Victorious cheers erupted out of the countryside. Helmets were thrown, spears were jabbed into the earth like every soldier’s personal flag of victory, and breathless cries escaped the grinning faces of a decades-long war. Years of pain and loss, a final, devastating battle, finally released into the air as one boom, before a crackling round of cheers. Finally, the war was won.

Percy, the leading commander, was carried along by a crowd of his soldiers to the barracks they’d spent countless months training and sleeping and eating in. As he sailed over the ground on his soldier’s hands, nursing a leg wound from the fighting, he spotted an enemy soldier embedded in the muddy ground. He looked ahead.

He was lifted onto his bed by his friends. They brought him booze, cards, and a medic. The man tending to his wound said it was worse than it looked, but it wouldn’t kill him. Everyone drank to that. As the sun set and rose outside his tiny window, the barracks were an explosion of music and noise. He won at cards more often than everyone else, even when he was seeing triple. Someone brought out cake. He ate it with friends, and he swore with some enemies. But the war was over right?

He stole away once, when the night was too heavy to stave off with noise. Screams, like launching missiles, tore through the barracks. He felt too tired, too sweaty, to close his eyes, so he limped to the battlefield. Dead bodies lay half-buried in the mud. Exposed bones, puddles of blood, strands of hair. He’d killed the enemy commander in the woods, which was steeped in midnight. He found her by a boulder. She wore her light blue uniform, her stiff boney fingers on her dagger. Her expression was frozen in a furious grimace. Her eyes were locked on his.

He’d heard that they decomposed faster than normal humans. They didn’t. He spoke, his voice sore from days spent in silence:

“If anyone hears me say this-- Well, it doesn’t matter.”

“I never believed in this war. Not really. I didn’t want to attack, I didn’t mean to ‘win’, and I didn’t want to end your life, I swear.”

“For the longest time, I thought if my friends, my parents, my children, if they believed in it, then what I was doing had to be good. But I watched you people fight. You watch each other’s backs, you sacrifice yourselves, you feel pain. My children will never know that.”

“We attack, unjustly, and now you will be immortalized as the offenders. I’m really sorry. My apology means nothing, though-- it’s nothing to immortality-- but it’s all I can offer to you.”

The forest was suddenly steeped in light. It was bright and red, like the birth of a brand new sun. He looked up.

A perfect flower bloomed in the sky, a being formed from years of caged fire and rage. Red bursts of light glittered mercilessly in the sky, wrathful roses among greedy dandelions and frivolous marigolds. Those celebrations were launched as explosive cheers of victory over the countryside. A decades-long war, years of pain and loss, and a final, devastating battle, were released into the night air as one eruption of bleeding, taunting conquest. Finally, the war was won.