Everyone Dies in the End #41

Anatol

Captain Anatol Vorishnov was dead and he laughed. There was no mirth in the sound. In fact, there was no sound in the sound. Oh, he could hear himself, but past experience, which wasn’t that long, really—he had only been corporally dead a handful of days—led him to believe that people in the real world couldn’t see or hear him. At least not usually. But there was no humor in that thought; nothing to evoke a laugh. The humor was in his death. He was dead, yet he wasn’t. And he was miserable.

If he had been this miserable in his other existence, he might have committed suicide, but now? Now he didn’t know how to commit suicide, didn’t know how to end this pitiful life. Something anchored him to this flaccid existence. He had no idea what it was. He only knew pain.

He had been a soldier for most of his life. Serving his country, yes, but also serving his fellow soldiers. Striving to lead them well, keep them safe, accomplish the mission, whatever the mission might be. Even after death, his corporal death, he had tried to save them one last time, tried to deflect the aim of the girl who would kill his friend, Nikoli Berliavskii. And he succeeded, but at what cost? His friend still died, countless others died with him. He had heard their screams. Their cries pained him still.

           What had he been thinking? That answer was simple. He probably hadn’t. He sought to save a friend’s life, and in doing so had damned uncounted others. Standing at ground zero, standing on the molten slag of the electronics store named Best Buy, an asphalt street, and the blood and bones of friends and enemies alike, Captain Anatol Vorishnov’s grief rose from his incorporeal heart and he wailed, the lonesome sound mixing with the desolate wind blowing through the ruined city.