***Contains direct quotations from Gears of War 3***

Left behind

Everything was still a blur, the events and people surrounding him slightly out of focus as he tried to keep going. There were very few things that had occurred in the recent few days that he remembered with any sharpness.

Dom.

Dom was gone. Inside of himself he'd always believed perhaps naively that they would always be together, he and his brother, through thick and thin and everything the world could throw at them. Of course that wasn't how it had ended and the last of the Santiagos had disappeared and become another name lost on the sea of thousands of others that had been lost during the war.

But he wouldn't be forgotten, Marcus wouldn't allow it.

Dad.

Dad was gone too; a few precious minutes had been shared between them after years of believing that his Father had died six years ago. Those minutes would never be long enough, yet another person he couldn't save but another person that had sacrificed life so others could live in their stead.

'Live...for me, Marcus.'

Marcus Fenix squeezed his eyes shut before slowly opening them again. He was currently sitting in one of the lavishly decorated rooms that had housed one of the hundreds of scientists that had been brought here. The room sickened him and made him feel uncomfortable, all of this expense while the rest of the world struggled to survive one day to the next, never knowing if they'd live to see the next sunrise.

'Tomorrow, Marcus. We finally got a tomorrow.'

Anya.

Marcus sighed quietly, she was all he had left from his younger life, the only other person here who knew him and understood him as much as the Santiagos had.

In the grand scheme of things, Marcus had been left behind to live while others hadn't. The notion pained him that he should be the one to survive. Why him after all? But slowly he grew to understand that the people he had failed to save had given him a life he never thought he could have, an existence that promised peace and an end to fighting.

He stood and moved to the door of his room, pulling open the stiff wood and glancing out into the hallway, maybe he would go and see Anya and find out how she was doing with the radio she had found a few days ago.

Before he left he turned to look over his shoulder at the shelf by his bed, it held three precious items.

A photograph Dom had given him before they had left Vectes, a picture of himself and the two Santiago brothers.

A commando knife that had once belonged to Dom.

A set of Cog tags with his Father's name and CSID number.

Marcus Fenix took a deep breath and exhaled before he finally left his quarters.