Energy whizzed by overhead. My helmet tracked the trajectory as it crashed into the building behind me. I felt the rumble of the earth as I watched the building crumble. My mind went numb. I leaned my gun against the road barrier and returned fire, to no avail. I hadn’t the slightest idea of what I was getting into when I was selected for service. All I knew was that the enemy was stronger, faster, and smarter than us and that our weapons had little to no effect on their armor. The war we fought was suicide, yet we fought nonetheless.
“What are you doing here?!” shouted a voice to my left. I continued to fire. “We were ordered to fall back!”
“I don’t care what the orders are. I am not giving up my position!” I replied, blasts of energy now melting away at what cover I had. “Private! As noble as your sacrifice would be, this is not the battle!” He grabbed my shoulder and pulled me away from the barrier. I lost hold of my rifle, and it clattered to the floor. We both ran down the street toward cover. I looked back to see treads tear through the blockade. The bridge was lost. A squadron of jets blazed by, blasting whatever they could at the armored vehicle. The smoke settled, and like so many times before, the weapon continued unscathed. There was a bang, and another blast of energy shot through the building in front of us, sending it crumbling down onto me.
I heard voices. Not human. I heard cries of terror. Human. I tried to move, but my body was stuck. I couldn’t cry out, or they would find me. A vision flashed through my mind: memories of campfires, stories of the dead. Ghosts. Maybe I was one. I tried to move again as the feeling came back to my arms and hands. I reached up and felt rock and cloth and something wet. It was dark, and the air was filled with dust. I kicked with my feet, pulling at the rock, trying with everything I had to break free of whatever prison had confined me. Then there was light. Just enough to see the dark red that covered my body. I tried to take a deep breath: pain, too much pain. I winced and began to cough.
When the feeling subsided, I kept crawling, slowly, out into the light of the sun. I stood to the best of my ability, watching the weapon power through the streets. Clenching my ribs, I fell to my knees. There were voices. Not human. I pulled my handgun and turned on them, getting off two shots directly into the slits of their helmets. Ghosts, I thought, All of us are ghosts. We aren’t gone from this world, but our deaths are certain. We were doomed the moment the war began—soldiers in spirit, specters in flesh. There came more voices, and they were not human.
