Disclaimer: Honestly….did no one get the memo? I don't own it already
Author's Note; I hope you enjoy!! I know it's short, I know it has next to know plot, but I was bored… I'm sorry!
Regret
Regret is the one thing that assures me I'm still human. I don't feel pain, and I don't feel sorrow, but I'm always filled with this overbearing disease.
I now often retreat to the solitude of my own mind, and barricade the humanity that attempts to seep into me while I sleep. The fighting has stopped and I shouldn't have to feel the deep cascading darkness consume me.
The shadows paralyze and make the world edge closer and further, in and out of focus. I can't move, with the chains tightly coiled around my ankles.
That's what binds me here to this life, the chains of regret. I've been a soldier since the day I was born, traveling along with a menagerie of ragtag rebels fighting for a skewed cause.
I wasn't human then. I never felt anything as I fought. I could pull the trigger and watch someone die without batting an eyelash. It was unmerciful, and it was unnatural, but that's what I was.
There was a point where I had nothing to lose. I had no comrades, merely fellow men in arms. I had no past, no emotions. At the time I didn't even bare a name. I was an empty shell, but I was also the perfect warrior.
Then she came.
There was nothing especially striking; blonde hair that fell around her shoulders, muted dove eyes, and the look of perpetual fear riding deep within them.
It was in that time between seconds that my life was eternally altered. She followed me home and I made no objection to her silent presence as I worked. There would be times when she would hum softly to herself, a gentle murmur of a simple tune at most, but I would close my eyes and retreat to the lifting cloak of blackness once thrown over my world.
We'd never talked much, simply a few words every now and then. Yet with each passing day, we grew closer to one another. I cold feel her eyes follow my movements in battle, and every glimpse I stole I saw the brush of worry across her face, while she the look of nostalgia on mine.
She had asked me once, why I'd bothered saving her, why I hadn't killed her then. The question had toppled around my mind countless, sleepless nights, but it wasn't until that instant that the realization dawned on me.
"Because we're the same."
It was then that she gave me the cross, the damned article that sealed my fate. It was the first gift I'd ever received.
Everyday, a bit more of the ice encasing my heart melted, and the humanity I had once so long despised penetrated through the ceaseless darkness and brought light to my life. She was my light. It was in those days that I became human, but it was also in those days I found something to lose.
I should have realized it earlier, but the feelings and emotions within me blinded me from the truth.
She would walk around the camp, a gaming necklace swinging playfully around her neck. She was always at our strategic meetings, acknowledged only by the toy's soft bip bip. I should have realized it then, but I didn't want to. I refused.
It wasn't until the first wave of Alliance soldiers attacked that I fully accepted the truth, both mind and heart. Slowly I receded into the tearless, fearless, emotionless soldier I had once been. The feeling should have been natural, returning to how I had been for so long. But releasing my grasp on the humanity I had learned to accept proved much more difficult that I had first expected.
I wanted to remain human. I wanted to remain with her.
Both were next to impossible.
The second raid came. The sky soon darkened with clouds of soot and gun smoke, each tainted red by the soldiers dying in battle. The battle was short yet bloody, each fighting until their last labored breath. The rebel troops had been entirely annihilated, save her and me.
It was then that I became the soldier once again, fully and completely.
I was beyond angry, though my mask concealed each raging feature. I had used up enough tears as a child, and I no longer had any to spare for her sake. She had betrayed those who had taken her in. The realization struck hard, but none as strong as knowing she had planned it from the start. She had never meant to retrieve my soul from the pits of hell. She had, from the beginning, condemned it there.
And yet, through the swelling anger within me, I could not bring myself to kill her. The tears had glistened down her cheeks, soaking into the blood stained earth. I had known she deserved to die; she had killed so many people. But in the same instance, so had I. And so I did the only thing I could: I left.
Years have passed since then, marked by battles I've given everything to forget. But I can never forget her. She's what prevents me from fading into nothingness, from drifting away and refusing to wake. With every battle I've fought I've been killing a bit more of my own heart. Still, there's always an untouchable part reserved solely for the memory of her. It is there that the regret lies buried within me.
I have never regretted finding her. I've never regretted not killing her or spending time with her. As the reign of peace begins, I wonder what could have become of us, and I always regret having left her.