Huff…
Huff…
A soldier ran through the shattered remains of the battlefield, dragging his injured leg behind him. Blood streaked across the broken concrete with every step. Smoke drifted through the air, mixing with dust and sparks from burning machines nearby.
Ahead of him, someone was kneeling on the ground.
For a second, hope flashed across his face.
"...Hey…"
He stumbled forward faster, ignoring the pain tearing through his leg. But the moment he got closer, that hope disappeared.
His friend slowly collapsed sideways onto the rubble.
A weak smile was still frozen on his face, as if he had tried to say something in his final moments.
The soldier dropped beside him.
"...No…"
The back of his friend's armour had been ripped apart by laser fire. Burn marks spread across the metal and skin beneath it. The wounds were precise. Clean.
He already knew who had done it.
Slowly, he lifted his head.
She stood in the distance through the smoke.
The woman he once loved.
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
The soldier's breathing became uneven. His hands shook violently as he raised his weapon toward her. Rage pushed against the grief building inside him. He wanted to pull the trigger. He wanted to hate her.
But his finger would not move.
No matter how hard he tried, his body refused.
Memories kept crashing into his mind faster than he could stop them. Her voice. Her smile. The promises they once made before the war destroyed everything between them.
His grip weakened.
Then—
Two sharp shots cut through the silence.
One round struck his left hand.
The second tore into his right leg.
He crashed onto the ground instantly, his weapon slipping from his fingers and sliding across the rubble.
The world around him began to distort.
His vision flickered strangely, blurring for a second before becoming clear again. Then blurry again.
The sounds of the battlefield became distant and warped, as though he had been pulled underwater. Explosions turned muffled. Voices stretched and echoed unnaturally inside his ears.
He tried to move.
His body barely responded.
The sky had already turned dark.
The moon, once pink, now burned deep red above the battlefield, watching silently like a monster.
The stars were faint.
None of them twinkled anymore.
Just like his heart, which refused to believe that the woman he loved was now pointing a gun at his head.
Everything around him was burning.
Smoke covered the sky in thick black clouds. Fire spread through destroyed buildings and broken machines, turning every beautiful thing into ash.
Inside his mind, only one thought echoed again and again.
Why did war always take away the things people loved the most?
He wanted to scream it.
But no sound came out.
About fifty meters away, soldiers clashed with metal swords beneath the burning red sky.
One soldier fell.
Then another.
Their bodies dropped into the dirt like small plants being crushed before they ever had the chance to grow into trees.
And then—
He saw her.
Sophia.
She stood over him, pinning him against the rubble beneath her boot.
Slowly, she raised her gun and pointed it directly at his head.
"Goodbye, darling," she said coldly.
"It was fun watching you rats crawl."
For a moment, everything inside him went numb.
His heart felt empty.
Even his mind, which had been desperately trying to keep him alive only seconds ago, suddenly stopped responding. It felt as though both his heart and thoughts had crashed under the weight of too much pain.
He stared at her face silently.
But her expression told a different story.
Her voice sounded cold.
Her eyes did not.
Something inside them looked broken.
Slowly, he closed his eyes.
Memories flooded his mind one after another.
Every moment they had spent together.
The laughter.
The small arguments.
The happiness they once shared.
And finally… the promise.
"I promise you… I will never let even a scratch touch your skin. I'll protect you with my life."
His chest tightened painfully.
Inside his heart, he whispered silently:
Were all those promises fake?
Was love really nothing?
Were money and power truly worth more than all those moments… all those words… all that love?
Sophia's grip around the gun trembled slightly.
But he did not notice.
Inside her own heart, another voice cried out desperately.
Love… I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I hurt you.
You were the one person who stayed beside me when everyone else walked away.
I'm sorry…
Only she knew the truth.
Only she knew that she was pretending.
But the world did not.
And neither did he.
To save him. Because there was nothing in the world powerful enough to completely erase human emotions.
No matter how much people changed, eventually the heart always spoke.
And then—
Bang.
For a second, he felt nothing.
Then a warm splash spread across his face.
His eyes widened.
Slowly, he opened them.
The blood staining his skin was not his.
Sophia's body collapsed forward into his arms.
The moment he caught her, he felt it instantly.
Her heartbeat.
Weak.
Fading.
For a moment, his mind refused to understand what had happened.
Then everything inside him shattered.
His body trembled uncontrollably.
A single tear slipped down his face even as he desperately tried to bury every emotion inside himself.
Her scent.
Her warmth.
Her presence.
Her voice.
Her promises.
Everything was slowly fading away.
It felt as if pieces of his heart were shutting down one emotion at a time.
He tried to scream.
Tried to cry.
But his body refused to obey him anymore.
Even the pain around him had become distant.
He could barely feel himself.
He pulled her closer and kissed her forehead softly.
"Please… please don't leave me…" he whispered weakly.
Sophia struggled to breathe.
With the last strength left inside her, she whispered:
"I… am… so… sorry…"
The battlefield around them slowly faded into meaningless noise.
The screams.
The fire.
The explosions.
None of it mattered anymore.
There was only her.
Somehow, he forced himself to stand again.
His injured leg nearly collapsed beneath him, but he ignored the pain and carefully lifted Sophia into his arms.
Step by step, he carried her toward the least destroyed patch of ground he could find.
As if the world still owed her kindness.
As if she deserved one peaceful place before the end.
Slowly, he lowered himself beside her.
He rested his head against her chest, praying silently that somehow… somehow… he would hear her heartbeat again.
But there was only silence.
And that silence destroyed him more deeply than the war ever could.
With trembling hands, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small photograph.
In the image, he and Sophia stood together beside two children, smiling as they celebrated Christmas like a normal family untouched by war.
For a long moment, he stared at it silently.
Then he placed the photograph gently over her heart.
Within minutes, the edges became stained red.
Slowly, he stood again.
He took one step.
Then another.
His legs nearly gave out beneath him, but he forced himself to keep moving.
He walked away carrying a grief the world would never fully understand.
A few meters ahead, a figure emerged through the smoke.
His sister.
Her weapon still glowed faintly from the shot she had fired moments earlier.
"We're still alive," she said quietly.
"We're winning… I think."
But he gave no answer.
Something inside him had already died.
He felt empty.
Numb.
Almost mechanical.
Together, they walked through the burning ruins.
Past shattered homes.
Past broken bodies.
Past people sitting silently in the dirt with untouched food beside them.
Some were already dead.
Others simply stared into nothingness, as if their souls had abandoned them long ago.
Suddenly, distant screams tore through the air.
The two of them ran toward the sound.
And then they saw her.
A mother trapped beneath collapsed rubble.
Motionless.
Silent.
A small photograph of her children still clutched tightly in her hand.
She looked like a flower crushed beneath careless footsteps and forgotten by the world.
But there was no time to stop.
So they kept walking.
Eventually, they reached what remained of their unit.
Their friends.
Most of them had already crossed the thin line between life and death.
Some lay beside each other with their fingers still locked together.
One survivor looked up at them with hollow, broken eyes.
"I… I couldn't save them…" he whispered weakly.
Then they saw the children.
A little girl, no older than four, crawled slowly through the ash while crying for help.
One of her legs was gone.
Nearby, a young boy held his injured arm tightly as he searched desperately through the ruins for his mother.
The sister collapsed to her knees.
But the brother still did not cry.
He simply stared at the ruined world before him.
Then, in a quiet voice filled with emptiness, he whispered:
"This… is what we became?"
[Scene: Headquarters – Later That Night]
Under medical supervision, the soldier rested silently inside a dim military room.
Machines hummed softly around him while distant alarms echoed through the underground base.
Bandages covered most of his injuries, but none of them could touch the damage inside his mind.
For a long time, neither he nor his sister spoke.
Then finally, in a quiet voice, he asked:
"Why didn't you tell me she was the enemy?"
His sister lowered her eyes.
"I hacked her phone," she admitted softly.
"I'm sorry. I knew the truth. I saw the messages."
She paused for a moment.
"You protected her ever since high school… but she never truly chose us."
Her voice became quieter.
"She chose power."
For a moment, he said nothing.
Then he slowly leaned back against the bed and stared silently at the ceiling above him.
"It's okay," he whispered.
"For one moment… when she pointed the gun at me… I froze."
His sister gently placed a hand on his shoulder.
"It's over now, big brother. Rest. I'm here."
[A Few Weeks Later]
The soldier sat beside another comrade inside a damaged shelter.
The man's hands would not stop shaking.
His breathing was uneven.
When he finally spoke, his voice cracked apart.
"I… I wiped out three generations… two entire families…"
He lowered his head.
"The last one was a child. Maybe eight years old."
His fingers tightened painfully.
"I couldn't even lift the gun near the end…"
The soldier remained silent.
Because there were no words left strong enough for guilt like that.
Far above them, on a rooftop overlooking the ruined city, a sniper whispered into his radio.
"Bro… look. That building… 1.3 kilometres away."
He adjusted the scope slightly.
"It's a school."
His breathing slowed.
"They're hiding behind the gate."
For one brief moment, hope existed.
Then—
A tank shell slammed into the building.
The explosion shook the skyline.
The sniper screamed into the radio.
"NO! NO! THEY WERE CHILDREN!"
Then came silence.
A silence heavier than the explosions themselves.
Slowly, he lowered the rifle.
Then he simply sat there, staring at the smoke rising into the dark sky.
[One Month Later]
The war ended.
They won.
People celebrated in the streets.
Flags rose into the sky.
Music echoed through the cities.
Fireworks painted the night with colour.
But behind the celebrations, soldiers cried quietly where nobody could see them.
"We lost brothers, sisters, friends, parents… children," he said softly.
"Today, children joke about war."
His eyes remained fixed on the ground.
"But… is this really what we fought for?"
He looked down at his trembling hands.
"My friend lost his leg during the war."
His voice became quieter.
"We had to amputate it while wild dogs circled around us."
He swallowed heavily.
"Even after that… he still fought off four enemies before he finally collapsed."
The room fell silent.
"I was only three hundred meters away…"
He closed his eyes.
"And I still couldn't save him."
A long silence followed.
Then he spoke again.
"And we call ourselves humans."
"The same creatures who write laws… and still choose war."
His exhausted eyes slowly lifted.
"And this world is so blind and cruel that people never truly see the pain soldiers carry."
"They ask, 'Why did you join if you didn't want this?'"
A bitter smile appeared briefly before fading away.
"I used to think the same way once."
"But when you finally witness it… when you hear the screaming… when you lose people with your own hands…"
His voice nearly broke.
"Only then do you understand