collateral damage

When the end came, they drafted me--the one draft I couldn't find it in me to dodge. They sent us to some frozen wasteland, and there we watched fire fall from the sky from the safety of our bunkers. This was just an overture, they said. There would be fighting soon enough, they said. But we all knew it was a lie, even if nobody was willing to admit it. It would only get worse from here.

Reports of civilian casualties were all we ever got from home. We had no orders except to survive. And even then--sometimes, with all that snow and ice around, one of the lads would go out and just walk, hoping there would be something to see. We heard rumor the seas had turned to blood, but you couldn't tell from here. Sometimes they'd come back. Sometimes they wouldn't. The lucky ones probably froze to death. Most of them, we figured, were hit by meteorites before that happened.

I started a little collection of them. I don't know why. This is the last place I'll ever see, I know that now. But I can't make myself think that, no matter how I try. So I have my collection that I'll take home. It'll be just like in the movies. I'll see the girl I left behind, though there isn't one, and tell her I brought these from the apocalypse for her. I'd tell her stories of my adventures, though there aren't any.

Fighting the apocalypse--who knows? Maybe we'll see some action before the ground swallows us all. Humanity's last stand against forces too huge to care. It's why I came out here. That's the most human way to go.