His hearts are exhausted, raw and bleeding. He stands motionless under the spray, head bowed, heedless of the hot water cascading across his shoulders and down his back. He makes no attempt to scrub himself; his arms hang limp at his sides, his face partly obscured by his matted sand-blond hair. He is alone in the strike-cruiser's communal shower chamber; the other squads have already come and gone, leaving behind only lingering scent-traces to mark their passage. Squads. Comrades in arms. Brotherhoods in miniature. Not lone warriors like him. Not sole survivors. Not the last man standing.

He closes his eyes, cutting out the light of the lumens. The dead take form in the darkness, memory-shades of his brothers after their drop-pod had taken a glancing hit, knocking it off-course and sending it into an uncontrollable death-spiral: Brother Andros, crushed from the waist down, biting into his tongue to keep from screaming aloud; Brother Callas, impaled through the chest and throat, choking on his own blood even as he fought to free himself; Brother-Sergeant Darvar, a mangled ruin in shattered ceramite hardly recognizable as having once been something human; Brother Kyrill, cleanly decapitated with near-surgical precision; Brother Dasemond, seemingly unscathed save for the way his head had lulled at such an unnatural angle…

A low, guttural sound – half-growl, half-moan – tears free and he sinks to his knees, hunching over. He wants to throw back his head and scream. He resists. Never scream. It was one of the first lessons the Chaplains had drilled into him as a neophyte – no matter what fate throws at you, no matter what horrors and tragedies you destined to endure, you must never give the universe the satisfaction of your screams; you can weep, you can let your tears flow like rivers of blood, but you must never cry out, never.

Years of grueling training and intensive mental conditioning hold his psyche firmly and instead of screaming out his grief he begins to drive his fists into the tiled flooring over and over again until cracks begin to radiate outwards from the depressions made by his knuckles and the draining water is stained a bright crimson.

"Brothers…" he gasps brokenly, "father…why, why have you forsaken me…"

"Mardant?"

He lifts his head; he had been so lost in his inner turmoil he had not registered the other Space Marine's approach. Ashamed at his critical lapse in awareness he quickly stands and steps from the shower stall, raking his dripping hair back from his face. Sanguinary Priest Seymeon is standing in the entrance to the chamber, fully armored in the yellow-trimmed white ceramite of the Calix Brotherhood.

"Leave us," he commands the two anxious-looking Chapter serfs who had alerted him to Mardant's plight; they bow and depart wordlessly. Seymeon's scarred face is bare and though his warplate is pristine the odor of old blood still clings to him, intermixed with the scents of counterseptic and the sacred oils he uses to maintain his armor. "I am here, brother," he says quietly; his eyes are devoid of judgment. At the words of the ritual greeting Mardant's hearts bleed anew and the last vestiges of his self-control finally crumble.

"They are all dead," he says as the tears start to run down his cheeks. "My squad is dead; the drop-pod crashed and I alone survived; they did not even get the chance to fight…they…it…it should have been me!" Desperate anger floods into his veins; he runs to the Apothecary and grips him by the pauldrons. "Do you understand, Seymeon? It should have been me!"

Groaning, grinding his teeth, he pushes against the Calix, his bare muscles straining with exertion; Seymeon stands stolid and unyielding and gently wraps his arms about the anguished Astartes. "I am here, brother," he says again. "I am here."

"Not a scratch…they died all around me and I walked away from the crash without a single scratch…"

"I am here, Mardant."

"They were far more worthy warriors than I could ever hope to be…they deserved better…"

"I am here."

"Dasemond will never get to finish his oil painting of the Rosetta Nebula…Kyrill will never again swipe Callas' scrimshawing knife and make it look like I was the one who took it…Sergeant Darvar will never again regale us with his latest flute compositions after the evening devotions…Andros will never again sing his homeworld's war-verses off-tune during weapons maintenance just to aggrivate Dasemond…"

"Mardant…"

"They are all gone, Seymeon. I am the last…" Mardant ceases pushing against the Priest and sags in his arms, weeping openly. "I should have died along with them…I should not have survived…"

"But you did not die, brother. You did survive," Seymeon says as he hugs Mardant to his chestplate. "And now a great challenge lies before you: will you honor the sacrifices of the fallen by standing steadfast and advancing onwards, or will you allow your grief to devour you until you become nothing but a hollowed shell of the man your brothers once cherished? Would they smile to see you utterly consumed by melancholy on their account?"

Mardant straightens and steps back, his face hardening with resolve. "No," he says at last, taking a deep breath. "No, they would not want that, nor would the primarch."

"Come, Mardant," says Seymeon, gesturing towards the entrance. "You are not the only one who has lost comrades; all the squads have suffered casualties. A new place will be found for you; this is not the end, but merely another beginning."

Mardant closes his eyes; the dead take form in the darkness once more. He embraces each insubstantial shade. Farewell, my brothers. For those you cherished you died in glory…

His brothers nod. His brothers smile. And so strengthened Mardant wipes away his tears and follows Seymeon into the future.