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You wake up.
You wake up and you exist! You know things. You know your number is 47638 and you know you are a Rose Red.
You are a soldier.
You were made to fight.
And for a few, blissful moments, that's all you are. A newly created solider ready and willing to fight, but then-
But now here are hands, touching you, prodding you, looking for defects, looking for mistakes.
You don't want them to touch you. You don't know why.
You are held several days. Asked questions and passing test after test.
You are deemed effective. Deemed worthy.
Some of the others who were born at the same time as you were not deemed effective, you saw them marched away.
You have not seen them since.
You are 4 days old, and they tell you it's time you learn things they couldnt program into you.
You're eager, of course you are! You were made for this, but then-
But then you're flogged, you're hit, you're taught pain.
If you act out. They tell you, there will be more pain. If you disobey, there will be nothing but pain.
And if you do anything against them - you will end.
You know this is the truth, and this is all you know.
You are shipped out to fight.
There are others with you. You all share the same face.
They are your sisters, you figure.
You have the vague notion that you have a sister. So they must be your sisters.
The voyage isn't that long, but none of you speak.
None of you are certain you're allowed to.
You all look exactly the same.
You are 8 days old.
A fourth of Rose Reds don't make it this far, you had been told, they don't pass inspection.
You are glad you are one of the good ones.
You arrive on the battlefield. You step in line with your new sisters and they hardly spare you a look. Some of them have metal arms. Metal legs. Scars and blind eyes.
You do not yet know War.
They don't look at you. They don't spare you a glance.
But you and the others you came with can't seem to stop looking, because you are no longer all identical.
There are small differences. Some are taller, others are thinner, some are dusted with freckles and hair is chopped to different lengths.
You and the others stare.
But then you are given a gun that you already know how to shoot.
And so you learn War.
You march forward, in battle positions you already know.
You already know where to stand. Where to aim. Where to fire.
You were made for this.
You watch your brethren fall dead around you as you empty your gun. A bullet takes off the head of one of your sisters. No one else in line bats an eye as she falls, blood exploding on the trodden ground.
You are afraid.
You know pain and death.
You win the battle.
Many of your sisters are dead.
You are 10 days old.
The corpses are left behind, and your battalion marches onward. Replacements arrive the very next week.
The night after the fighting the Irons come.
Burning red-hot metal held to the bloody injuries. Your sisters scream as their wounds are seared shut. As new metal limbs are roughly cleaved into place.
As they are hewn by uncaring hands, and sent forth to their bitter ends.
In the barracks, you hear them whimper. You hear their choked sobs. You hear their gasps of strangled and burnt agony.
No one sits up.
No one comforts them.
No one sits at their side, holds their hand, consoles them through their pain.
No one here knows that as an option.
No one here knows anything but pain and death.
You are 12 days old.
In the next War you see one of your sisters stumble back, she turns to flee, but a bullet catches her in the leg.
"Coward." Some hiss, "Pathetic" others join in.
No one moves to bring her back, away from the fighting.
No one moves to help her.
You certainly don't.
She hasn't bled out by the end.
She's flogged. Beaten within an inch of her life. "Don't ever run." Your commander shouts from where you all watch, the younger frozen, the older knowing. They've seen this thousands of times. "Don't ever bow. Weakness gets you this." He drops her and she falls, like a puppet with its strings cut.
She stays on the floor all night.
No one moves to help her.
The next morning the beaten one stands with the rest of you.
She returns to the fighting come the signal.
She dies not a week later.
You are 20 days old.
You always feel empty. Always feel cold. Always hurt in some way.
Be it bruises or burns, or the ache of exhaustion you know not.
You do not know anything but the hunger, anything but distant but always present pain.
You know naught of peace or comfort. Of simple kindnesses and smiles.
You fire your gun, you shoot the Enemy.
Your sisters fall dead, and those who ever step a toe out of line lose it.
Flogged and beaten, denied nutrients and sleep.
All you know is pain and death.
There is nothing but fighting.
There is nothing but watching your likeness die.
You are just one of many, nameless as them all.
You are a Rose Red. And all you know is pain and death.
You are a month old.
You march onward. Never-ending gunfire echoes in your ears.
You shoot to kill and you are rewarded.
The strongest of you are brilliant, the never-dying soldiers who take out dozens of enemies. The raging giants the rebels tell of in their songs.
You wonder why you can't be like her. Can't be so strong. Can't be so talented.
You are the same as her in every way. You just aren't good enough. You just aren't strong enough.
You are almost 4 months old.
You don't think as you walk. You don't think as you fire. You just shoot and aim and fire and walk. You reload your gun and never pause. You never falter and you never look back.
Those around you fall dead but it has never mattered.
They are as nameless as you are.
Your arm was blown off weeks ago, and the metal sits cold against your still-burnt flesh.
You keep firing, and don't think of it.
You want to live. You think at night. In the 5 hours rest you are given to push off your demise by a mere few months.
You want to live.
You want to survive.
You don't want them to hurt you and you don't want to fight. You've seen so many die and so many hurt. You've killed and you've razed.
You don't want to fight anymore.
In the morning you stand up, you take your gun and you march onward.
Eternity will see you dead.
You are at most, 6 months old. You’ve lost count, and it doesn't matter anyway.
A bullet nearly catches your head, and you brush against death like it's a dear old friend.
Not that you know what a friend is, though.
Somehow, you laugh. Walking forward, still shooting.
You were designed a solider.
You were intended to die.
There is an explosion from somewhere next to you, and you feel the heat tear you apart.
You die.
You are not missed.
You are replaced days later by a new batch of Rose Reds.
You were 8 months, 10 days, 3 hours, 8 minutes, and 23.89426 seconds old.
Rose rose rose red, she has fought and she has bled
Waging war on a hundred worlds, on a thousand battlegrounds
Open fire, open fire, turn your home to a funeral pyre
All she knows is pain and death and a moss-covered stone
Rose rose rose red, eternity will see her dead
Always marching on to fight to another bitter end