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The battleground was intense, and the air thick with the smell of blood. I dodge spear after spear, falling into the rhythm of those around me. I feel a cool breeze on my torso, and I realise Achilles’ armour straps that he tied for me himself have begun to unravel. I move to tighten them again, but stop in my tracks. Hector stands before me, spear in hand, glowering. I freeze. He mustn’t know that I am not Achilles. I say nothing, clutching my sword, scared to give my identity away. My knees tremble beyond my control, and I can tell Hector has noticed this by the confused look that crosses his face. Achilles never trembled.
I charge at Hector with all the strength and courage I can muster, and he responds with equal force, pushing me backwards. He has a fiercely angry look in his eyes that chills me to the bone. It is not like that of Achilles, where the blunt exterior hides a heart of warmth, I know nothing of what lies beneath Hector’s glare. This scares me more. I had practised fighting with Achilles before, but there was always the reassurance that he would stop if I asked him to. Hector would not be so easily pushed away.
In one great swoop my sword is knocked out of my hand, and I am forced backwards to the ground. The rough landing sends a jolt of pain through my weakened body. Hector holds his spear high, and prepares to drive it home through my chest.
Please, I think. Achilles will not let you live if you kill me. The blood running through Hector’s veins was the only thing stopping the bright star that is Achilles from being extinguished. Fear explodes in my stomach and I begin to desperately crawl backwards, only for Hector to pin me forcefully to the ground with his foot on my ribcage.
This is it, I think. The thought of Achilles enters my mind, and I feel tears flooding my vision. I have failed him. I brace for death. In the next few seconds, multiple things happen at once. I throw my hands up to deflect the oncoming attack that never came. Hector drives his spear down with full intend to stab me, but it never makes contact with my skin. A golden flash dives between the spearhead and myself, intercepting it. Hector stumbled forwards with the momentum of this, and I take my opportunity. Locking my feet behind his calf and kneecap, I twist his legs sharply with all the strength I have left. Hector crumples to the ground, his head making impact with the hard ground and knocking him unconscious. I slowly lower my arms from above my head, and realisation causes my heart to drop into my stomach. Achilles lies a few feet from me, crumpled into a ball and breathing heavily. A spearhead buried in his stomach.
“No. No, Achilles!” I cry, scrambling towards him. I grab tufts of his soft, blonde hair in my hands tightly. He breathes my name, so quiet I barely hear it. Crimson blood pools out from the wound, spilling to the ground and sinking into the dirt. His hand weakly paws at mine. I grasp it tightly, like a lifeline. This couldn’t be happening, he was the brightest star in the sky. He should be shining, not plummeting down to earth.
“Pat-Patroclus,” he heaves again, a trail of red dripping from the corner of his mouth.
“Shh, shh, save your strength,” I sob, “you’re going to be okay, you’ll live, Achilles.”
He looks at me forlornly as his grip on my hand weakens. His gaze drifts to the sky.
“Achilles, please,” I weep. The irony of one of us refusing to accept him dying, and the other one being the dying one.
“I-I really was the first, first happy hero,” he breathes.
He doesn’t speak again. A second passes, two, three. I watch his chest slowly rise and fall before it settles, motionless. My eyes swell with tears, a howl escapes my lungs and I collapse across his body. Hands are pulling me, tugging me away from him. I fight against them. He couldn’t be dead, Achilles must be sleeping, resting, about to return to me, he couldn’t be dead-
“Patroclus!”
It was Briseis. She was sprinting towards me at full speed, in hysterics. I look up at her and we make eye contact as she reaches me.
“Patroclus! Patroclus-”
She grinds to a halt in front of me. I watch the emotions flash across her face as she takes in the scene. Me, collapsed on the ground covered in blood that isn’t my own. Achilles, with a blooming red wound in his chest, lying still and motionless as soldiers lift him into their arms and carry him away. The realisation of what has happened hits her in a second and she crumples to the ground in tears next to me, taking me into her arms.
“I’m-I’m sorry, Patroclus, I’m so sorry,” she sobs.
I say nothing. I cannot.
For the brightest star in the cosmos had just fallen from the sky, out of sight, and he had taken half of my soul with him.