Warbaden

I had hardly slept since the night before, I was tired but I was still worried about my conversation yesterday.

Thinking about it I couldn't help but think that maybe it would have been better not to have said anything about it, who knows maybe it would have been better to leave a note and be presumed dead or that I had simply disappeared.

At least then I wouldn't have to know that I was now dead to my family, but I already knew that anyway and I still called them over and over again, because for them pride is so important that they preferred to pretend I didn't exist than to have to go through the shame of being members of my family , I really didn't expect their pride to be so important as to ignore me in what could be my last wishes and hopes, what could be my last words….

I expected them to be upset and disappointed in what I had done, but I still thought they would have liked to hear from me one last time or at least my mother, although well I imagine I deserved it.

If I had reported the crimes committed in the past by the aslv and lived an honest life as a farmer I would not have lost my family.

It was very easy for me to turn my eyes to what was going on around me, the dead are dead and there is nothing I can do, if….I still remember those were the words I used to convince myself that it was okay to accept the money they gave me even though I knew whose hands they came from.

And thinking about that I couldn't help but wonder what I would have done, how I would have acted if I had known what the aslv were still doing, I would like to think I would have reported it immediately but I didn't know, I would have reported them or looked away, don't lose….

As much as I blamed my obsession to somehow get over my brother I could no longer just stop feeling this way, I knew this that everything that was happening to me now was nothing more than the fruit of my past actions.

It was my fault and now I had to take responsibility, and although I kept thinking that my brother's influence towards my mother had been so great as to make her ignore me I ended up thinking something that I didn't want to believe in any way but that I already knew I had convinced myself of it, I guess it is better to be left for dead than to have a son like me, who would want to have a son like me?

And with that in mind I thought it would have been a better investment of my time to get drunk one last time than to waste it trying to contact my brother and mother.

The alarm going off made me realice that the soldier who had been speaking had finally finished his speech.

I had thought I was supposed to be there an hour before the trip was to begin to enlist but I didn't expect it to be to clean up the mess left by the aslv execution.

I was assigned along with a partner and given some instructions on how I was to clean up my work area after being told I had less than fifteen minutes to finish or I would receive a punishment.

So that's how redemption begins eh.

That they couldn't execute them the same way they did the melbore yesterday!

Complained the man who was helping me carry a headless body as we placed it along with the rest of the corpses in a kind of portable warehouse that was slowly incinerating everything that went into it.

When I finished cleaning my part with a toothbrush I got up from the floor to greet the soldier coming towards me, the one in charge of guarding this section of the aslv extermination area instructed me to go to my next destination.

I did what the soldier told me to do, realizing that the time established for the cleaning was over, I turned to see my partner with whom I had been working, who had not finished yet.

I stopped when I saw how a soldier hit him and dragged him towards the same container where we had been depositing the rest of the bodies.

Keep walking," said the attendant, getting my attention and scaring me.

Feeling a shiver running down my back I started walking again, hearing the voice of my companion and other unfortunates shouting, I hurried to reach my next destination trying to stay calm, any trace of fatigue from not sleeping vanished completely when I didn't yawn again.

Arriving at the place I had been ordered to come to, I could see two long lines of people, each with five people lined up on either side.

A soldier noticed my arrival and quickly signaled me to follow him.

First name, last name and age.

Rafael Carter, 19 years old, sir.

Yes, he is on the list," the soldier informed his companion who remained at his side while the latter wrote something down on his tablet.

Go to section number five in the line.

Hearing that, I realized why the people in the line seemed to separate into one group after another every few minutes.

Walking toward the line another guard stopped me before I could go any further.

Section?

 Five, sir.

Follow me.

Heeding the guard, I followed him closely until he stopped in front of a group of people.

Form up, the guide said before hurrying back in an orderly fashion to the place where I had originally found myself.

Positioning myself in line I decided to briefly glance at the group of people around me.

Almost everyone looked tired, I guess I wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep.

They all looked like normal people to my eyes except for the woman next to me.

More than a peculiar characteristic that would distinguish her, what made me think that she was not the same as the others was a premonition.

She for some reason gave me the impression that she was much older than she looked.

You missed something.

Her blue eyes looking at me coldly let me know that I had been staring at her for longer than I thought.

Sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you.

I cut the eye contact diverting my gaze to the floor, it's just a stupid feeling, I shouldn't give importance to that now, especially now.

Come on Fredy, why are you keeping quiet, are you going to make me hit you again?

Curious, I turned my gaze to a scene in front of me that seemed very peculiar.

In it there was a stout man over six feet tall next to a thinner but similarly tall man picking on a boy who looked no older than me.

I wondered why the guards did nothing as the man again hit the boy with a small stature hard on the back of the head.

Hey stop it, that's enough.

Intervened a man firmly grabbing the stalker's hand.

But instead of getting upset, the six-foot man just smiled.

Look what we have here, a hero fighting for justice, don't we?

When a soldier finally intervened in the conflict I was too confused, I didn't expect him to beat so brutally the man who had tried to help the boy who was being bullied.

At first I came to think that soldiers didn't intervene because we were no longer considered human beings, but seeing how the man who tried to help was savagely beaten to death I couldn't think of anything else but the strange situation that was going on.

I was definitely not in a common situation at all but it still didn't make sense to me that a soldier was defending an aggressor.

Section number five forward!

When the woman at the front mentioned my section the whole group started heading for a room and I followed close behind.

Enter individually into the squares drawn on the floor.

Moving into the square large enough for three people to enter, I awaited the next instructions I would be given.

Four walls suddenly rose up where the drawn lines that formed a square, leaving me trapped I didn't have much time to think about what was happening when all my clothes were ripped off my body as if I was being sucked in but disappearing from my sight somehow.

The pressure I felt on my body being pushed came from the cold water bathing me in it completely, without giving me a chance to open my eyes I could only desperately try to breathe until it stopped and instead a strong current of wind whipped me back to the wall drying all the water residue left on me and the strange room I was in.

The rush of air ended when I heard a high pitched sound followed by some words.

You have two minutes.

Trying to get up I fell back down as a guy in a uniform was thrown in my face and a pair of boots.

Hurrying as fast as I could I got dressed fearful of what would happen if I didn't do it in the allotted time.

The walls surprised me again when they returned to their original position and became a drawing on the floor again.

Leaving in sight the rest of the group I came with I noticed how they were all equally or more stunned than me, we all had the same uniform, a kind of green jacket and under it a gray vest which was over a blue shirt and for the lower part of the body a pair of beige pants and finally the pair of boots that had been thrown in my face.

Forward march!

A huge door that I had not seen before opened dividing in two and entering through the lower and upper wall in front of me about twenty meters away, following the more than one hundred people I had come with I arrived at the end of the corridor where the exit I had been ordered to go through was waiting for me.

Taking one more step I crossed through the strange door only to see how the people I had come with were now piled up on the floor as if they had tripped over each other impeding the passage of the entrance, causing me to almost fall next to them too which I could avoid thanks to the fact that I stepped on some of them accidentally.

Quickly getting off of them I offered them my help so they could get up although many of them looked at me angrily and did not accept my apologies ending up saying some unpleasant words to me while they kept trying to stand up rejecting my help, but I was reassured to know that not all the curses they were spitting out of their mouths were directed towards me.

The people in section five were taking their time getting up but like me they stiffened like a board as soon as they heard an angry soldier shouting towards our position.

Get out of the way and get over here at once!

If it wasn't for the man who pushed me from behind and threw me to the ground at the same time I would have arrived with my group, in the end I ended up falling to the ground as well.

The man who fell with me apologized and helped me up but fell again when another group of people crashed into him although this time I managed to avoid him. I awkwardly said goodbye to the man still on the ground and quickly returned to my group.

Why did they get here so fast, at least my group had taken ten minutes but they arrived so soon, as if they had been behind us all this time.

Leaving those thoughts behind, I started running to catch up with my group who were already being warned of something, arriving after missing whatever it was they had explained I watched as the people I had arrived with took a fist sized black cube one by one and then headed in line to a ship not too far from our location.

Imitating them, I also took a bucket and joined the line of people, but not before receiving a look of contempt from the soldier who was holding the briefcase where the buckets were.

When I entered the crowded ship I could see numbers on the ceiling that seemed to give the time, but it could not be the case, if that was a clock then it should be later or maybe it was late… Why would the clock give the same time when I arrived?

The last section has arrived, close them, and take off at once!

Following the source of the voice I realized who it belonged to. Then it was true …. I'm really going to travel with Melbore soldiers I thought. The doors of the ship closed behind me and I continued to watch the giants.