Ten More Days
Funny how dreams are, isn't it?
Sometimes, they're fantastical journeys into wonderful new worlds, things you could never imagine. Sometimes, they're every bit of pain and horror you've ever had or ever imagined.
And sometimes they're memories. That's what mine are: memories.
I sat on a hill, this wide plain of just grass out ahead of me, an old gnarled apple tree at my back and a beaten hat on my head. I could just sit there, and watch the sun play off the reeds and the grass for hours on end. This was my nirvana, this was my heaven. No guns, no screams, no worries, except maybe those clouds off in the east, but I knew, just by smelling the wind, that they would pass me by. I can daydream about whatever I want. Yeah, in my dream, I'm daydreaming. It's my dream, I can do almost anything. But dreams have rules, too! And you can't break the rules, or it becomes a nightmare.
Tonight, I won't have the time for it to become a nightmare. Tonight, I'm gonna wake up, and there won't be a hill from when I was just a pup. There won't be any old tree that I used to climb to see the valley. Tonight, the grass won't be swaying and tall.
Tonight, there won't be any sun. There hasn't been any sun in this part of the Elysian Fields for millenia.
My name is Singsamingkomona, but you can call me Sing. I'm a Tairanian. I died in the year 1544, Betel Standard Calendar. That's about...3430 A.D. to you Terrans. I died with a hole in my heart from a stream of covalent plasma from a Soviet Republican's rifle. I stood in front of them while my brothers and sisters tried to get underground to the tunnels. As far as I know, they did. I mean, I haven't met any of them over here yet, so they must still be alive. Me? I'm dead as a doornail, and I'm here, just waiting...
God, I can hear the footsteps already. Please...no...Just let me stay here a little longer. I just want to enjoy the sun a little more. Hands on my shoulder, shaking me. No...I don't want to wake up...I don't want to see the darkness anymore...
But the hands don't stop shaking, and soon, my sunlit field is swallowed by a dark, cold boulder. I'm laying on the cold, cracked ground, my forepaws out in front of me, my tail curled against my side. I fell asleep on all fours again. Those hands are still with me, shaking me until I lift my head.
God, I'm back in Elysium again. The thought almost makes me cry. I've been dead for almost thirty years, and it still hurts so badly every morning. But I can't feel pain today, because there's a war to fight, there's land to defend, and I only have ten more days before my unit rotates out of the Southern Fields and back into Syriana, the capital of Elysium. I have to keep it together for just ten more days.
Anyway, my dearest friend, you wanted a soldier's view for your book, and now you have it. Give my love to Arulookekona. I know she'll be worried about me, especially with that Brazer group lurking out around here. We haven't seen them yet, but you'll know when we do.
Always the guard,
Singsamingkomona.
Sing folded the paper between his fingers, rolling it into a small tube after that, and stuffed it into the messenger's tube, scribing his friend's name on the outside of the metal canister. "Take care, my friend, and ride swift!" he barked up at the messenger, mounted on the Drafter: a strange, ornate piece of metal with a saddle, airfoils, and a flight enchantment upon it that allowed it to hover and fly as it did.
"Don't worry, sir. I'll be coming around in another week. You lot are always the easiest to find!" the sandy haired human chuckled back, stuffing the canister into the satchel across his shoulders. Smiling back at him, the Tairanian bowed low and flicked his tall ears. "Next week!" he growled back, and turned away, walking towards his encampment.
Tairanians were becoming more and more common in the hereafter, being so headstrong and oblivious to their own mortality that they would sooner slaughter their own firstborn than give up a fight. A fierce creature, they looked as though a wolf and a nightmare had been divinely mixed into some new monster. Odd canine legs with broad paws and sickle claws , a strangely human-like torso with arms and thick, powerful hands capped with thick, pointed claws of their own, perfect for digging, be it through dirt or flesh.. A flexible neck adorned with an odd canine-like head that bore so many features of nightmares to most people. Tall, jackal-like ears and a broad muzzle that sported long, killing fang-like tusks, much like a walrus's, and eyes that were solid, glittering green, no iris or pupil to mar the emerald expanse. Yet their distinctive feature was far more mundane and exotic at the same time: bone plates that ran from the tip of the nose, over the head, and down the spine to the long, serpentine-like tail's tip. Every inch of them was black-furred and muscle-thick, save for those plates, wildly colored in every single hue and chroma imaginable. Each Tairanian had his own, and no two were ever alike: it was their fingerprint.
Sing's own bright-orange scales seemed to flare in the darkness where the moon broke through the thick clouds, giving the rest of his unit an immediate identification as to who was approaching them.
"Sing, all is well?" one of them asked, a wolf of a spectacular stormcloud grey, polishing a blue-hued saber that reeked of the enchantments heaped upon it. Nilus, the commander of this little troupe of border guards.
"Yes, sir. The messenger has left." he replied, his voice a deep, hungry growl as he drops to all fours, shoulders and joints cracking to leave what was once a bipedal creature of nightmares into a quadrupedal one, equally frightening to the uninitiated. His twin cutlasses swayed over his back, but made no noise, padded and separate in their swansilk-lined sheathes.
"Good. Do you require anything tonight? You're due to relieve Hama in one hour on the south perimeter."
Sing's head swayed, sitting on his haunches and curling that long, black-furred and serpentine tail around his forepaws, flexing the claws into the dirt. "No sir. I have supped and shed, rested and supplied. I will relieve him in an hour."
Nilus smiled, flicking his ears forward as he held his saber up to the occasional moonlight, checking for any imperfections. "Ten more days, Sing. Just ten more, and we go back to our lives, as it were."
"Until the next deployment, sir."
The wolf frowned and sheathed the sword at his back, alongside its red-hued twin. "You need to rest between deployments, Sing. Wearing yourself out won't do anyone any good. Maybe this isn't life, but it's better than what those poor souls have not ten klicks south."
"Yes, sir." Sing said monotonally. He wouldn't argue with his Lieutenant. No good member of the Guard would. The most highly trained and disciplined soldiers ever turned out by Elysian training knew better than to debase themselves in such a way. It was dishonorable, and honor was the only thing Sing had left.
Even on the border of that place...that other afterlife...The one that sought not only to expand but to corrupt and punish those that didn't follow the ways of it's opposite. That dark hole in the universe. Hell.
He had honor, even at the gates of Hell itself. They would never strip that from him if they took him...and they would not take him. Not tonight. Not ever.
The Tairanian sniffed softly, staring straight ahead. Nilus looked at him and leaned forwards, elbows on his knees. "You're thinking about that dream of yours, aren't you?" he asked.
"Yes, sir."
"You're lucky you remember that bit of your life, Sing. You're a blessed man in that."
"Yes, sir." He heartily disagreed. Even the memory of life was so much better than this empty imitation that he occupied. Here he would stay, and here he would fight, until the armageddon. Until he could meet his brothers and sisters again, and see how they had grown, see their families, and their families' families. Until his home was together again.
And so, with that, Sing nodded to his Lieutenant, and set out for the perimeter. He was a Guard. He was a shield and a sword. He was a weapon and a heart. Nothing would pass him by tonight...
End Part One.