Death of a Soldier
I always wondered what kind of soldier's death I'd earn, back when I thought things like honor, loyalty, and the Empire were things worth fighting for, things that people actually believed in.
If you'd told me that the real way soldiers died was when their honor died, when their loyalty was betrayed, and when their allies turned on them, I'd have thought you were an idiot and promptly challenged you to a duel for besmirching the honor of the Imperium.
The whispers that maybe the Imperial Army was the problem had started long before anyone knew what our leaders were up to. I'll admit, even I doubted what we were doing. A lot of soldiers deserted in those days. But I had two things keeping me in the army. The first was that pesky little thing called honor I mentioned earlier.
The second was Darius. I know, I know, everyone always says don't sleep with your squad commander. But I thought I was different. I thought Darius was different. For the two years I knew him, all the way up through my fifth year in the military, I thought he could do nothing wrong. He told me such sweet things, promised me a life full of power, a life full of love, a life with a future.
That's why when he asked me to go with him on a short delve in the mountains of Cyrodiil, I followed him without question. He gave me some reason the rest of our squad wasn't coming, something I'm sure I thought was true at the time, but I can't remember what it was.
But I can remember the sound of the door locking shut behind me, when he turned on me with that wolfish grin.
I screamed at him to stop pushing me against the wall, tried to get him to tell me what he was doing, when he showed me his fangs. When he asked me why I was fighting a life I'd told him I'd wanted for two years, it finally sunk in that all that power he'd talked about came with a steep price.
I remember the smell of my blood on his fur, the sound of his bones breaking as he shifted in front of me, the echo of my screams. I remember watching him bleed out in front of me, chopped into the little bits I'd left so many others in. I remember feeling the blood pour out of my bite marks as I collapsed in the snow.
But worst of all? I remember the taste of every poor soul I've devoured along the way.
Soldiers don't die on the field of battle, with their honor intact. No, we die when our humanity is ripped from us, whether we chose it or not, when we realize that everything we fought for was a sham, when the truth that everyone we've ever loved is as merciless as we are, and when we're alone, screaming into the night the pain of every scar that's been etched indelibly into our soul.
