"War does not decide who is right, only who is left. And for those of us left behind, the war was not the end—it was only the beginning of the destruction."
The iron footsteps finally faded into a ghost of a sound.
The rhythmic thunder of the Minocian army—the heavy tread of victory—became a distant hum, then a whisper, and then... nothing. The silence that followed was a physical entity. It was heavy, suffocating, and absolute. It was the quiet of a tomb where every heart had stopped beating at once, leaving only the wind to mourn.
I lay there for what felt like an eternity, pinned beneath the cooling, stiffening weight of the soldier. He wasn't a commander or a hero of legend. He was just a man—a random Romanian infantryman whose name I would never know. His blood, which had been a warm river soaking into my tunic, was now a tacky, freezing glue binding my golden armor to his broken plate.
**[USER: RIAN]**
**[09 YEARS | 364 DAYS | 22 HOURS | 30 MINUTES]**
Thirty minutes. It had been thirty minutes since the Minocian blade had hissed past my ribs. Thirty minutes since I had stared into the abyss and felt the cold breath of the reaper.
I sucked in a lungful of air. It tasted of iron, wet earth, and a sweet, sickening rot that made my stomach churn. With a desperate, primal grunt, I pushed. My sixteen-year-old muscles, unaccustomed to the weight of war, screamed as I heaved the dead weight off my chest. With a wet, sucking sound, the soldier's body rolled into the mud.
I scrambled back on all fours, my hands slipping in the gore-slicked earth, until I could finally stand.
My knees buckled immediately. I had to lean against the splintered, charred remains of a supply wagon just to stay upright. As I looked out, my breath caught in my throat. As far as my eyes could see—to the very edge of the grey horizon—there was nothing but the dead. Thousands of men, once full of life, fear, and dreams, were now just heaps of cooling meat and shattered steel.
I was alone. A single golden speck in a sea of grey, ash, and red.
"I... I survived," I whispered. My voice was a dry, hollow rattle.
I didn't feel like a hero. I felt like a mistake. Why was I the one standing? I wasn't a soldier. I didn't belong to this kingdom or this era. I was a student from a world of textbooks and city lights, yet here I was, the only one left to breathe this poisoned air. A wave of violent nausea hit me; the sight of the butchery was too much. I doubled over, retching until my throat burned, my golden armor clashing loudly against the silence.
I looked down at the man who had saved me. Underneath the tread of my boot, something caught the dim, fading light.
I knelt, my armor groaning and clicking with the movement, and reached into the mud. It was a silver pendant—a small, dented locket that had been torn from the soldier's neck. I wiped the thick blood from the metal with a trembling thumb. Inside, there was no picture, just a worn surface that had been touched a thousand times.
This man had a life. He probably had someone waiting for him in a village I'd never visit. I had used his corpse as a shield.
"I'm sorry," I breathed.
With a heavy heart, I tucked the pendant into a pouch at my waist. Then, I reached for his sword. It wasn't an ornate blade of a king; it was a simple infantry sidearm. The steel was shaded in a dull, monochromatic black and white, the edge chipped from hitting shields and bone.
I picked it up. The weight was awkward, pulling at my shoulder, but the cold hilt felt like an anchor in the chaos.
"I can't save anyone," I muttered, looking at the thousands of still faces around me. "They're all gone. There's nothing left for me here but ghosts."
I looked toward the West, where the sun was beginning to dip below the smoke-filled sky. I didn't know where the capital was. I didn't know where the Minocians were hiding. I was just a lone survivor, a ghost in golden plates, walking away from a war I never asked for.
I took my first step, the mud clinging to my boots like the hands of the dead. I felt the guilt of living, but beneath that guilt, a new spark was forming.
The beginning of my life in a world completely unknown has just started. I don't know if I belong here or not, but one thing is certain: I will make sure I don't die.
People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. Looking back at the feast beginning in the mud, I realized that tonight, the sky would be black with wings filled the sky, they weren't just scavengers, but guides—taking these thousands of broken souls to a land far better than the one they were forced to die for.
I was the only lone survivor, standing in a vast, silent graveyard with no knowledge of the war or the kingdoms that had built it. I was nothing more than a ghost in golden armor, walking toward a horizon I didn't recognize.