Nothing

Nothing. Nothing but the hot, sweltering sand shifting and grinding beneath my boots. The cruel liquid sun oozes into every ruined crevice to smear the desert into one rippling void before my blistered eyes. Nothing but the blood, a brother or another, intermingles with the grit, and the ruthless glare glints and scorches them, and how they wink so bright and blinding, how they mock and jeer at our sacrifices. I keep marching to the rhythm of cold steel clanking as the whipcord explosions tear the air into shreds, batter and carve their blazing shadows into the disfigured earthen face that stares from below, empty and apathetic. Nothing but the promise I made to you flickering and spiraling through my unraveling mind, nothing but the memory of your voice coaxing the flower buds from their slumber, the coy visage of Lady moon from beyond her cloudy locks. The ground quakes from below, the gaping and ravenous belly of a great beast, and I can’t stop myself from thinking of your father, my general. Within the heartbeat I painted war across my face, donned the camouflage of your nation, he became my objective. I became the hound, and he the glory falcon, the beacon of hope for you all. None of my combat training, none of my conditioned awareness, none of my rock solid experience … none of it could have warned me of how deeply your vines would ravage the orderly gardens of my reason, how much chaos you would wreck onto my vacant sanctuary. I will keep your promise, Eve. I will survive for you. Your father will kill me once he discovers me a traitor, and that will simply not do for us. The trigger slides with smooth, assuring precision. Nothing will stop us now.