Free at Last

        “Are you ready?

         A voice whispers into my ear and I nod, though my arms and legs feel as if they are lead.

         “We have to go, Nat, it's now or never."

         Had I been weaker, never would have been my choice. But I am not weaker, and anyhow I can't back out now, not after all Willough's risked for me. So I stand up in the confined space, rifle in hand, and face him.

         “Yeah. Let's go.”

         Willoughby stands up and cocks his gun. It's almost comical, really, the way he holds the gun that is almost half his size, but nothing is comical about the dark and vengeful look on his face.

         “Right, then.” He starts to walk toward our destination at the end of the hallway. “Crack on.”

         Something about this whole thing makes me uneasy. Maybe it's the way Willough looks. He's so young, and yet he's not a child anymore. No, he stopped being a child when he joined the army to become an engineer.

         None of us in the fort are children anymore. No one in the entire army is a child anymore, though most of our ages range from twelve to eighteen. The government has become so corrupt that, since there are no adults willing to fight their battles for them, they exploit children and use them as their little toy soldiers.

         That's me; a little toy soldier.

         Most of us come from poor families who have sold us into the army because they could not provide for us. Others are orphans of parents killed in wars long forgotten. A few, like me, were stolen from our families and forced to fight by an organization called the Traders, who are a nasty, greedy bunch of people who've started a black market selling children for the government to use however they see fit.

         Most days, we starve and sit and waste away in our dirty and god-forsaken camps with little or no food to fill our bellies and never a fire to keep us warm. Otherwise, we are on the battlefield. The only difference between camp and the battlefield is instead of starving and sitting and wasting away, we starve and bleed and die.

         But one way or another, it all ends today.

         When Willoughby and I put a bullet through the general's head, then they'll finally see that they don't own us, and we'll be free at last.

         Free at last. That's what Sazh, who had been one of the few adults left in the army and my best friend, had always said to me before he up and died in a battle three months ago. He'd tell me, “Someday, this war's gonna be over, and you'll find yourself a boy and you'll settle down, and sweetheart, we'll be free at last.”

         That's what he had said when he lay on the dirty ground, his head on my lap, as he choked on his blood, his own life. With his dying breath, whispered so faintly that the wind almost took his words from me: “Free at last.”

         And then he looked at me and smiled, and the spark of life in his eyes slowly burned out, and he was gone.

         Things have changed since Sazh died. I have become colder, harsher, devoid of all feeling and emotion. I had always wanted to start a revolution, but Sazh had held me back. “You can't fight fire with fire,” he'd say to me, “two wrongs don't make a right.”

But now Sazh is gone and I don't know how to fight the general and the whole government itself if I don't use force. I could hug them to death, but I think Sazh would've still counted that as violence, and anyhow the paid, higher-ranking, adult army officials would stop me before I could finish suffocating anyone.

         This has to be the right thing to do. There's no other way, and I refuse to roll over and die. I will go down fighting.

         That, and I don't want to be in a battle someday and happen upon Willough's torn and bloodied carcass.

         “Nat!” Willoughby barks, snapping me out of my thoughts and back into reality. “This is no time to be drifting off.” He gives me a stern look, but he's never been good at being angry with me and he looks ridiculous. I try to keep a straight face, but I can't help it and I end up laughing. He kicks me.

         “Anyway. The general's room is right in there.” He flicks the barrel of his rifle toward the closed door next to us.

         He turns to look at me. His pale blue eyes look down, down, searching my mind for my most secret and private thoughts. Being very against sharing my feelings with anyone, I drop my gaze and stare at my boots.

         “Nat,” he says, his voice gentle. “Look at me.” His choice of words and the tone of his voice make him sound older and so very much like Sazh. I slowly turn my face upward to look him in the eyes.

         We stare in silence for a few moments, conveying to one another the fears we don't dare to speak of out loud and the goodbyes that we're praying will never come, until he breathes, “Are you ready?”

         I nod.

         Willough counts down, three, two, one, and we charge into the general's office.

         And then, suddenly, I am on the ground, my ears ringing and my stomach feeling as if it is on fire.

         For a few moments, all I can hear is coughing and gunshots and an annoying high-pitched buzzing in my head. I shake my head to clear away the noise, and it works to a degree. I can feel a body moving next to mine, and my arms reach out and grab it. Willoughby's face, pale and anguished, appears looming above me.

         My eyes widen and stare directly into his, and I dig my nails into his flesh.

         “Willough, make it stop,” I wheeze. My throat is hot and rough and sticky all at the same time, and to talk is torture, but I do it anyway. “Why am I on fire?”

         “You were shot, Nat.” Willoughby's voice is calm and level, but still I can make out in it a telltale waver of fear. “In the stomach. I don't know how they knew we were coming, but it's okay, I'm gonna fix you up, and you'll get better--”

         His voice is cut off by a cruel laughter. “It amuses me that the two of you thought it would be that easy to kill me.” I know that twisted, sadistic voice; the general's. “Come now, Willoughby. You don't really think she's going to live?”

         “Shut up, shut up,” Willough mutters, though if he is talking to himself or to the general, I can not tell.

         By now the fire in my stomach has spread to my entire torso. Tears blurring my vision, I beg him, “Make it stop, Willough, please.”

         I cannot see his face clearly anymore, but I hear the desperation and hysteria in his voice when he says, “I don't know how.”

         “Look on the bright side of things, Natalie,” the general continues on, “at least you won't be living here anymore. That's what you've always wanted, is it not?”

         I don't know what I've always wanted, but right now I just want it to end. It hurts so much, the fire creeping through my veins, knowing that I failed my mission. Maybe there is no way to free us. Maybe that is what Sazh had been trying to tell me.

         Unless...

         Maybe this is the way to free myself.

         Maybe I just need to let go.

         I know what I have to do.

         “Willough.” I manage to just barely choke out the words. “Let me go.”

         I can hear tears in his voice when he says, “Please, Nat, don't leave me.”

         “I have to, baby.” I open my eyes to look at his face one last time. I let go of my grip on his arms and instead grip his hand. He looks away from me, and I know he does not want me to see him cry.

         “Willough,” I say, my voice gentle, “look at me.” He slowly turns his head and looks into my eyes.

         “I want to be free.”

         He gives me the tiniest of nods after a moment's hesitation, and then holds me in his arms while the world slowly, slowly goes dark.

         I'm coming, Sazh.

         I can see it, I can see it in Willough's eyes, I can see that he doesn't want me to leave him. I can see that he doesn't want to be alone. There is a sharp pang in my chest when I realize that he must be feeling exactly what I had felt when Sazh left me completely and utterly alone on that cold morning a few long months ago.

         And still he hangs on to me while the fire courses through my body, until finally, my heart goes thumpthumpthum-- and stops completely.

         And finally, finally-- I am free at last.