Battlefield

Just feeling like some midsummer flash fiction. 300 words. You know the drill.

I’m not a fool. I know the odds are against me. I know that at the end of this day, my blood will soak the earth beneath my feet. My eyes will be shuttered. My heart silent.

Today is a day of death and destruction, most likely my own.

But I’m still here, gripping my weapon, my fingers moist and my breathing shallow. I wouldn’t say I’m not afraid. I’m definitely afraid.  Terrified, even. But not of death. Death I can handle. But I fear living in a world controlled by these monsters.

I’ve been a soldier all my life. I have stood on many battlefields and watched countless men die, some by my own hand. Yet, I know that today is not like any other war I’ve encountered. For the monsters we’re facing aren’t the flesh and blood of man, but the slithery steel of something unknown.

We don’t know how to kill them, not really. We aren’t even sure they can be killed. We don’t know if our weapons will do anything more than annoy them. They certainly know how to kill us, and will probably do so with relish.

But we will fight.

We’ve done what we can, arranged the tactical maneuvers that war experts have drawn up. We’re as heavily armored as we can be. We are as ready as humanly possible.

If only the war was against humans.

My eyes graze over the thousands of people with me, many other souls ready for battle. Men, women, even children, all with the hardened gaze of people who have lost everything and have nothing more to restrain them from fighting. Widows. Orphans. The lonely. The battered. All of us victims.

But we are ready.

Ahead, I see the creature rising up, a fiery storm.

It is time.