Sangheili grunted, trying to get James-059's attentions, but he ignored the creature. He was NOT going to be denied this pleasure…
"John, is she singing to you…?"
"Dad…dy… turned… turned on…th…the…light…" John-117's eyes grew wide… "M…Momma…"
"…" James closed his eyes…
"Rest
in peace it's all over now,"
It's the end of salvation
Memories
in the photographs
Of the last generation
His mother sat on the edge of the bed, beside him… singing softly to him. She was so… she was so beautiful, like an angel…Her hair framed her face, soft features… She was so young…
His father stood a few feet behind her, smiling at him… He was a good, strong, handsome man… with dark hair like John's… a ghosting of the same freckles that his son had…
But the room was getting dark… so very dark… even though his father had turned on the nightlight, it was…
"My lord, there are UNSC ships in-bound and-"
"Be silent!"
The voices made John start for a moment, clutching the blanket tightly to him…
His mother and father seemed to…seemed to freeze, like statues…
No, no this wasn't right… this wasn't right.
He wasn't a little boy anymore… was he…?
"-Enemy fighter has penetrated our shields-"
"My Lord, you must come away!"
"NO!!"
Mother vanished first. She faded away into shreds of color against darkness, as if she had never been there…
Then Father vanished in much the same way, consumed by encroaching blackness…
"M-m…Momma!? D-Daddy!!?" He screamed it again, and again… but no one heard him, and suddenly, there was pain, all-consuming pain…
Rest
in peace it's all over now
It's the end of salvation
Memories
in the photographs
Of the last generation
Of the last
generation
"John!! John!! Answer me, damnitt!!"
That voice, so familiar… Adrian… Adrian…
"He's fadin' fast…" Another… Lazarus…?
"Stop standin' there and screaming you dumbshits, get his ass on board the Prowler, damnitt!"
The bedroom, in the little house with the garden, was gone… and he was staring up at the ceiling of a Covenant hanger, and the mirror-visor of an ODST.
They'd come for him.
They'd come to save him…
It took ten men to lift him, to carry him on board the Prowler that had been used to penetrate the Covenant's shields on a desperate rescue attempt. He was dimly aware of Major Yurei's voice shouting orders as they dragged him on board, dimly aware of a face hovering over him – Damien's face, as the medic set to work on him…
And then a hand clasped around his, and his head was tilted gently upwards, to gaze into Adrian's eyes… Crimson paled by blood loss met panicked icy blue...
"Y-you with me, John?" Adrian's voice shook…
But it was too hard to respond, so all he did was give a weak attempt at a squeeze to the hand that held his… Before the same darkness that had consumed the ghosts of his parents consumed his vision as well, and everything went silent and black.
It was all over, now…