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Will lay in an infirmary bed, legs sprawled off the bed and eyes trained on the whirl of the fan. His siblings milled about the room, keeping careful eyes on him before quickly disappearing into another room, followed by hushed whispers.
Eventually, he sat up with a dry mouth, ready to let the water drip down his throat and drown out the pain of his mind. On the bedside where the pitcher sat, a vase of poppies and a battered chess board sat. The board itself was one that the camp had had forever. The edges were scraped and dented, the pieces almost unrecognizable. He stared at the pieces.
The black king was just as vandalized as the others, but what stood out to Will was the stars engraved around the neck of the piece. He bent over and cradled the item in his hand. He placed it back on the table in a dignified position. As he did so, his sleeve caught on the piece and tipped it over. He heard the piece—a small piece—give a resounding crack as it split in two just below the star engravings.
It was not the crack that stood ringing in his ears. He heard the bones breaking, the agonized screams of the wounded, the almost cold hands pressed into his warm ones. The black shaggy head with sticky, warm, metallic blood pouring out of it. The almost dazed look that held in those dark brown eyes in the last moment. The last words those lips ever pressed: “Don’t lose yourself, Solace.”
A dry sob escaped him because that was just what he planned to do.