Okayy now that that's over with this is a story I had written for English so I didn't really go into much stuff specific to their world simply because I didn't feel like trying to explain Gundam Wing to my teacher I get enough weird looks as it is...
Anyways please review. I can't improve unless I know what I did wrong!
Who Will Remember?
The stars began their lonely trek across the night sky. A soft breeze filters through the trees whispering comforts, promising peace. A young man stands upon the hill solitary, brooding. Through tangled unrulely hair he stares out at the world, he looks far too young to be so serious. He is often found here on this lonely hill, sitting beneath the solitary tree, staring off into nothingness. It is where he was able to begin to find the forgiveness for all the he had done in his young life.
Thunder rolled in the distance and the wind picked up bringing with it a promise of rain. Far away he could see sheets of rain falling, nature was at war. Lightning flashed fire, thunder roared the explosions and the rain fell like the blood and tears of all those innocents lost.
He turned his back on natures war. He was weary of battle and of life. Didn't the people realize all that war brought? The world wasn't yet recovered from the last war; it hadn't even been a year. The boy sighed, his shoulders slumped. He had thought that war was his last, that once that battle was one he wouldn't have to kill again, but now they were trying to start another. Had tried to start another. The uprising had been crushed long before it became serious, but at what cost?
He had only ever known battle, a soldier for as long as he knew. Though only 17 he had fought longer and harder than most aged veterans. He had never known what it was like to be normal. War and death constant battle, it was the only way he knew to live his life…it was the only life he knew. He had never known his parents; his first memories were of his training where they had created him. His mind drifted back to the past.
Don't trust anyone…friendship is a liability …emotions are a vulnerability you can't afford …don't get involved…you're not like them…you'll never be like them…
As long as he could remember that was what he had been taught. Almost as soon as he could understand, the training began, he was pushed to his limits everyday and then beyond. By the time he was 14 no one could beat him in any type of battle, hand to hand, Mobile suits, it didn't matter, he would win.
They had destroyed all vestiges of humanity within him. He was the perfect soldier, a walking weapon…almost. Deep inside hidden away from the terrors of war was the little orphaned boy, young and innocent who felt and loved and cried out in horror at the things a human would do to another. He had thought he was the only one, and existed solely for the mission. He hid behind the barriers he had created within his mind. He hid from himself as much as the rest of the world. Then he met the other and they slowly became his first and only friends. These were the only people able to see beyond the callous front he put forth. They were able to see who he had once been, and together they had reclaimed his humanity. Those that had had similar lives were the only ones who understood his pain and the nightmares that plagued him. They knew that very same pain.
There had been a war brewing on earth. They, the five scientists, had taken it upon themselves to show humanity how horrible war could be, thereby destroying their will to fight. Each of the five had chosen a boy, a child still, to train to bring the horrors of war to humans. At the tender age of fifteen they had sent him out into the world to fulfill his missions. To pilot a weapon if mass destruction. To become a murderer. It was such a heavy burden to put upon shoulders so young and frail.
The rain had started to fall. The world was mourning the stupidity of its inhabitants. He loved this part of the earth, for some reason the colonies, for all their technical advancement, could never duplicate the majestic power of nature. The rain there just fell, as a necessary function. Here on earth it poured down, it caressed the earth, it renewed all that it touched. He retreated to the shelter of one of the many trees. The lightning was still far away, though he no longer feared death. He had faced death too many times to fear it. Part of him wealcomed it… then he would be at peace…finally he wouldn't have to fight anymore
When news of the upcoming battle had arrived, the five pilots had grimly prepared to stop this new threat. But the battle didn't develop as it should have. He remembered watching them fall unable to do anything, wishing more than anything that he could join them. Those stupid people! Starting a war without knowing what it would bring. Death was all that come with war, no glory, no honor, no reconciliation. There was no reason for wars…no reason for his friends to die. He stood and started pacing relentelessly, like a caged animal. No there was a reason, he had to believe there was a reason. Their lives were the price for this continued peace. But they had fought and died, died for a cause, and yet he still lived. Why did he live? He wouldn't be missed so why couldn't he have died with them…instead of them. "Why?!…" The sudden forlorn cry echoed out into the night air.
As the rain came down in a sudden torrent all of his barriers came crashing down. There on that isolated hill with the rain streaming down his face, he cried for the first time in his life. He cried for the death of his only friends, for the senselessness of war and the vulnerability of peace. He cried so that he would not forget.
Picture the child standing on a hill tears mingling with the rain streaming down his face. Alone…alone in his grief, alone in his life. Above him the full fury of the storm is unleashed, mirroring his confusion, reflecting the tumult within his soul.
Time passes, the rain falls softer now. No longer is it the harsh fall of pain and death but a gentle comfort, like a mothers hug. The boy looks up see a rainbow arcing across the sky. He smiles, a bittersweet, melancholy smile but a smile nonetheless. Few remember the story behind rainbows but it has always held special meaning for him. It is a promise that never again would the world be destroyed. It is a message of hope and peace.
Peace… he knew that he had to live, that his friends would not want for him to die, at least not until peace was secured. He had to live so that those who died would never be forgotten. If he died who would remember the truth of war. Who would remember?
He stands and walks over to the graves of his friends. As he kneels the words of an old song plays through his mind. He speaks them unconsciously:
you drove the worst away.
The ghost of the man I might have been
Has gone from my heart today.
I'll live for life and the best it brings
'till twilight shadows fall.
My heart grows brave and the world to me
is a good world after all."
***end***
Oh yeah... The song used is by Garnet Rogers. I don't own that either ^_^