Time: 0300\
March 30, 2532\
In Freelancer Command Base
To hear the upper echelon describe it, humanity is faced with two enemies. One threatens our way of life. The other threatens our very existence. They're painted with the same brush; dark and threatening and requiring nothing less than our complete and utter rejection and ire. The amount of propaganda produced to incite our hatred for our enemies is staggering. It's impossible to escape and has become such a background noise that it actually feels uncomfortable when it's gone.
Perhaps that fact alone reveals the true enemy we should be fighting. Not the Insurrection. Not the Covenant. Rather, the enemy that we are all facing is the Human Condition.
Don't get me wrong. I've fought in the trenches of all the current wars. I've sniped Insurrectionists as they threaten hostages. I've knifed aliens in the back. I've cleared more rubble then I knew could exist, I've held the hands of dying civilians that were terrified of dying alone, I've carried children off of the battlefields their parents have died upon. I've lied and stolen and cheated and killed and butchered and massacred in the name of humanity. Red blood, purple blood, tears, sweat, mud, soot, they've all been ground so deep into my skin I can never scrub myself clean. I've spared the guilty and killed the innocent on orders. I've wept and screamed and thrown-up and bled. I've looked into the eyes of men I knew would not come back from the battles I was sending them into. I've shaken hands with people who hold the value of a human life just barely above the worth of dirt.
And I'd do it all again.
I'm a soldier. It might not be the life style I chose, but it is what I have and it's what I have to live with. Even if I was volunteered, I stuck with the decision, which means I'm choosing these battlefields and these promises. I willingly jump into Hell every day so that, hopefully, no one else will have to. It's not being a hero, not at the heart. It's a willingness to face the darkness that the majority of the world refuses to see, to protect those that don't deserve the terror.
But here, in the safety of my own mind, I can admit that it's not the enemies outside that frighten me. Insurrectionists, I can handle. Covenant, I can handle. Orders that strip me of my humanity, I can handle. What I cannot handle, no matter how much I try, is my own mind. The doubts that whisper at night when I'm trying to sleep. The hatred that batters at me when I fail to save a life. The fear that consumes me when I realize just how tiny I am when compared to the forces against me. Everyday is a constant struggle to hold my worst enemy, myself, across the line. It's never far away and it's always pressing; I need to hold the line or everything will be lost.
And it's not just me. It's so painfully obvious that it's not just me. I see it in the eyes of the people I rescue, in the men I lead, in the officers I accept orders from. We're all fighting our own inner demons, and some fair better than others but the war is never ending.
Some can overcome their doubts and shine like a beacon, drawing the desperate around them. Others can mimic that light and drag their followers into a state that is little better than chaos. And then there are the unfortunate that lose. I see far more of them then I would wish, usually with blood splattered across the wall and the gun cold in their own hands.
The worst part is that I'm never sure just how close to their desperation I am. There's no way to measure how much longer anyone can hold on, and for so many our balance is shaky at best. A soldier that is fine today might be in the morgue tomorrow without ever having stepped into a physical battle. And the part that I hate the most is how hard it is to tell that your friend is in combat at all. There's often little warning, little indication that they are in a fight for their very life. And even when we do notice, there is little we can do to help but be there. Sometimes that's all that's needed. Sometimes...it's just not enough.
So yes, humanity is facing two enemies. Both large, powerful, and very dark. But it is not them that I fear. It is the silent enemy living inside every human, tearing us to pieces and bleeding us out with no wounds that I live in terror of. Because the stronger the person, the stronger the demon...and everyone says that I'm strong.
They're wrong.
Babble Time: The song used in this chapter is Across the Line by Linkin Park, which I forgot I'd already done. I seriously need to clean out my playlist for songs I've already done.
