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It was not fair. It was not fair. Why did that have to happen? Muqi held his friend in his arms, or at least the body that was left. The warmask shattered and the arms broken. And Muqi was unable to do anything but be a burden, protected by his comrades that had died in the horrifying surprise assault that grisvar squad, also dead, had unleashed on them. “Why did it have to be me? Why did I have to live?” The young soldier could not answer to the questions his guilt asked. The war had taken away all the answers, all the logic, and thrown away everything that wasn’t a battle out of the window. He didn’t even know who had shot first, them or the grisvar. He only knew about the victims, the corpses, the dead. About the people nobody knew about. People that, just like him, would always be miserable.
“Poor little suffering thing”, the voice almost surprised Muqi, who barely tried to raise his head. He would find a small figure before him, innocent and delicate like a flower about to bloom. “I can’t fathom what are you even going through…” It was the girl, the humanoid alien girl that appeared in his dreams. From that time when he almost died next to the Brocken city, she had let herself be seen as little glimpses in his dreams. And now, a translucent apparition. A ghost, maybe a spirit. “What have they done to you?”
“They killed them” Muqi said, looking again at the broken head of his comrade. “They killed all my friends”. The humanoid child took his chin with her hand and gently made him raise his face.
“All this suffering, this death… You know, I am proud of you” She said, with a little smile on her face. “I think you’re the bravest… Well, alien spider thing… I’ve ever met”
“How many of us have you met?” With her presence, Muqi felt he could relax, a little bit. He could rest. No soldiers would get there soon, anyway… “You’re not from here, are you?”
“I think you’re brave no matter the species” her laugh was pure. “You fought all those soldiers, all those enemies, all by yourself, for your comrades, for your friends. You fought for what’s yours… And you won”
“But I didn’t won”, Muqi looked at the corpse he was holding. “They are dead. No matter what I did, they’re not with me anymore…”
“And you feel miserable because you lost them. You wish they could understand you, don’t you? To feel how you feel...” The humanoid kid gently took his warmask off. “I know, my dear Muqi, in fact, I-I have also lost a friend” She looked melancholily to the stars. “She was funny, and she was special. She was my comrade, just like these ones were yours. But then…” She took the mask, making it look like as if she was going to put it herself. “Then she went away, leaving me alone. I know how you miss your friends, dear Muqi, because I miss mine the same way”. Muqi was going to extend one of his arms to her, when the girl, Kanae (How did he know her name?) removed the warmask, revealing her tears. She hided them behind the mask again, after a brief glimpse. “Why, Muqi, why did she have to be taken away from me? The only thing I wanted was to be with her, and then…”
No, no, Muqi didn’t want that. All that war and suffering had hardened his heart, or so he thought, but seeing the little kid cry reminded him of what he fought for; for all the people taken from him. And he wouldn’t let that extend to another person. “Maybe you can help me”. Kanae took the mask away from her face, dried up from tears again. “You know, she’s not dead. I cannot find her in this form, but you are the bravest warrior I know” He could change something. “You could take me to her and let me… Let us be together once more”.
He could make a change in their lives. In Kanae’s existence. “But what about her? What if she’s not okay, if she doesn’t want to be found, or…”
“Oh, my dear warrior…” The masked kid hugged his head, the only thing she could reach around. “It won’t matter what happens them. If I’m with her I know everything’s going to be okay” They separated, the kid looking at Muqi on the eye. “Help me, my bravest warrior… Help me, and I’ll help you in turn. You have a wish, don’t you?” Yes. Yes, he had. All his friends, all the death, and he was the only one standing. He was the only one to remember them, to avenge them. Those feelings that he harbored in his heart were fed when he saw the smile on the face of Kanae, just behind the warmask. She knew. She already knew. “You want them to feel your pain, your misery, so they can learn not to make others be the same as you”. He wanted them to know, to feel, so that war wouldn’t have more people die in vain. “You and your friends will be remembered. Your story will be told. I can promise you that”. She took a step backwards, and extended her hand towards him. “Promise me you’ll help me find my friend, dear warrior, and I promise you they will know how it is to feel as miserable as you. I promise you we will end this war”.
They would. It would. And he promised. He shook her ghostly hand. He accepted the deal. “How are you going to…?” Then, the grisvar reinforcement squad cut him off. “Shit”. Muqi sweared, looking at the trio of warriors, ready to shoot him, and thought of how short had that deal been. They would shoot him, and that would be it. But then, Kanae disappeared, and the warmask fell to the floor making a clanking noise.
“Wait” When the lead grisvar saw Muqi, with blood from his friends staining him, his warmask in the ground, he stopped the other two, who were about to shoot him dead. “Are you going to shoot him, just like that?”
“Well, chief, he’s an enemy soldier” The grisvar warriors looked puzzled.
“He’s just a kid, don’t you see? He’s just a wounded scared child, and the first thing you think is gunning him down?” Muqi witnessed the scene in disbelief, until he saw a glimpse of the very faint humanoid shape behind the enemy captain, smiling. “We’re soldiers, Artas, not beasts. We do not execute people just because without the right to an honorable death” The warriors lowered their guns. He was only a wounded soldier, drenched in their friends’ suffering, right? Young. Innocent. The grisvar leader got closer to him. “We will not harm you, kid. We’re not the monsters they’ve make you though we are. Stand up, kid, and go back, and I promise you my mend and I won’t hurt you”
No, you aren’t the monsters they told me you were, Muqi thought. You’re the monsters that ambushed my squad, the ones that shoot down all my friends, the monsters that feel that every soldier deserves not to live in peace, but to die honorable deaths. You were the ones that make the lives of my friends something to be wasted.
The kid was right. She had power, and she had helped him have a chance. And Muqi wouldn’t waste it. He saw the opportunity to strike, and, in an instant, he struck with all his razor-sharp arms, straight to his enemies’ weak spots. He would help Kanae find her friend. And, in turn, she would help him make them understand, Make them as miserable as him.