Xavier Henry Charles Johnson. 1982 - 2017. A hero in life and death.

I clutched the dog tag hanging around my neck, running my thumb along the engraved metal as they laid his coffin down into the ground. It was sunny as we gave him the hero’s burial he deserved. I had long since stopped trying to prevent the tears from falling. My chest hurt from the heartache, my throat hurt from the screaming, my eyes hurt from the crying. He was gone.

He didn’t look peaceful in death.

I watched as the Anomaly ripped his arm off, I heard him scream, a luxury many victims could never afford. I watched the Anom stab him through the chest, and I watched as its claws tore through his throat.

I shot the monster twice in the head, then in a fit of rage, I emptied my magazine into its face so many times that it was unrecognisable. I screamed, and screamed, and when the team found me I was clicking the trigger over and over again with nothing but the tick tick tick of an empty weapon.

I had to go back to our room. I had to watch as officials packed up his stuff. I never felt so empty until this single moment when I realised that he was gone. And he would never come back. I picked up the flyer of the flight to Vancouver that we planned to take one day. I held the bloody creased photograph that they had found in the pocket in his uniform, and they kindly let me keep it. We were so happy. As happy as two men could be whilst working in a job that ended only in death. His death. His death. Nothing filled the void in my chest. Every night after that my dreams were filled with him and him dying. He didn’t deserve that.

I spent too much time crying.

He was gone.

He was gone and I could never get him back.

He didn’t deserve to die for a cause he never believed in. He didn’t deserve to die for this.

I cried as they buried him, and I stayed behind in the cemetery filled with the graves of all the other poor men and women who fought with us and died trying. I leaned my head on his headstone and remembered what it was like to hold him, to hold his hand, to be with him. Nobody would get to tell his story. He’ll just be another disposable bad guy fighting for the wrong side in this war against Anomalies. Nameless, faceless, anonymous.