We clashed with the imperials. I heard their roars and the sound of steel on steel. Then I slammed into the person before me. The soldier behind ran into me and we started pushing. We all became one giant metal mass of swords and spears looking for a weak spot. Hoping that someone would give in and we would break their ranks. They were hoping for the same. It was so tight, my armor was crushing me and I could hardly breathe. But if one of us gave up, we were all doomed.
We heard screaming, and people were dying. Were they ours or theirs? No one knew, we just kept pushing. It became a massacre when our front line gave in. Some of our soldiers fell, and the empire’s soldiers pushed into our ranks. People spread out, swords flashed, blood was spilled, and the slaughter started.
The air reeked of death. I held my sword, gripping it tightly until my hand went numb. I struck whoever was before me, hoping my steel would find flesh. It bounced off armor and weapons but occasionally I felt it biting in their bodies. I shook my hand to relieve the pain, gripped the hilt, and looked around for the next one, hoping no one would bash my head from behind.
I had to fix my helm every other minute because it fell on top of my eyes. I was exhausted. My lungs screamed. My body was burning. I just wanted to sit down and rest. To kneel a bit and catch my breath. But stopping is a death sentence. You either move, or you get butchered.
A soldier, covered in mud, appeared before me. He held his sword up but didn’t swing at me. I couldn’t make out the details on his armor from the dirt. He was looking at me, yelling something, but I couldn’t hear him. It was too loud. I wasn’t sure if he was pleading for mercy or telling me he was one of ours, so I ran my sword through his neck to be safe. I didn’t come looking for the body after the battle to check.
That fire that burned in my heart kept me going, but suddenly I snapped out of it. I had just finished bashing someone’s head in with two rocks, one in each hand. I looked around and saw people getting cut down, beaten to death in the mud, stabbed, and bludgeoned. I climbed down from the guy, vomited next to him, then sat on the ground and didn’t move until I heard the cheers. We had won the battle but I lost my humanity this day. I found out what I was.
When I was little, I wanted to be like my father. I guess I had it in me all this time.