Expendable.
Expendable.
Expendable.
Expendable.
There's nothing left. I am nothing more than a tool to use and then throw away. It's always been that way. It was true for my father. It was true for his father. It's true for me.
No funeral.
I guess I should put that in my will. I should be tossed into the flames without ceremony. They don't need me. They don't need my pain.
But they insist. They insist on putting me in this damn jacket. They insist on sticking me in this stupid cell. They insist I go against my family's tradition by staying alive for so damn long. That's not how a man in my family lives. No. We marry, we f-ck, we die miserable deaths, and then we're forgotten. If we're remembered at all, it's for what we didn't do, what we failed to do.
I need out. I need death. I need to relieve them of this useless baggage I call me.
She enters. She approaches. I quickly back myself into a corner in a vain attempt to get away. She offers me love and compassion. Men in my family are never on the receiving end of those. This is an insult to my family name. Doesn't she realize she's dishonoring me and my family name?
She offers me pills. Men in family don't take pills. We walk off whatever doesn't kill us. That's why I'm covered in so many scars. Men in my family don't believe in asking for help, only in giving it. Naturally, I refuse.
She pleads. She begs. She bargains. I refuse.
Fed up, she literally shoves them down my throat. Damn it. There were pain pills in there. Men in my family never dulled their pain. We went through all of our operations alive and screaming. We saved the painkillers, especially the more powerful ones, for the nonexpendable sex.
She tries to bargain again. She's really trying to find out what I would really like. Sex? Clichéd, but no. She asks if I'm sure. Damn it, I'm sure. I was taught that men in my family had sex only to produce heirs and to please women, not ourselves. My mother was horrified, but my dad kept my mom from interfering.
She then literally tries to beat some "sense" into me. I readily accept the pain like a man in my family would. I ignore her arguments. I don't care how sexist and self-destructive my attitude is. If my mom didn't want me to die early and miserable, she should have aborted me when she had the chance.
I remembered my last mission. The enemy was breathing its dying breaths and was determined to take as many soldiers and mercenaries as it could. I was wounded badly and waited for the fire to consume me. That was how the last chapter in the story of my life should have read.
Then she came. I tried to tell her to flee. She knew it was my job as a man in my family to die a slow, painful, and lonely death. She didn't care. I'm ashamed to admit to have passed out before my wounds could have turned mortal. I'll never forgive myself for surviving.
She's crying. She wants me to open up, even if she has to break me. I'm already broken. All that's left is to abandon me somewhere out of the way. Why didn't she abandon me and move on when she should have?
She's determined. She's stubborn. I never should have let her choose me as her lover. She has yet to realize that some people really should die.
I realize that she's slowly winning this fight. I can't keep this up forever.
I feel them.
Feelings.
Emotions.
I am a soldier. I am a warrior. I am nothing more than a tool. My only emotions should be anger and determination. Why am I feeling others?
Her.
She's doing this to me. She's disgracing me. I am a warrior and a warrior should never let these damn emotions blind him.
I'm losing.
Losing.
Defeat.
I hate defeat. I've never been defeated. I may have lost battles, but I always won wars. Until now.
I'm broken. I'm spent. With nothing left to fight and die for, I break down. The built-up sea of emotions burst through my weakened mental dam.
"It's okay Fox." She comforts me as my tears soak into her blue fur.
I pass out.