One by one by one by one, inevitable, unstoppable, unsaveable, they fall all around her. When is it her turn? She waits, and keeps surviving them. Her turn never comes. Every time they die she dies too. But she’s still here. Always here, marching; always here, at the front, forever; always here, watching them die and unable to die with them. Her family.
There is plastoid armor between them, but as she holds his hand and looks into his visor she knows his eyes are the same as hers, and she knows even without seeing when the life fades out of them. When he’s dead, she has to keep going, with him behind her, where he fell, where a part of her still lies, and there is no moment of silence: there are blasters firing and men screaming and the tinny voices of clankers and explosions and crashes and boots on the ground for ever and ever. This is all there is. She is always here.
Something explodes nearby, belching fire and spewing debris; it flings her body into the air. She slams into something, tumbles, half scrambling and half flailing, and when she finally stops, and sits up, something’s happened.
Is it her turn?
It’s quiet. So, so quiet. Insects are chirping softly outside, just audible over the steady drone of the grimy old cooling unit in the window. She’s sat up so quickly she’s launched herself half out of the bed. A blanket is slipping onto the floor. Her feet are bare. No boots. No armor. No weapon. Nothing but her tatty old nightshirt and the clammy sweat dripping off of her. Her heart pounds.
Her own voice sounds strange to her for a second as it hisses shaky curses (the voice she had spoken with in the dream had been different). She leans out for the nightstand where her canteen sits illuminated by the cold moonlight. An unsteady hand swipes it up and lifts it to her lips.
She draws her legs up and crawls further back into the narrow bed. The blanket continues to slide to the floor, and she lets it.
That war is over. It’s been over since she was a baby. She’s in a rented room. Tomorrow she’s on a job. She’s got people to meet up with in the morning.
After another swallow of water, she sets her canteen back down heavily, and with her arm sweeping down in the same arc, rummages in her bag, which is sitting on the floor beside the bed. Out comes her datapad. The ritual begins.
After that first mission with Rex was over, she’d started it. An ongoing log of the dreams. Date of the dream. Rough date of the events dreamt of, if she knows it. Location, if she knows it. If not, a description of the terrain. Anything she remembers about what they were doing there. Battalion, if she can recall it; paint color at the very least. What weapon had been in her hand. Then, of course, the names. Any names she could remember at all. Names of the dead, mostly. How they had died. Any details about them that linger: rank, specialization, preferred weapon, tattoos, scars, how they wore their hair and/or beard. What they were like.
Finick, she begins. Corporal? Killed by close range anti-infantry round. Never saw him without his helmet in the dream, but I know he had a beard that he was really fussy about keeping trimmed a particular way. Pain in the ass but he was ‘OUR pain in the ass.’
Backfire. Sharpshooter. Incredibly blunt, but not rude, exactly. Just had no filter. Sincere, you know? Weirdly chill disposition. Very perceptive. Stylized explosion in red ink on one forearm. Missing in action. Dead?
Cosh. Pilot. He was funny. Swore a lot. LAAT shot down.
Riot. Finick’s last remaining batchmate. Died saving our lives. I was with him. Took his hand at the end.
He hadn’t saved her life, of course, and it hadn’t been her hand in his. She hadn’t even really been there. But it had felt like it, and she never bothers to make the distinction while she writes these log entries. It’d be a distraction. She wants to get all the details down while they’re fresh in her mind.
Why does she do this? Partly because having something to focus on helps calm her down… but mostly because she wants to remember them. There’s a long list, now, of uncles she will never know except in dreams. This is as close as she’ll ever get to them.
And who is it, out there, who dreams about Finick, Cosh, Backfire and Riot? Where is he? What’s he doing? Is he okay? Will she ever meet him? And if she does, how will she even know?
She takes a deep breath and finishes her notes.
I was injured at the end of the dream. Too close to an explosion, but not so close that it killed me.
Him, she corrects herself. He is, presumably, still out there somewhere. She thinks. She theorizes. Or is she having dead men’s dreams, too? She supposes there’s no way for her to know for certain.
She adds the final detail she can remember.
Dark violet paint; 664th Battalion.
Then she saves the document and shuts down her datapad. By now, her pulse has slowed and evened out. She’s not panting or sweating anymore. She looks at the time; dawn in about four hours. Work in about six. There’s some hope of getting back to sleep tonight. But will she?
She employs her usual tactic for getting back to sleep: working out. Tossing the rumpled blanket back onto the bed, she gets down on the floor and does some sit-ups. Then she does some push-ups. She doesn’t count; just keeps going until she’s tired herself out. Then she climbs back into bed.
Lays there, awake.
Come on, she thinks, I have shit to do tomorrow! Let me rest!
There’s a loud sigh as she sits up again. She stares out the window for a bit. Keeps looking back at her comlink. Grabs it. Puts it back down. Picks it up again. Begins recording a message.
“Hey Uncle Rex. Just wanted to check in real quick. Hope you’re doing okay. … Miss you.”
