On the 13th of August 1845.
The camp is silent tonight, but it's a different kind of silence than what I'm used to. It's not the peaceful quiet of home, the kind where everything feels right. No. This silence is heavy, thick, like the air before a storm. The men around me are lost in their own thoughts, their eyes hollow, their faces tired. They don't speak much, and I don't either. There's nothing to say that hasn't already been said a hundred times on the battlefield.
I don't belong here. Not in this camp, not in this war. It's all a mistake. I can't shake the feeling that everything I've known, everything I've cared for, is slipping through my fingers. And all I can think about is her.
Elara.
The memory of her face feels so far away now, like a dream that's slowly fading as I try to hold onto it. Her smile, her laugh, the way she would always look at me with such hope...it's all slipping, slipping, slipping... until all I have left is this hollow ache in my chest. How could I leave her behind? How could I walk away from that?
I promised her. I promised I would come back. And every day, every hour, every minute here in this place, it feels like I'm breaking that promise.
I can still hear her voice in my head, soft, filled with love, telling me she'd wait. But the longer I'm here, the harder it is to believe she'll still be there when I return. I don't know how long I can hold on to that hope. I don't know if she'll still see me as the man I was, or if I'll be nothing more than a ghost in her memory.
The fire flickered in front of me, casting shadows on the walls of the tent. The warmth feels cold in comparison to the warmth I remember when we were together when we were planning our future. The future that feels so far away now, I wonder if it will ever be real.
I want to return to her more than anything. But there are days when I feel like I'm walking further and further from her, like every step I take here only pulls me deeper into this war that I don't understand, this war that I never asked for. The emptiness inside me is unbearable, and I can't fill it with anything but thoughts of her. It hurts. It hurts so much that I almost want to scream, but I can't. I can't show that kind of weakness here.
I don't know if I'll make it through this. I don't know if I'll survive to see her again, to hold her again, to make her mine. I don't know if she'll even be there when I get back, or if I'll have become someone unrecognizable, a stranger to the woman I love.
But I have to survive. For her. For us.
If I can just make it through this war, I swear I'll find my way back to her. I'll find my way back to the life we were supposed to have. I just have to hold on a little longer.
Elara... please wait for me. I don't know if I'll make it. But I will try. For you.