Guild Wars 2

This is a fragment/exercise done in preparation for a larger work that I’ve been kicking around for a while. It is an account of the battle against Zhaitan in Orr from the perspective of a common soldier.

Part One

Somewhere off in the distance the waves are coming in, big and loud, arising and drawing back into themselves. I want to turn my head but it’s frozen in place, my eyes fixed straight up into the sky. It doesn’t seem to bother me too much. I can still feel the cushion of bodies growing cold beneath me but just barely. I just keep looking up at the sky. As the light fades I can see all the little details, every single wisp of cloud drifting over this place in perfect clarity. Somewhere I know that life is seeping out of me, that I’m dying and this is where it all ends, but even that doesn’t really scare me now. For the first time I can actually see clearly. Even this mottled, gray wasteland sky above me is beautiful if you can see all the detail. As it keeps getting darker I can see further and further, all the layers and patterns as they extend out in all directions forever. My will is going and I think I’m becoming part of it now. Something is coming over me, a shadow big and black seeping through. It takes up my vision, everything seeming to drain into it. I think I can see for a second what it is, a figure with two points of light shining bright in its head. It’s looking at me and I’m coming towards it. It’s pulling me in. I don’t fight it. But now there’s something else. I hear something. It’s a sharp, rough sound. I want it to stop. Why am I hearing? I start to draw away. I’m being pulled down. The shadow just stays there, watching me, its eyes like two stars burning in the darkness. Off to the side there’s someone standing over me. I can barely make out the outline of a woman who’s crouching down and putting her hands on my chest. I look past her back to the sky but the shadow is gone now. The power comes through her hands to me and the world is pain. Every corner of my body is awakened to screaming life with a flood of sensation. Every muscle seizes and spasms, burning and tingling with an influx of energy forcing its way in. I cough hard. The fetid air fills my lungs. Involuntarily I jolt upright. The tingling starts to recede and I move my limbs to make sure I can. The healer, a sylvari woman, takes her hands off me and just looks at me with big, icy blue eyes like two crystals that just shoot straight through, like they’re not even seeing at all. Without a word she gets up and moves on to the next almost-corpse. I stand up and see on the fringes the putrid ocean of gray that until recently had been my fate. Somewhere in the back of my mind is the notion that the ones that didn’t get up are the lucky ones, but I’m too wired to be thinking about anything right now. Up ahead are a couple of Vigil grunts keeping watch. I realize that there’s no “first aid” being offered here, just jolts to get you back on your feet and into the fray. I don’t want to check myself over so I start walking back in the direction of camp. I’ll find out soon enough if I have any pieces missing. The grunts don’t mind. They have looks like the healer does, but more tired, glazed over. They’ve been here longer than she has. I’m breathing the brackish air of this place. If there was anything in my stomach I’d probably be throwing it up right now. I just keep walking. I’m still high on the rez and I need to make it count. Just for the hell of it I look up at the sky. Just a dead gray void, like a reflection of the blighted land beneath. I can remember the shadow I saw but just barely. It seems like a million years ago now. I’m not in any hurry to start remembering. It would come back soon enough, the battle, the hit that dropped me, maybe a little of the death dream but not much. The rez screws up your sense of time. Things get jumbled for a while and sometimes stay that way. You’ll lose things, and stuff that happened days apart seems like it went on simultaneously. After a while it comes back together, in dreams and flashbacks. The camp is in sight now. Whatever we did must have had some success because it’s still here. Without looking at me the officer in charge tells me to go sit by the muster ground and wait for orders. I finally check myself over. The wound in my neck is mostly closed up. Apart from that and the usual collection of bruises and cuts, I’m fine. I guess I’m supposed to feel grateful for that, but I’ve been finding it hard to feel grateful for anything lately.

Part Two

I find a stray chunk of coral to sit on and start listening for what’s up. Most who end up here stop talking pretty quick, but some lose the ability to stop. Even at night if they sleep they’re still talking, muttering, sometimes pitching screaming fits that take an officer or medic to quell. They’d talk to nobody if you put them somewhere by themselves, just so they know they’re still alive I guess. There’s always some around camp. Apparently about a quarter of our platoon have made it back, and they’re calling that a victory. We were the lucky ones. The other platoon ran into a champion. There’s only two of them left now and they aren’t doing any more fighting. They’re both catatonic. Coming face-to-face with fifty feet of teeth and tentacles will do that to you, watching everyone you signed on with get ripped to shreds and then come back as more of them. Makes your worst nightmare look like a *****ing romp through the Central Plaza. I hadn’t seen one yet but it’s only a matter of time. They’re just throwing meat into the grinder in the hope that eventually the enemy will have to yield, even just a little. They’re stalling until some real strategy materializes. I wonder how those two made it back into camp. Maybe they saw the shadow too. It’s strange how clearly I can still remember it. This rez wasn’t like the others I’ve had. I usually can’t remember anything that I see when I’m down. I don’t really want to either. Some faceless Whispers officer with a clean set of armor walks into the square, says he needs a scout. That’s me. I’d much rather that than the corpse-burning detail that will be coming up pretty soon. I heard some mesmer back in Trinity talking about how he could wipe your memory with hypnosis, make everything from the moment you stepped on shore just disappear. If I ever get a ticket out of here I’ll be paying him a visit first.

The mud sucks at my feet as I make the slow walk back. I could have told them this was a bogus run. They’re testing us. Just playing. Fatigue has caught up with me now. I let my feet drag. This might be the closest thing I get to sleep for a while. I know I’m letting it go too far, but I’m actually starting to feel good. Better, at least. I don’t even notice the plume of smoke curling up from the horizon at first. As my eyes finally regain focus and I realize that camp is up ahead my feet fly. I forget my fatigue and I’m there in seconds. The fires are mostly out now but part of the stockade and half of what’s inside are gone. It was hit from within. The munitions dump had exploded and it looked like the medical tent was out as well. This was calculated. I make my way through the mess and try to find someone in charge. After what seems like hours I find only confusion. Everyone left is in a daze, instinct reigns without any will to guide it. I wonder if they got the officers too, but I guess at this point it doesn’t matter. We’ll all be dead pretty soon anyway. A charr starts bellowing orders hoarsely over the bustle of bodies, finally. I don’t know who it is but I don’t need an excuse to jump to it. Get the corpses in the ditch and the perimeter secure. It’s as good a day as any for the end of this, and I’m not one to go peacefully.

Part Three

My eyes sit fixed on the fire dancing in front of me. It all melds together into a morass of dim light washing over my unfocused gaze. I couldn’t tell you what time it is, or how long I’ve been sitting here. I’m not sure if it’s another side-effect of the rez or just total exhaustion. I couldn’t say I really care either way. I’m tired. Half of me is already shut down but somehow I’m still awake. I don’t know if it’s my nerves or fear of sleep, but there’s something that won’t let me rest. Part of me still expects the attack to come. We stayed at our posts until sundown, when reinforcements arrived, but the enemy never came. There weren’t enough of us to hold the position and there are barely enough now. Not that I could say what it would take to hold them off if they decided they really wanted this place. Especially not after what happened today. Those two survivors they dragged back in had been turned all along. No one knew until it was too late. They put a hole in the wall and took out most of our medical supplies, destroying themselves in the process. It was all planned. They had us right up against the edge. There’s talk now that we’re going to pull back, abandon this camp. We retract while it just keeps getting stronger. It knows how weak we are now. I wonder if there’s anyone left who could still honestly say this is a fight we can win. I’m sure they haven’t been here. I wonder if any of us will get out. Maybe it’s already over. It was for me once already. It’s all the same really, just die and fight and die again. No rest for anyone. It’s just one long death dream. I was nearly out it for good but something stood in the way. The image keeps getting more and more clear in my mind every time I think of it. I swear it’s even more vivid now than when I first saw it. Tattered sky rent open by a half-halo of things like knives, a ragged hole in the universe pulling in everything around it, at its spindly crest two eyes burn down imperiously over me and I can’t even look away. I could swear the thing is smiling. I wonder if they saw it too. If they knew. My hand reaches down into my boot, pulling from the small pouch cut into its lining a pistol. It fits easily into the palm of my hand, its silver finish still shining bright as a jewel. It’s not good for much, but at short range it could make sure something didn’t come back. The “last resort.” With a sudden kind of clarity I hold it and let its contours become familiar again. Did they know what they were? Was there anything left inside of their old selves? Two stub barrels over-under share a single hammer jury-rigged to discharge both simultaneously, good for one shot with a decent risk of an explosion strong enough to take out you and anyone else at intimate distance. I thumb the hammer, letting it dig into the calloused skin as it slides slowly out from its housing. If you were turned, would you know it? I draw out the shiny steel hammer as I have a thousand times before, a lifetime ago, in endless nights spent staring at the ceiling from a cot dreaming of one day being a big hero. In a strange kind of way it all seems to come full circle. I smile to myself. In a distant corner a faint voice yells to me that I’m delirious, that I’m going over the edge, to put the gun away. It isn’t loud enough to bother me much. Would I even know what I am anymore? A shadow comes over me. It takes me a second to realize I’m not imagining it.

Part Four (Final)

“Hey, secure that weapon, soldier.”

The voice is like a boulder rolling downhill. I recognize it immediately as belonging to the charr who had taken charge after the attack. I look up at the stooping figure standing between me and the fire. I can’t see his face very clearly but an unyielding presence is enough to get me to fall into line. I tuck the gun back into its holster. For what seems like a long time he just stands there. My eyes adjust and slowly I start to make out his face as it bears down on me. There’s no telling what a charr is thinking. It’s an animal face that I have to try to put a human mask on. Eyes, nose, mouth, all fit into a recognizable pattern, but everything beyond that is just instinct and fear. It never quite fits. I guess I’m the same to him.

“Didn’t figure you for a coward.”

There’s unease in his voice, I think. I can tell he doesn’t like the look of me. It’s personal. I couldn’t say if I’d ever seen him before today, but apparently he knows me, or thinks he does.

“But it doesn’t matter what you are or how bad you think you have it, it’s not up to you anymore. You’re here because you were chosen for it, because you’re the best your kind has to offer. You’re here because you’re one of the only ones left who has even a fraction of a chance of stopping this thing. If we fail here, it isn’t just over for us, it’s the end for everyone. Your home will be defiled as this place was and every one of your race will lose their chance to live. You’re here for all of them because they can’t be. You can. You’re still alive and you owe it to them to give all you’ve got, everything till your very last gasp to kill the dragon. Remember that. You can die when this is all over.”

The charr turns and walks away, probably tired of looking at me. The pep talk was exactly what I’d expect to hear, so much so I can’t help but smirk at it. It’s something I could have told myself. The wind blows in from the sea, through the moldering logs and damp cord hastily lashed into a futile palisade, like the sound of freedom. Between the smoke of the fire and the rotting stench of this place is something else, something cool and rare from far away. It all comes together in my lungs and sends a jolt through me that’s like reliving a moment I’d forgotten. I feel my hands, my legs, my feet, bone, sinew and muscle honed to a single end. I’m still myself and I’m still in control. The shadow is still there, though what it is I couldn’t say for sure. Maybe just something I’m imagining, maybe something else, but whatever it is it doesn’t have a hold of me yet. If something ever tries, it’ll be in for a fight. I’ll be ready for it. We’re all here for a reason, and when the time comes we do what we have to. The sun brightens the sundered sky overhead, peeling away layers of darkness in jagged tears that sound the coming of dawn. Off at the edge the leaden haze gives way to the light, like the goddess calling out from some distant place that there’s still a world beyond all this. There’s fear, there’s ache, but there’s also certainty. I stand up to watch it climb over the wall as it dries black and fractured, above the shattered rings of humanity’s fallen crown that still reach toward the sky even as they collapse on themselves, and as the rising steam starts to cloud my vision I know that this may be the last one I see. The notion doesn’t bother me too much.