I don’t know what the answer is. Some days, I think the invasion needed to happen, if only to force our fractured society to change.
At first, the violence soothed the hurt in my heart. Like a bandage holding me together until my soul could stitch itself back into a semblance of normalcy. But the longer we fight, the more bitterness festers beneath the surface. A poison slowly seeping into my veins.
I fight to stay with my squad.
That’s it. That’s all.
The bullet wounds in my chest sting, healing slower than they did yesterday.
We had a chance to have something precious. She was right there, within our grasp.
She was a gift, and I treated her like a mission objective and when she needed our help, she didn't trust me to lead the squad to find her Omega friends. Her family.
And the worst part?
She was right.
I couldn't ignore the call of duty. I would have dragged her back to The Capital to get our orders, justifying myself with promises of ‘Later. We’ll search for them later’.
I grind my teeth together and aim at a target, taking the young soldier out with a single shot between the eyes.
I was selfish and a fucking coward. She needed the Pack, and they needed her. I should’ve been the one who left and let them have their happiness. I chose duty over love, and now I have neither. I was too stubborn and slow to understand what actually matters most.
A rallying war-cry breaks me from my thoughts, and I belatedly realize the Humans are staging a full assault.
“Here they come, boys!” Shade declares down the radio.
They pour down the hill like a wave of fire ants, hungry, countless, crawling over their broken comrades to be the first to sink their teeth in. They fight with the kind of blind confidence only righteousness gives.
They scream nonsense as they charge, “purge the filthy” and “the pure will inherit”. They’re battle cries from a fever dream. And when they’re dying, choking on their blood, they whisper, “Goddess, save me.” I’ve heard the same plea for years, and I still don’t know who this Goddess is, or what purity has to do with war, but whatever belief drives them, it’s vicious.Ugly.
The sounds of gunfire echo through the town, mingling with screams of pain. They've found the innocent civilians, and the slaughter has begun.
"Rut-fucking-dammit," I curse, taking cover behind a house, fumbling for my radio. I pull it up to my lips to call for a retreat when a bullet hits the receiver, shattering it. Blood spurts from the hole ripped in my hand, covering the destroyed device in a sticky red mess.
"Fuck!" I drop the wrecked comms unit and kick it into the face of an oncoming assailant. He drops and is unmoving.
My brain scrambles for a plan, a way to get a retreat order to my squad, but the smoke and shouting drown out every thought. Then the wind shifts.
It rolls through the town, sweeping the fires Blaze has lit away and clearing the air like a curtain pulling open.
I feel something strange.
A charge skims across my skin. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Then the scent hits.
Lavender. Crisp, sharp. Laced with something electric, like a storm just before it breaks.
I know this scent. My body knows it too.
I freeze, even as another hail of bullets slam into the wall behind me.
I shake my head.
No. I’ve imagined this before. I’ve dreamed it, begged for it, gone half out of my mind chasing it.
But this is different. This doesn’t fade. It sticks in my lungs and grounds me, waking up something that’s been cold for months.
