I was in the sixth of the three dozen carts full of armed soldiers on our way to the eastern front. Civil war had broken out over two years ago and I signed up to aid in our countries intervention as soon as I was old enough. With no job, education, or future I had no reason to stay home. Besides, after the previous war, our soldiers were celebrated like heroes throughout the emancipated cities. My father would tell me stories about the day the war had ended, civilians danced in the streets with the liberating army. Halls sang and bells tolled with their newfound freedom. I clung to these thoughts and the necklace my girlfriend had given me before I left tightly. Metal dinged lightly as the wagons bumped over the rough cobble road leading into town. Here tents and temporary battlements were ubiquitous and soldiers ran to and fro barking at each other. The residents of this town stuck to the sides of the road as we pulled in, casting cold and hard looks at us. I couldn’t understand why they weren’t happy to see us, the reinforcements they desperately needed. I nudged the soldier beside me, “Why do they look like we’re the bad guys?” He cast a glare back at me, “You’d better keep that mouth of yours shut until you understand what’s happening here.”

My first deployment was in the southernmost point of conflict, the iron mountains. The mountainous landscape consisted of a polished surface of pure iron. During the day it would grow to be so hot and reflected the sun so sharply that it was impassable. At night the Mountains served to be horrible terrain for our troop, our armor clanged on the ground and dissolved any hopes of stealth. The battling forces that were native to this land had no armor at all, making them fragile, but highly elusive. We would fan out to cover ground quickly in order to set up stations in the iron mountains to push out the enemy, but their use of bows and stealth made our casualty count high. We had little opportunities to actually fight our enemies, I myself only actually saw a handful of our enemies during my deployment here. It was at this point that I began to understand the complexity of our situation, it was very difficult to tell the force we were aiding from the force we were attacking. They all used the same weapons, didn’t wear armor, had the same complexion, and spoke the same language. The only real difference I could see was that we were helping the good ones fight the bad ones. 

The good ones and the bad ones on the eve of destruction.