The Apocalypse: Band Together » Places

         Grey buildings. Flashes of light. Thunder. The kick of the rifle, slamming back into the soldier's shoulder.

He was leaning out above the broken car, spraying out bullets in an endless hail. He didn't remember who he was fighting, or why he was fighting, or why he still cared. There was a War. That was all.

The enemy responded with its own hail of fire, the bullets pinging against the car, and the soldier rolled away behind a nearby building, pressing against it and pointing the rifle in the direction he had come from. Fuck, what's happened to the rest of us? he wondered.

His answer came with a radio crackle; that of a walkie-talkie. "Echo-Zero to Echo-Seven, how copy?" The soldier, still holding the rifle with one hand, grabbed the walkie-talkie off his belt and brought it up to his gasmasked face. "Echo-Seven copy."

"WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!" The reply came, amid spurts of gunfire and wails of pain. "WE'RE GETTING OVERRUN HE- FUCKING HELL, NONONO!"

Gunfire filled the entirety of the transmission, along with an explosion, both heard on the walki-talkie and a few blocks away, and then only static. The gunfire continued a few more seconds. Then, it was over.

The man didn't cry, or shout, or hit anything. He simply put his walkie-talkie back on his belt and restabilized the rifle. He was used to loss. Right?

TWO MONTHS LATER

The soldier was in a hole, mud on his clothes, mud on his mask, mud as far as the eye could see. Across two months, he had been in a fighting retreat, holding the Enemy back as well as he could. But now he was done. He was done running. He had dug a hole for himself near a busy road. He had entrenched himself, dotted self-made landmines on the road, and simply waited. He had transported supplies lasting at least a week. He would surely be dead before then.

Eventually the Enemy caught up. He killed them all. Shot them with his rifle, his trusty rifle, she who had never broken, never jammed. He killed them all with it.

More came, and more died. The soldier played this game for days, and when his food ran out, he ate the Enemy's food. And when that ran out, he ate the Enemy.

And then, one day, as the soldier sat against the back wall of his little hole, a bird flew in and perched itself on the muzzle of his rifle. It was a small bird, smaller than the soldier's fist. He wanted to eat it, but something about the bird compelled him. He fed it some seeds he had found and kept in his pocket, in case he ever wanted to stay somewhere for an extended period of time. The bird ate, and just sat on the rifle, staring at the reflective lenses of the soldier.

FOUR YEARS LATER

The bird had stayed with the soldier, even when he finally left the hole. No more of the Enemy would come. Maybe they had all died. The soldier pressed deeper into the country, going through city after city on his oddysey. He had a mutual relationship with the bird: he fed it, and it fed his sanity. They travelled the nation, scavenging, hunting, camping in many places. The soldier loved the bird; it was the only reason he was still alive.

One day, the soldier woke up, and the bird lay still. He felt it, cradled it, but it was no more. Like all else, it was dead. Dead like every city the soldier had seen. And now, the soldier's last companion had fallen.

And then, only then, did the soldier remember what type of bird it was.

A shrike.

Renewed with purpose, the soldier buried his everlasting companion of years and made a small grave of rubble and wood. He etched with a knife a message into the wood,

Small things keep the big things living.

And thus the soldier stood, and remembered his purpose, and his mind, and his name.

Echo-Seven, broken husk of a man, lay dead with the bird in that grave.

Shrike was born, and Shrike was the one who walked off onto the road, continuing his journey alone.