Prose

“Breathe.” he heard a voice, distant, yet soft and comforting, warming him up from the extreme cold, lighting up his darkness with a halo. His body arched upwards with the shock of the defibrillator, and the vital signs monitor finally had the reassuring heartbeat registered on the monitor, he took a deep breath, and attempted to struggle up, only to be pushed down, and groggily, he slipped back into unconsciousness.

He woke up in a room unfamiliar to him; it was a messy, yellowed room. Shaking his head, he looked to a window, with the evening light shining in. he could see ruined buildings from afar, and desert starching for miles. Unclear sketches on the walls faded with the wear of time, and smudges of blood were present over and under the sketches and on the grey cement floor, some new, some old, some in small drips, some in large splashes. As he pulled himself up to better inspect the surroundings. A young lady entered the room without any knock, for there was no door to knock on. Dominating the room, her presence was not that different from that of a princess, and as she sat down in front of the man, he could not help but notice a scar marred horizontally across her face.

“Your face…” the first words he muttered for five days. “Ah, you mean the scar… its completely healed now, don’t worry. What you should worry more about is your own body. After the operation, you were knocked out for two days. We almost thought you were going to stay like that.” she smiled gently, her voice soothing him, making him relax. He laid back down from his sitting position, a frown creased across his face, and asked ,“Do you know who I am?” 

“No. you were found one night outside our camp, and before you could even utter a word, you fainted, and we had to rescue you from there.” she looked befuddled, the question asked as though he did not know who he was. 

“Did I carry anything with me?” he was pressing on, desperate to get a clue from her.

“Yes, a whole bag of writing in both English and some other foreign language, and quite a number of quirky items.” she pulled out a mud-caked haversack bursting with scripts, scrolls and contraptions. Hurriedly, he  upturned the sack and emptied its contents on the bed sheet. There, he found many disguised weapons, half-built prototype models wrapped in its blueprints, seven diaries and unknown contraptions which even he dare not touch. It was a whole new world, the life another man to him. Yet, all of these seemed to be familiar, at the back of his mind, yet unclear and unreachable, much like an itch on one’s back. 

“Where are we?” he looked up from reading one of the scrolls, as if the issue only struck him then. With an amused look, the lady replied ,“We are in a war camp, in the longest standing war to date; the Rulers’ brawl. Since you look clueless on this, and we have the time, I would take the pleasure of enlightening you to the history of the world.” She swept a stray fringe away, laid back on the chair, and begun. 

“Once, there were three major superpowers in the world, and they did not stand well with each other. There was an uneasy peace held between the three factions, and the assassination of one of the president’s son was a major trigger to the incident. It was said to have been done by insiders, but in fact no one actually knew if he really died or not. But after the incident, the president went mad and announced a war on the two superpowers, not caring on the consequences of the war. He fired bomb after bomb, sent soldier after soldier, all in the name of revenge. The result was disastrous. Even with the Kitmal protocol signed disallowing any nuclear weaponry to be used, tens of millions died in the first year alone, with heaps and heaps of corpses stacked up and burnt, blood a more common liquid than water. And the tragedy did not stop there.

“You see, there was also a major trade disagreement between the other two countries, a few years before the war. One of the countries took a chance and ambushed the other country’s supply corps. More fighting erupted, and when it seems as though the war was settling into two sides, the world was thrown into chaos again. Thrown by three ruthless, inhumane men who want nothing but more power, ” she sighed, eyes looking a bit puffy, brown pupils with a tinge of sadness. 

After hearing the history, he was appalled and at the same time, unfazed. Shocked at the brutality of history, but it was as if he had heard of it before, and was not shaken much by it. Pushing his scrolls and contraptions aside, and looked out of the lone window of the room. From there, he could see many curious and dirty young faces peering into the room. When he looked over, they all hid away, as if playing a game, and revealing a yellowy sunset, gold rays piercing into the room. As he focused on her, he noticed tiny details on her face. Details like the deep eye bags she has, her tired eyes, protruding collarbone, cut and calloused hands. She certainly had the demeanour of a princess, but her looks -- she was fragile and worn out, as though the war had sucked away her youth, by the callous tide of time.

“Why are you still doing this?” he rose, reaching out for her hands. He held her rough, delicate hands in his tightly, with his dark blue eyes staring deep into her fatigued brown ones. She smiled, a bittersweet smile that almost broke his heart. “This camp, is an anti-war zone in the dead centre of the three superpowers, to help out survivors of the war, and a refuge for those who do not want to be a part of it. This is my camp. I am in charge of this camp, from top to bottom, from the most pressing issues to the least important ones; thus I cannot give up, or even have a hint of losing hope.” 

“Then let me help you.. I’ll ease your…” he did not get to finish his promise, for he was interrupted by the sounds of artillery and gunfire bombarding the area. “Shit, they’re here again…” her forehead creased into a frown, a familiar position, fixed on her haggard face, and raced out, even before he could do anything. 

Sitting alone for a while, he decided to try and join in the fight. Unwrapping his bandages, he was surprised to find himself completely healed from all injuries. Jumping out of the bed, he ran down corridor after corridor, looking at men firing out of windows, men getting shot from windows… it was war, seen firsthand. The scent of blood and bullets was strong in the air, and so was the screams of pain from the wounded and dying. Adrenaline coursed through his veins, with him seeing clearer, hearing sharper, and mind in overdrive. As his consciousness took in all of those, he felt as if he could almost remember who he was, and with curiosity pushing him forward, he continued down the aisle, with the sights and sounds continuing to bombard him.

“Hey you! What are you standing there for? Go out and fight! Able men like you should not fear the battlefield!” a gruff, giant of a man threw him a machinegun, and went on grumbling, limping down the aisle, hands with other weapons on his hands, giving them out to any unarmed men. On a closer look, his left leg was replaced with a prosthetic limb, causing his awkward movement, but he still continued, his imposing figure striking awe and inspiring others. 

He looked down at the gun, and thought of the lady, the princess whose name he did not even know. Heck, he did not even know his own, let alone hers. But a promise is a promise, and he sprinted out of the building to where the full scale skirmish was, with him emerging to a trench, empty shells and empty corpses at the base of the trench. Men were shooting at the approaching army, violently shouting curses but not stopping the fire until they were hit so badly they cannot return fire, showing their unbending will in defending the small sanctuary. He jumped forth from cover, joined the thinning vanguard of the defence, and let loose the gun, sending bullets from the fully loaded gun towards he enemy, shredding them into pieces, his scream of both the gun and his voice as one.

Memories, as the shells of the bullets fell on the floor, came back to him, shell by shell. He was a warrior born to thrive on this turmoil; a warrior, scientist, inventor, superhuman built for combat. He started tearing; crying at his own memories, but the gun was still firing, bullets shells fell, each one pinging on the hard soil and more unwanted memories came flooding back, until the gun was empty of bullets.

He fell on the damp soil, damp with the blood of men, not just because he was hit, but because he was torn apart. He was supposed to belong on the other side. Killing the people he saw rejoicing at the army’s  retreat, and assassinate the girl, the daughter of the last World Emperor, Princess Catherine XIV. He screamed out in pain, in wonder of why he was created. 

“We all know who you are already.” he heard her voice again, soft, yet resounding in his mind like a gong. this time coming from behind him. With effort, he turned around, facing her. He saw a blood-soaked young woman with flowing black hair, walking towards him. “But, we want people like you to live. People who discovered the greatest pains of this life. People who are on the verge on suicide. Only with this, then they know how to treasure life.” she squatted beside him, tears flowing down her cheeks, each one hitting his face, cleaning him of the mud and blood. He forcefully stood up, and as she drew level with him, he hugged her, face brushing on each other, where they thought their initial struggle has ended. 

Just as an unrelenting sniper placed a bullet in both of their heads.

History wrote of turmoil in war by innocent civilians in the Rulers’ brawl, and these two went down in the books gloriously, as part of the fight for peace, in a time when war had finally died down. “Can people truly understand turmoil without them being in it themselves?” was the last recorded statement of the late man, found in his last entry of his diary, a quote used as a reminder for the lives lost in the Rulers’ brawl, and the turmoil they have went through.