The sky looks so big when you're lying the on the ground. Sometimes it hurts when you're looking up like that. The sky was empty of everything but dust clouds from bullets hitting the parched earth, and when it's so empty, without even clouds to keep you company, you feel empty, too. You feel alone. Alfred didn't feel alone, though. For some reason, it was okay that he was looking up like this. He liked that in his last few minutes (or hours, or days, or however long he lasted), he could see the sky, so strikingly blue, so incredibly vast from his tiny perspective on the ground.

A man fell next to him. Alfred turned his head so he could see him. This one was wearing the uniform of another team, but that didn't matter where he was now. He had fallen on his side, facing Alfred. His eyes were open, but he couldn't see the sky, and Alfred thought that was sad. He wanted to turn the man over, but Alfred couldn't move his legs. The man was probably dead, anyway. But then again, from Alfred's own experience, life has a way of surprising you.

"Did you have someone special?" the man murmured. His voice was raspy. A few drops of blood dribbled from his lips. Gunfire roared overhead, and yet Alfred heard this man perfectly. The world was becoming so small, and nothing seemed to exist but Alfred and the other man, joined in death.

"No," Alfred said. His voice was just as strained. "I didn't have nothin' but my country."

The man gave a bitter smile. "I had someone," he said, "but she's been gone for a long time now."

"Funny how we end up like this, yeah?"

"Yes. Funny."

Alfred didn't know what to say after that. The world got bigger again as he watched the man's eyes glaze over. The adrenaline from battle was wearing off, and finally Alfred felt the pain, and he wanted it to end as soon as it started. He tried to turn his sight back towards the sky, but his head wouldn't cooperate. So instead, he just looked at this man who had fought for another country. They were on the same level, looking face to face, but for some reason it was only happening in death.

What a sad thought, Alfred thought, and his eyes closed at last.


A/N: I wrote this in creative writing class today. It was supposed to be about Valentine's Day, but... Um...

Yeah.

The man who fell next to Alfred could be anyone, I guess, but I wrote it with Arthur in mind.

~Jel