- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
An explosion erupted nearby, reminding me just how we wound up in this predicament, and I gave up struggling with the clasps holding me in place, settling for cutting the straps away with my knife. My body seemed to protest the sudden weight placed upon it, but I pushed the angry protests aside and began cutting the others free. Private Pearson was no longer quite as talkative, as he couldn’t take his eyes off the bodies of Corporal Walle and PFC Cortez.
With the last Marine free, I stepped carefully to the large tear where the cockpit used to be, and took a quick scan of our surroundings. Not surprisingly, we came to a stop close to the city limits of Gestahl, and judging from the lack of plasma fire coming from the buildings that loomed a scant few hundred feet away, we were at the lone section of the city that wasn’t quite under siege just yet. As ridiculous as it sounded, luck was still on our side.
“Sarge, Corporal Walle’s still alive,” Private Pearson said. Gone was the obnoxious tone from before, and in its place came a voice that I would have thought came from a frightened child. One who had looked deep within the darkness around him, and saw that there was indeed something awaiting him.
“Grab what’s left of your gear,” I ordered, ignoring Pearson. I‘d be taking care of Walle myself, but I didn‘t want the others to see. They were too green to understand what I was going to do. “We’ll need to get into the city fast, because if the Covenant just happen to be watching us, I wouldn’t put it past them to use us as target practice.”
The others numbly grabbed what little they could find; aside from one or two Marines, everyone else had lost their weapon during our tumultuous decent and crash, myself included. All that remained was my knife, and an M6-C handgun that managed to stay within its holster at my side.
Once the others were assembled, I directed their attention to exactly where our destination was. A small slit in between two enormous skyscrapers that looked to have been unmolested so far from artillery fire. I was about to give the order to move out when Pearson tugged at the corner of my flak jacket.
“Sarge, what about Walle? We gotta do something for him.”
“I’ll handle it Private,” I explained, careful to keep my tone soft. “When I give the word, I want you to haul ass with the others, and don’t stop until your inside the city. You got that?”
Whether it was shell-shock from the crash, or just maybe he’d finally learned to shut up and do what he was told, Pearson nodded his assent and walked to the edge of the Pelican.
“Go, go, go!” I shouted, and with little hesitation the remaining Marines were off, sprinting as best as their injured bodies could allow. Without watching, I turned back around and walked quickly over to where Corporal Walle was still slumped forward, the foreign piece of metal still lodged through his chest. His breathing had slowed considerably, but left as he was, he could survive another couple of hours.
The handgun was in my grip before I knew it, and with little flourish I place the muzzle against his temple. A lone round was chambered and ready to steal his life.
This wouldn’t be the first time I provided this service to a dying soldier. I wish I could lose count, forget their faces, but every moment stayed with me, burned into my memory as if their deaths were my own. Bloodied and weak, those men had faced excruciating deaths, and I took on the role of Death, delivering unto them the embrace of darkness. There existed no doubt within me that when I finally died, all of my sins would be visited upon me if indeed there was such a thing as an afterlife. A service it may be in my eyes, but beneath the mighty weight of the universe, what I was doing was nothing more than murder. I took these soldier’s lives before they had a chance to run out on their own. Stealing what is most precious to any living thing.
Inside Corporal Walle’s jacket, I caught sight of something, and with intense interest, I pulled a small holo-card from his front pocket. With my touch, the image of a woman appeared, laughing with a smile in her eyes that spoke volumes of an innocence I felt I hadn‘t seen in a lifetime. She was obviously Walle’s girlfriend, someone that likely reminded him of why he was fighting, and for what reason he just might lose his life in this war.
Was she still alive? Perhaps she was on one of the outer colonies that the Covenant already glassed. Maybe Walle joined the UNSC to avenge her, winning the war with her memory, like so many of these children did. Naivety strong enough that they forgot what little words they may have heard from those that had at one time or another experienced the savagery that is this war.
I wonder how long it took Walle to realize how fleeting those emotions were. War could take the best intentions and turn them against a person. Breaking a man’s spirit was nothing, and destroying his dreams was as easy as one carefully aimed strike.
“You keep her with you Walle,” I said breaking the solemn silence, tucking the holo-card back into his jacket. “I wouldn’t want you to be lonely.”
For some reason the trigger was immobile now, like it was frozen in place. I tried again and again to fire and end Walle’s suffering, but the result was the same, the muzzle stayed where it was, ready and waiting to deliver his freedom. I was hesitating, I knew that much at least. My conscience was telling me that I should leave him be, and give him the chance to enjoy those final moments of life, grasping and remembering whatever memories he might wish to relive. How many of them involved the girl he kept close to his heart?
A wheezing breath escaped the dying soldier, and I watched with morbid fascination as his arm rose up and wavered in the air. His hand clutched weakly at my jacket, and as I felt my throat compress, his lips moved in a rasping wheeze. What he said I will never know, and I think I am glad to have missed them.
Did he wail against the injustice of this war? Questioning humanity’s sin to deserve so cruel a fate, or was he crying out for help, wondering why no one came to his aid as he slowly died? With his eyes glazed, and casting his last breath did he call out for his mother? So much like all men do when faced with their deaths, did Walle desire to return to the one who birthed him? And into whose arms he would find the comfort and love that only a mother could provide? Would he cry out from that warmth and love, weeping as he felt his pain slip away and be replaced with only the care his mother could provide? That simple primal urge, to give into the maternal love of a mother.
I can’t say for sure what he may have said, but what I did know was Walle had only one more step left before he could find eternal rest.
The trigger was no longer heavy, and as I swallowed against the lump that seemed to be lodged in my throat, I delivered the ending to his life. No longer did his chest struggle endlessly against the creeping signs of death, and the weak hand that gripped my jacket was now limp alongside the remains of his jump seat. He was dead.
There are many instances over the years where I can remember hearing people say how life is the most important gift given to us. I’m not really sure what they meant by that, but I guess I kind of understood a little, at least a little bit. Whether or not there is something waiting at the end of someone’s life, the experience of that life is the most important thing to a person, and at times those lives are cut almost tragically short. Death serves as a looming shadow, a constant reminder that we are mortal in the eyes of this universe and we cannot fight against fate.
Blood was pooling down the side of Walle’s head, and I quickly brushed it aside with the hand that took his life. I became mesmerized by it, and after a time the blood dried against my palm, creating a stain that all the water in the world would never wash away. The rough feeling on my hand was only temporary, but the image wasn’t going to leave me for a long time. Perhaps not until the day when I was the one on the receiving end of such a merciful action, like the one I bestowed upon Walle as he slowly died.
Yes, life was a valuable gift, but death was the most precious. Life was a dream made up of happiness embittered by sadness, pleasure tainted by pain. Those fleeting moments of joy and delight, over-shadowed by all of our grief, horror, humiliation, and despair. A long life was a horrible curse upon a human, and that all humans strive to achieve it must have been a running joke amongst all that is divine. Death is the antithesis of life. Death is short, death is sweet, death heals every last pain a person experiences and leaves blissful silence in it’s place. When a man can no longer endure life and existence, death comes to set him free.
I holstered my handgun, and with great care I pulled Walle free from his impalement, and placed his body on the ground alongside PFC Cortez. It was a terrible crime to leave these men behind, but I was left with no choice; nothing could be done but pray they somehow avoided whatever the outcomes of this battle, so that when it ended their bodies could be found and laid to rest in a manner befitting their great deeds.