The night sky was brighter than usual. At least, it seemed that way. Maybe I just never paid much attention to the sky, my mind always firmly planted on the ground, fixated on finishing my patrol, or on waking up early the next morning to make sure the artillery was all in order, or scanning the perimeter of the town walls for raiders and other lowlife trash who felt stupid enough to try breaking in.

But tonight was different. Tonight, I prayed for my patrol shift to stretch on as long as possible. Tonight, I knew that every artillery piece would be at full efficiency come morning. Tonight, the raiders and other scum didn't dare come near this place. Tonight, I had a chance to look up at the sky for a change.

I was glad that I got the chance; this time tomorrow the sky would no doubt be blanketed with smoke, the foreboding wasteland silence would be broken with the whistle of artillery shells before they buried themselves into the ground and walls, the rumbling of tones of scavenged concrete, steel and wood collapsing to the ground, the cries of those who would catch bullets or shrapnel in the flesh but wouldn't be lucky enough to die quickly. If we were lucky enough to hold out until reinforcements came from the south, then I would make damn sure to appreciate the night sky every time I went out on patrol.

But in case I wouldn't be that lucky, I made sure to get a good, long look at it tonight. Every glinting star reminded me of the books that we'd been ordered to scavenge from the ruined libraries of Boston and the surrounding towns last year. Everyone in my squad, myself included, had protested; there were old military bases with intact and untouched armories and the General wanted us to waste our time collected ruined books written by people who'd been dead for two-hundred years or more? I would've left town that day if a heavy money pouch hadn't been dumped on the table in front of me.

"This is important enough to me that I'll pay you if I have to," the General had told me. "I can't guarantee you paychecks like this for every job though, so if you wanna skip town after this is over then that's your business."

I weighed the heavy pouch in one hand and heard the sound of metal rattling inside. "I'll do the job. But what the hell do you want with books for? Not a damned person out here who can read anyway."

"That's why I want them," the General had said. "People here know nothing but violence and misery day after day. The people who used to read those old books did so to escape the problems in their lives. Those books made them look out at the sky and wonder what might be. People out here need that. We need to be able to dream about something better if we want a better world."

Now I understood what the General – that weird bastard who didn't look like he would last an hour in this world – had meant then. I looked up at the night sky now, and realized just how insignificant we all were in the grand scheme of things. For every dot of light out there that had never meant a damn thing to my before, was a potential world far better than this. A world where the water wasn't filled with shit that could kill you, where the streets weren't filled with two-hundred-year-old skeletons, a world where you didn't have to sleep in a filthy ditch with one eye open and a gun under your pillow.

From my position at the front gate of Sanctuary township, I could see a fireball rising above the trees in the distance; so they'd reached Concord. The shooting would probably last the entire night until they made it to the front gates. Then the real fun would begin.

The sirens began to wail and break the night silence, and the entire town was suddenly awake as every trained soldier and terrified militiaman scrambled to report their sergeant. The front gates were opened and a garrison of armed men and women charged out toward Concord.

From the river bank below me, my sergeant shouted to me, "If you're gonna shit your pants at any point then now's the time, boy. Because tomorrow we gonna dine in hell."

For a brief moment before the sirens wailed and the uneasy silence had been replaced with chaos, I looked up at the night sky and imagined a better world.