The day after
Ruins.
They feel so cold.
Silence has befell the battlefield. One hour earlier, a ceasefire had been agreed on. After two years and a half of war, and a decade of Hillar's Tyranny, it's all Ink, mightiest city in the world, can feel.
Silence.
Not even the sound of blood, dripping from the ground, can he heard. No buzzing from insects, no rubbles breaking apart and falling on the ground. Not a step from a soldier. No cracking of fire.
Millions used to live here.
Millions still live here.
Yet the silence is deafening.
Wailings.
A child is wandering through the ruins.
Their head is bleeding, coloring their hair from brown to a dark shade of red.
Steps.
Soldiers crossing the streets.
They were here in retaliation for crimes committed against their country. The rosarian exiled legion fought well, and now, here is their reward. The most beautiful city of all time, reduced to ruins.
Cry.
The sound of a mother, holding her children. The three of them fought valiantly against the coming storm. But nobody can escape fate. Their eyes won't open, ever again.
Gunshot.
An instrument of vengeance, even if they will call it justice. But after witnessing so much destruction, how could you expect men to stay sane ?
The city breathes again. This silence was only the beginning. Now, throughout the streets, violence erupts. The inhabitants try to seize what they can. The army shots first, asks question last. Everywhere, more blood, more fire.
They are coming for him.
Far below, in the shadows, a man is sitting in a large room, in front of a gigantic table.
One after the other, for the past hour, they sang their prayers, looked at themselves peacefully, and ended their lives.
They were twenty at the beginning of the war.
Fifteen in this tiny room.
Fourteen lie dead and the last of them looks at the bodies of his comrades, those with whom he was ready to fight the entire world.
He looks at his wine. A delicacy, in those last months, even for him. Yet, he takes the bottle, pours it in a tiny glass, takes it to his lips.
They all look so peaceful, with a bullet in their skulls. Their expressions are all so calm.
He takes one last look at them. Then, he takes the bottle of wine, lifts it. The glass shatters on the table, alcohol spilling everywhere on him. On his hand.
One bottle is not enough. He takes another, breaks it in the same way. The shards cuts his hand, open old wounds.
He was a soldier, in another life.
He grabs the gun.
Points it as his jaw.
He only needs one spark.
This gunshot, nobody would hear.
It would spark a flame, leading to a new republic.
It would burn the shooter, and all the monsters who wanted to realize his dream.
It would cleanse the world.
Wouldn't it ?
