• The serpentine smoke danced through the air, winding and curving past all of its obstacles. Below it laid the remnants of an ancient war, one that had lasted many decades. Bodies were scattered everyone, as if thrown about by whatever Supreme Being there was. Atrocities planted themselves on these bodies, taking the once-humans’ eyes, legs, heads, everything. Weapons sat discarded around their cadavers, never to be fought with again.

    For miles and miles, this sight continued, filling the entire plain with crimson grass and burnt trees. All was quiet, compared to the noise that had sounded an hour or so before. The only sound heard was the crackling speech of dying flames, and the wind moaning through the dead grass. Nothing else…and then…

    The sound of heavy footsteps drawing near.

    The figure of a man-limping-coming out of the smoke. Left leg bleeding from a wound in battle, the man clutched his side as he hobbled through the desecrated land. Coughing, he searched the battlefield, desperately watching for any signs of movement. Yet he found none, all was still. All was quiet. All was dead.

    Leaning down next to a man he recognized as a healer, he frowned faintly. Alex that was the healer’s name. He was a good man. Deciding to grieve later, the man frantically looked around Alex’s body for his medicine satchel. He soon spotted it, under the limp body of another soldier. Pulling it out with all the might that an injured man could manage, he sat back and lifted the front flap. Scrounging through the bag, he found what he needed and smiled. Lifting it out, he put it to the side and picked up two sturdy-looking twigs beside him. Rolling up his left pant leg, he placed the sticks on either side of his ankle and wrapped the bandage around them. Once his whole left foot was covered, he smiled at his handmade splint and dug through the satchel once again for more bandages. Finding some more, he placed it on the ground beside him once again. Sighing, he gingerly took off his metal chest plate, chain mail, and shirt. Half-naked, he took up the bandages again and wrapped the whole roll around his stomach to prevent further bleeding from the wound on his left side. Tugging his shirt back on, he forced himself up off the ground and hobbled off.

    The bodies never seemed to end. It pained him to see his fellow officers’ eyes staring up at nothing, never moving. He found many of his friends’ corpses, and longed to bury them all. But he couldn’t, he hadn’t the strength.

    ‘One day, one day I will.’

    For hours and hours, he limped onward, determined to fulfill his foolish quest of make-believe. The minutes passed by him, uneventfully, until he realized something.

    The realization had hit him when he passed by two soldier’s carcasses. Two different soldiers, lying side by side, appearing almost identical save for the armor they wore. The one on the man’s left had the crest of a lion rearing up and roaring engraved upon his silver chest plate, while the one on the right had the crest of a hawk swooping down as if to grab its prey imprinted on his. The left corpse had fought on the side that the man had, the side fighting for the royal family of Trangoria. The other had fought for the royal family of Vern-or the enemy. Yet, despite what differences they had when they were alive, when they lay there-eternally sleeping-they were the same. Same skin, same hair, same eyes even! What had made them so unlike each other that their hate sent them to fight a war? Couldn’t they see that they were the same? Couldn’t they see?

    As these thoughts surged through the man’s head, so did a wave of guilt. Looking down at his own bloody hands he remembered the lives he had killed during battle. The lives he had ended, just because the royal family said it was so patriotic. But where were they now? Where was the royal family now? Fighting?

    “I can’t see you!” The man shouted out to them. “I didn’t see you fight! I didn’t see you kill!” Anger surged through him, mixing with the guilt to create a vengeful hate. Lies, they had fed him! They disguised their petty argument as glory and wrapped it up in patriotism and gave every person in their land their ‘gift.’ The man spat at the dirt, and looked up in anguish. The smoke had faded into dusk now, giving him a still-hazy view of the stars.

    Lies. Deceit. Hate.

    Did they know what they had created? A war that carried out throughout three generations, just because those two royal families had an argument. Just because they were insulted by one small word, or one small action, they had killed so many.

    And he had believed them. He had drunk every lie that they served him, until he believed that he was bathing in glory. He and everyone else, even those on the other side. The man let out a spiteful laugh.

    “And now I’m the last one! The final one of my kind! I survived the final war!” He shouted in a spiteful tone. Throwing his arms out wide, he laughed once again. Throughout the plains his proclamation echoed, heard by no one or anything except the dead. Cackling once again, the man fell to the ground and landed in a sitting position.

    What fools they were! Hoping for glory! Aiming to kill! Hadn’t they been told that killing was murder? That murder was wrong? And then, they set out for a thing called ‘glory’ that has them smite their own kind! Laughing again, the man hit a neighboring corpse playfully.

    “Glory! Ha!” He said. “Bet you’re bathing in a pool of glory now, eh!” He laughed harshly into the night. Once done, the weariness of the day set upon him. His eyes soon grew too heavy to keep up, and his body cried to him for rest. So, peacefully he submitted, letting his eyes close and his mind carry him off to a mystical land.

    And so he slept, the final one, on the final night of the final war.