Resting Place
“Then I saw that there was a way to hell, even from the gates of heaven.”
~~ John Bunyan
Many may not believe me, and I shall be the first to admit that it is ironic, but war and the military are actually both very structured. As a soldier one becomes used to a certain pattern in life. In truth, there are very few choices.
From the moment a rookie enters the training academy, this pattern begins. Training exercises take place at exactly the same time everyday. Energon rations are distributed at exactly 0600, 1200, and 1800 hours. After a few solar cycles, one also learns that the commanding officer shouts: “Lights out!” at exactly 2300 hours. As you can see, it is fairly easy to lose track of what day of the week it is.
The situation does not change much in a battle. You may imagine battle to be the definition of chaos. Fire power and loose pieces of metal are everywhere. The dead lie together with the dying, as the two become an almost identical mass. Their cries are drowned by the sound of weapon fire. The very air you breath is a poisonous fume.
In truth, battle, like any other game, is very simple: you either win or loose. If you loose, you either die on the battlefield, or if you are unlucky, you are captured as a prisoner of war, at which point you better pray to whatever gods may be, because only they can save you. On the other side of the coin is victory, in which case you return to base and await the next battle when the cycle repeats again. Such is the general order of war, and one grows accustomed to it. For me this general cycle was interrupted.
You have to realize, whatever she says about me is based on the side of myself I showed her for the past twenty stellar cycles. I am not the hero she considers me to be. Far from it.
I am a soldier, and thus I had very little contact with children. Imagine how surprised I was to find myself the sole guardian of a six-year-old war-orphaned girl. At first, neither of us were thrilled with the arrangement. She was very withdrawn due to the loss of her family. I was resentful of the monopoly she had on my time. Was I a warrior or a babysitter?
Six months after Helm’s Deep, she was still with me, and I must admit that I have grown quite used to her. Pure innocence is very rare to find at war, but despite everything she went through, she somehow managed to remain that way. I refuse to say she was naive, in fact she was a very bright child, very alert and aware of everything around her. She was quick to learn anything she put her mind to, and I was very proud of her. Our contempt towards each other dissolved over time, but she was still wary of me. As I have previously stated, I was a soldier, and the child had good reasons to distrust and dislike soldiers.
One night changed that. She had overheard some of the younger soldiers saying less than nice things about her. As you can probably guess she felt unwanted and all her pain and hurt came pouring out. I held her as she cried, promised that I’d always be there for her, and she trusted me. Her trust was so fragile, I could not go back on my word even if I did not know the first thing about caring for a child. I would learn as we go, I decided, and so we did.
She adored me. “Big brother,” she called me once, and so it was. From then on, I was her brother and watched her grow from a little girl to a wild adolescent to an exceptional young woman. We were there for each other through the inferno itself. Yes, I raised her, helped her through all the milestones of life, and she returned the favor, often by simply being there. I am old, if not in body then in spark. I have seen epics come and go, armies and nations crumble to dust. I
The military was my entire life. I used to think that winning the war was all that mattered. Everything was so simple, until the day a little girl entered it and forced me to reevaluate my priorities. I realized that I had come to care more for her wellbeing then for the very war I was fighting.
I murdered her. I may as well have been the one to pull the trigger, though I suspect her death was nowhere near that painless. My little sister, the embodiment of innocence itself, and I killed her. I had everything anyone could ever hope for, and I threw it away. There was a way to hell from the gates of heaven, and I chose to walk down that road of my own free will.
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Isis, child, little one, I pray you are at peace, that wherever you are, you are happier than you were here, and that you know everything I have done. Do not forgive me, for I do not deserve your kindness, though I do wish to thank you for it. I thank you for your sympathy, for caring, and most of all, for your innocence, which brought so much hope and joy into my life.
I am sorry for failing you, for breaking the tremendous trust you placed in me. I realize that you have no reason to believe me, but I do love you, little sister. However I fear I will never have a chance to tell you. For your spark has joined the Matrix with the greatest of Cybertron, and I...
I shall burn in the Inferno for all eternity.