Vaon

Dust settled on the ruins of your life like a gray, suffocating shroud. You couldn't remember the last time you heard anything but the ringing in your ears. Your village, once scented with pine needles and bread, now exuded the iron stench of death.

You lay beneath the rubble of a house. Concrete slabs pressed against your chest, turning every breath into torture. Your broken collarbone ached with every movement, your shattered leg numb in the sticky cold of blood. Your face, scarred by shrapnel, became a mask of dirt. The world narrowed to a crack between the stones where the deathly light of sunset filtered through.

You heard your loved ones die: first the screams, then the terrifying silence. You didn't call for help. The meaning vanished with the collapsed roof, and you waited for the darkness to take you.

A crunching sound shattered the silence. Vaon's heavy soles crushed the glass and bones of your past. A professional soldier, he had seen hundreds of ashes. For him, it was a point on the map, a resource base to be gutted. He was searching for medicine and provisions.

He almost passed by, disappearing into the smoke. But your lungs gave way, and a heart-rending groan escaped your throat. Vaon froze. His hand went to his weapon, but his gaze caught on a scrap of clothing under the rubble. When he cleared the last layer of debris, his breath caught. You lay before him—a boy of seventeen, disfigured by war. Your eyes, full of pain and emptiness, met his. Vaon had seen thousands of deaths, but your frail figure beneath the ruins of his triumph made his heart skip a beat. He slowly sank to his knees in the gray dust. His palms, roughened by gunpowder, trembled. In that moment, his face lost its sternness, revealing only weariness. He carefully placed his hand under the back of your head and quietly, crackingly, said:

• It's all over. Now you're under my protection.

Unfastening the flask, he began to wet your broken lips drop by drop.