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Reveille, A Halo Fanthology -- Part IV
Posted By: Reveille<hboff.anthology@gmail.com>
Date: 7 May 2009, 11:29 pm
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"Cheers"
kr142616
Today, like any other day, I find myself sitting outside with a beer in my hand. Nothing else to do, really. It's been that way for a while. For the first time in a while, though, I can think that and not start thinking about how much my life sucks.
Weird, but it makes sense. For the first time, I've got evidence staring right back at me, evidence that someone else's life sucks more. A lot of someone elses, actually.
What the hell can I do, though? All I've got is a shitty old apartment with a creaky deck and a fridge full of beer. So here I am, out on the deck on a brisk October night, listening to some tunes and trying to enjoy a few drinks.
Fall always gets to me. By October it's started to fade a bit, but all I can ever think about is my friends going away. Just me, y'know? Well, my family lives in town, too, but that's not much comfort, no offense to them.
Even when it's summer, when all my friends are back to visit the hometown, it's not much better. 'Cause not all of 'em are back, y'know? Some of 'em stay at university, some of 'em are living off-planet. Hell, some of 'em aren't even living around Sol anymore. I've got a buddy on Reach.
Had, actually. They've been hush-hush, but GNA's hobby seems to be fucking with the press embargoes. And after seeing that fire, it's hard to believe Andrew made it out of there.
Not that it'd do him much good.
My beer's starting to get warm and the flow's starting to slow, so I suppose it's time for a new one. The empties clink together as I drop the latest to the deck, and my hand isn't even that cold when I did in the cooler for a new one. Guess that explains the warm beer.
But anyways, the summers. As much as it was great to see my friends back from university, it still stung a bit. But in a war like this, the government doesn't have spare cash to give out to sob stories like me. The universities, either. No one's donating when the Colonies are going up in flames.
But hey, property on Amethyst's rock-bottom right now.
Yeah, yeah, tasteless, I know. It's the beer talking, not me. But I can make the joke, property value here sure as hell ain't going up.
Sky's bright tonight. Brightest it'll ever be, I imagine. Like that figure of speech about the darkest night before the dawn, except reverse it and take away all the optimism. There ain't none here.
Fuck. Yeah, yeah, I'm drunk. Keep losing my train of thought. But yeah, summer. Even when I wasn't thinking about my friends leaving back to uni, there were still all the ones that weren't there. The brave ain't-I-fucking-hard bastards, or just the poor bastards that ended up conscripted. Did too shit on the testing, or too damn good. Doesn't matter. Times like these, you don't say no. And then, poof, you never see them again. Could be still out there, could be dead, floating cold in deep space, could be loose atoms free-floating on Reach…
Damn, I miss Andrew. Good kid. We still kept in touch, even after he joined up and I kept going nowhere. He was in the Navy, some techie job on Reach. No need to guess how that turned out. I try hard not to myself.
Fuckers never sent the letter to his parents. No knock on their door, not until a fucking month later, when GNA broke the news. Not that anybody thought anything else had happened. Whole worlds don't just go dark.
But then, the bastards—then they had the balls to list him as MIA, to tell his fucking mother that. A chance he got evacuated.
It ain't fucking right.
And all for what?
The sky's bright tonight, brighter than it was last night. Can't be sure, but the flashes look like they're closer than before. It started off in the southwest sky, over Africa, they said. Couldn't really see it then, too far off, but I like to think that pair of little flashes I saw were the Malta and Athens going up. Or then a few days later, that flash in the northeast. Bet that was that nuke over Siberia. That's what the TV said the flashes were, anyways, before everything started going dark. Everything but the sky.
And ever since then, the sky's just been getting brighter. Burning hulks of metal falling to the surface, stray nukes and plasma, what have you. Can't really tell, can't really say I wanna know. But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't beautiful.
But the night's coming to a close, and I'm running out of beer again. Down to just my bottle of the hard stuff. Don't even remember what it is. Liquor store ran out of everything worth buying a while ago, and I'm not the only one drinking myself to death here. Can't be picky.
So, bottom's up, and off into black oblivion. By tomorrow we'll see if I wake up again.
We'll see if those lights are getting any closer.
So, cheers.
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