The sun was unforgiving, its rays scorching Simon's skin, a harsh reminder of what he used to know. He could still remember a time when sunlight meant warmth, when the world wasn't drowning in blood and fire. He'd been just a kid back then, running through fields, laughing with friends—before the war, before the aliens, before everything was lost.
Now, the sun felt like a mockery. A cruel joke.
Simon's leg was mangled, a gaping wound where there should have been flesh, and every step was a battle against pain that made his vision blur. His body was broken, but his mind? His mind was a furnace, so full of anger that it burned away all other thoughts. It was as if the pain in his body was nothing compared to the fire in his heart.
The aliens had done this. These things—these monsters—had taken everything. His family, his friends, his home. They were all gone. Dead. And Simon was left, a fucking soldier, dragged into a war that wasn't his, forced to fight for a cause he didn't believe in. But there was no escape.
He looked down at his leg, where blood soaked through his torn pants, mingling with the dirt and the stench of death that clung to everything now. The pain was real, but it was so insignificant compared to what he felt. He was used to the pain. What hurt more was knowing the war would never end. That it was him, just a kid, doing the killing. That it was his hands, stained forever, that would be the ones to end this.
The alien appeared in front of him, its grotesque, scaled body standing out against the barren landscape. Simon didn't need to think about it. There was no hesitation. He raised his weapon, his finger squeezing the trigger, and the alien crumpled to the ground.
It was just the beginning.
He didn't stop. He couldn't. Every step, every shot, was a continuation of what they had done to him. To his family. To his people. The alien's death didn't bring satisfaction. It was just the next in a long line. Another one to pay for the monsters who had destroyed everything.
And then more came. One after another. Alien after alien. No hesitation. No mercy. His rifle became an extension of his body, moving as instinctively as breathing. The battlefield stretched before him, filled with the bodies of the enemies, the enemies that took everything away, and he couldn't stop. He wouldn't stop.
For the next 29 hours, Simon killed. He wasn't sure how many. He couldn't count. Time blurred, a haze of gunfire, blood, and bodies that only got bigger as the hours passed. It didn't matter. His anger had no limit, and with every kill, it was as if the world became that much smaller, that much more suffocating. His mind was consumed with nothing but the need to keep going. He was a weapon now. A tool. He had no family left to return to. No home.
Just the war. Just the need to kill.
Simon's hands shook, not from fear, but from something deeper—something darker. His heart didn't race with adrenaline. It pounded with the knowledge that he was becoming something else. A creature of vengeance. A force. It was as if the very air around him thickened with his rage, suffocating him, pushing him further, harder. There was nothing left to him but the fight. Nothing else could exist in a world where the only thing he knew was killing.
By the end of the 29 hours, the battlefield was covered in the bodies of the aliens. And Simon stood amidst the carnage, his breath ragged, his chest heavy. The hatred was still there, but it was no longer just a feeling—it was a part of him. It had seeped into his bones, into his soul, and it was all-consuming.
And yet, it wasn't enough.
There would never be enough blood. There would never be enough death. Because the only thing Simon had left to live for was to make them all pay. Every single one of them.
Simon's rifle clicked empty, and he barely noticed. He was numb. The bodies of the aliens lay scattered around him, but there was no satisfaction in their deaths. No victory. His heart didn't race with the thrill of the kill anymore—it was just a constant, heavy thud in his chest, like the sound of a drumbeat that had no end.
He lowered the rifle, staring at the alien corpse in front of him, its twisted form a symbol of everything that had been stolen from him. But what was the point of all this?
What do I get out of this? he thought bitterly. Nothing. I get nothing. I'm just a tool, a fucking weapon in a war that's going to keep going long after I'm gone.
The weight of the thought hit him like a hammer. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd felt anything other than rage. Killing them—these aliens—was supposed to mean something, right? They took everything from him, and he was supposed to take it back, to get revenge. But now, as he looked at the pile of bodies, all he could feel was emptiness.
Killing them didn't bring his family back. It didn't fix the hole in his life, the one that had been there ever since the war had started. It didn't fill the gaping void that the world had left behind. All he had done was become more like them—the monsters, the killers. Was that what he was now? A monster?
Could I ever be anything else?
He imagined it—just for a second—a normal life. A life where he wasn't dragging a weapon through blood-soaked ground, where he wasn't haunted by the constant sound of gunfire and dying screams. Could he live like that? Could he ever live in peace, knowing what he had become?
How could I? he thought. Where would I go? Who would accept me?
The thought of a house made him laugh bitterly. A house? Where? He was a fucking weapon, trained to kill. He was an orphan, a soldier without a country, nothing but a pawn in a game played by people who didn't give a shit about him.
And family? How the fuck could I have a family? He had no one left, not even a name outside of what the army had given him. And even if he did—what kind of father would he be? A broken kid who'd learned to kill before he learned to live? What kind of life would that be? What kind of life could he offer?
His heart sank. Maybe the worst thing wasn't the blood on his hands. It wasn't the lives he'd taken, the families he'd destroyed. It was the fact that he was so fucking far gone that the idea of something better—of something normal—felt impossible. Like a distant dream he would never wake up from.
The rifle hung loosely at his side, its weight now more of a burden than anything else. He had been running on hate for so long, and now it felt like the only thing keeping him moving was the momentum of the past. But what came after? What came when the hate was gone, when the war was over, and he was left standing in the rubble of a life he could never reclaim?
He didn't know. And that terrified him more than anything.