Memoirs of a Warrior

He eased into his chair, holding onto that lifeline — his cane. He absent-mindedly patted the head of the large black dog beside him. He breathed in and out, gasping like each breath was his last. They seemed unduly attached, almost ridiculously so, as the dog proceeded to curl up at the man’s feet.

Owning pets in the cities was out of fashion, but I had heard that people in the country still practiced it. This place certainly wasn’t the city, and I was continually surprised by almost everything. I could still hear the moaning, whistling wind in my ears, reminding me how hard it had been to get here.

I was among the privileged few to own a car. I was also the head reporter for a government news outlet. The government had taken over the news business, consolidating it into one outlet to reduce misinformation and attempts to frame our public leaders. The reporting job wasn’t what it once was, but it was still my life.

Even with a car, it had been a journey to find this isolated mountain cabin and this self-sufficient old man who the town below feared. He was the Grinch to the people below and a legend to the military.

I had a cup of cider he had given me when I’d first arrived, though by the look in his eyes. It seemed he would have preferred to toss me in the snow bank. The cabin was small and warm, with a fire crackling merrily. I glanced at the grate, thinking a fireplace instead of a furnace seemed absurdly inefficient. There was a thin carpet across the old wooden boards and a staircase dividing the two-roomed house that led to what he called a loft. Everywhere I looked, I couldn’t help but see wasted space.

Even so, I could almost sense the attraction of such a place, which probably led me to ask my first question.

“Why do you live up here?” The question surprised even me (I, being a reporter, make a meticulous analysis of every question I ask).

His eyes, such amazingly communicative orbs, told me he’d sooner not answer. He exhaled a breath loudly before saying, “Solitude.”

I quickly remembered to pull out my pocket recorder and place it on the table, lift my notepad to my lap, and read my pen. While doing this, I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Solitude? Why would you want that?”

“I remember when I was younger, huge swathes of land in all directions with not but a single house upon it.”

“That doesn’t sound very efficient,” I remarked. I had heard as much from my grandfather. Old people seemed to think they knew everything simply because they had been around before all the significant technological advancements of our current times. Most even refused to get anti-aging surgery, which, while it didn’t lengthen life by much, took away most of the symptoms of age.

“Efficiency!” he laughed, which quickly deteriorated into a spasmodic cough. I inched away in my chair. I had heard that these old guys refused to be vaccinated either. “Is that what matters most?”

“What else could be more crucial while serving a population of ten billion in one country?“

He coughed and traced the scar on the edge of his neck that went down underneath his collar. It was rather disturbing, yet when you looked straight at his care-worn face and didn’t see it, you could pretend he could be someone’s grandfather and not a grotesque monster.

He still didn’t answer me and just traced his scar some more. I tried to figure out what kind of scar it was and decided it was a burn mark, but a strange one. I was chiding myself for yet another unplanned question when he spoke. “I have lived a long time… Seen many things… It seems as if the memories of my youth belong to someone different…”

He looked like he had lived a long time indeed. However, that might just be because he hadn’t had anti-aging surgery. I would have to guess that he was eighty, though if he’d been through the surgery, I would’ve gone for a hundred.

I blinked a few times at this absurdity, cleared my throat, and began. “You fought in the Antarctic war, right?”

He blinked a few times as if what I had said was more absurd. ” No,” he said carefully and slightly unsure. I… did not.”

My jaw nearly dropped. I had climbed a mountain in an obscure peninsula to find a veteran who hadn’t even fought in the war I wanted to know about, “You didn’t fight in a war seventy-three years ago?”

“I did,” he conceded, “but it was called World War Three.”

Now, I was really getting frustrated with this old timer. Who did all these old people think they were? They knew almost nothing anyway, born into an age before proper education. I wanted to throw my hands into the air as I said, “They officially changed the name forty years ago! How can you call something a world war when they did all the fighting in Antarctica?!”

“Most of the fighting, but not all, say… You have a father, right?”

“Yes,” I said needled, “of course, I have a father!”

“Didn’t know if they’d started cooking up men in machines yet…” he muttered defensively. Then he became louder and more demanding, “So how old is he?”

“Forty-eight,” I said quickly. Wasn’t I supposed to be asking the questions?

“A kid, huh? What about your grandpa? I guess it is too much to assume you know your great-grandfather?”

“My grandfather is sixty-seven though he looks only fifty from the anti-age,” I added the last part as a jab because he was getting on my nerves, “my great grandfather is eighty-nine and just as annoying an ornery as you could imagine on his death bed but refuses advanced medicine.”

The old man chuckled, “So your great grandfather, he would have been sixteen when the war began. He probably doesn’t know much about it then. We’ll try to see the world from his eyes. The U.S. is only on one continent and calls itself the U.S.A. The whole world is at peace, but secretly, preparations are beginning. Countries are building giant war machines, all about a vein of strange ore.”

“Yes, yes,” I interrupted rudely, “we all know how the war began! Limited primitive technology caused a strain on the resources of…”

“Let me get this straight,” he said in bewilderment with a slight dash of annoyance, “You know absolutely nothing about the most important war in the history of humankind?”

“How could a war be important?” I asked. “All it is is a bunch of uncivilized people killing each other, no lasting monument or even much of an effect in the grand scheme of things. I’ll remind you we’ve done away with wars these days, and we’ve…

I tapered to a halt as he spun in his large cushioned chair. Reaching into a desk drawer, he pulled out a small box without a lid. He handed it to me and allowed me to feel the tiny, reflective black lens, which was probably more valuable than his entire house. Only the most intensive circumstances could have caused its formation.

It felt warm and pulsed with a faint life that was almost gone. It was atom glass, also known as Tetrasylic Dioxide or Sy4O2. It was one of those rare Corsite materials, containing an extra particle in addition to protons, neutrons, and electrons. Science was quick to define Corsite materials, of course, but it still couldn’t understand corons—the particles whose charge was neither negative, positive, nor neutral. Syicis was a prime example; it was a variant of silicon possessing 14 protons, 14 electrons, a varying number of neutrons, and two unique corons that contributed to its remarkable properties. It formed only under the kinds of pressure and heat found in a lab, although I’d heard rumors about bombs in the Antarctic War causing shards to form. I never believed those rumors. I mean, what kind of bomb could create those conditions?

“I have seen beaches of that glass…” he began, and I fell into a rapt silence of awe and wonder.

• • • • •

“I was a young and foolish child at twenty-one. The only thing I knew of war was the thrillers me and my college buddies would binge-watch on Friday nights. Of course, no nation wanted to reveal its military secrets for a good movie. What the government created behind the scenes made the tanks and planes in video games primitive in comparison.

“Huge transport submarines that could rise to the surface, unfold their wings and propellers, and lift into the air. Satellite cannons that could fire from space to disintegrate enemy troop ships. Monstrous things like massive moving army bases. Small things, like personal body armor for special ops, would render an ordinary bullet useless. And there were all types of biological weapons as well.

“Above all, there were the five destroyers, though they never were mass-produced after the test run. I call them the five calamities, for each was a marr in human history.

“Nowadays, our government is attempting to hide the real reason the war began, their greed, and instead focus on the ‘uncivilized nature of humanity’ seventy-three years ago.

“A researcher at McMurdo station was the first ever to record Corsite material. He discovered a large vein of it, leading down in a spiral in that entire area. While conservationists cried foul play, the whole area was strip-mined for the precious mineral Myonic Tetrachloride (MyCh3 myon being a magnesium atom with four corons). It was suspected and still is that something about the earth’s magnetic field caused the formation of corons. Myonic Tetrachloride could increase the body’s healing abilities and, with the proper chemicals added, could regrow limbs. This is how doctors use it today. Back then, generals and sergeants were only worried about creating mega-strong super soldiers.

“All of the other nations clambered for the U.S. to share, for the good of humanity, they claimed, it was the natural right of all humans to have this medicine (though they wanted it for weapon research). The U.S. refused, which led an Oceanic States mining team to dig elsewhere and discover a new vein of mineral Bintium Dicarbonate (BiC2 from Berillium with two corons). Bintium Dicarbonate could channel energy sent through it into a charged beam of light energy strong enough to solder steel or fire from a gun to cut right through a human, bones and all. Of course, the U.S. was all up in arms, demanding that the Oceanic States give up some, and then the Oceanic States refused. The U.S. eventually found its own Bintium, just like the Northern Coalition dredged up some Agorbis Sulfate at the North Pole. Everyone wanted more than they had, and through the greed of the nations, many men and women paid a price not worth an ounce of any Corsite material: death.

Sometime after 2030, different nations started joining together, generally pressured into it. By the time of the war, the major players were the Oceanic States, the Asian Alliance (most of southern Asia), the Northern Coalition all of northern Asia, the European States or ES, and of course us, the U.S.

“The war eventually began when the Asian Alliance invaded a mining station on ‘U.S. soil’ in Antarctica. Although they did so because they claimed the area officially beforehand, the U.S.’s attitude was pretty much “You snooze, you lose.” The other nations fell to fighting with each other within days.

“I was in one of the first transport submarines. We sailed right underneath a Northern Coalition fleet in combat with the Oceanic State’s ships, only to resurface at the shore and airdrop into McMurdo base (it officially had ceased to be a research station and instead became a military facility). The Asian Alliance troops came in waves up the hill as we dropped the ten feet to the ground and took up positions in the trenches; the last helicopter was shot out of the air by the Alliance’s well-placed artillery. I didn’t fire a single shot while I was there. They never meant me to. I later learned my rifle was a rusty joke. They were weeding us out, and the ones who survived got some of the limited supply of weapons as the ones who didn’t need any. See? No waste of weaponry was necessary.

“Don’t look so horrified. To the officers, it was a strategic move, nothing more. You of all people should understand! They seasoned us and figured out who was worth keeping. Nothing new there; this happens every day all over the world these days.

“Well, they had pinned us down, and it looked like McMurdo was going to be overrun for sheer numbers, not to mention tactical strategy. The U.S. had an advantage in weaponry and position, but that was heading to pot. Then, when it seemed the bleakest, the U.S. released the first of its secret weapons, the first of the five destroyers, the beginning of the Quinta calamities: The Renders.

“An enormous transport aircraft flew overhead, dropping huge metallic balls into the fray. They crashed and rolled through the ranks of friend and foe until they stopped and unrolled. The Renders were large humanoid robots with much longer arms than legs. They crawled on hands and knees. Their mouths were all teeth with no way to swallow. They smashed through the ranks of the infantry and picked up tanks to bite them in half. Artillery and helicopters did not avail them. In minutes, the renders were the only things left standing. The attackers were dead, and the rest of us were cowering in the ditches.

“It was a brutal war, yet only lasted eight years. In its course, it destroyed more than any other war, more than both other world wars combined before it. I fought with the other soldiers as very quickly those who had come into the fray with me died out; only twenty of us from that transport of 200 men survived the war, and only six that I know of are alive today. They promoted me for my luck in staying alive. I became quite the officer and made it into special operations. I fought with the fifth recon battalion in that much-romanticized attack on Saldor’s hill (they got some big-shot actor to be me in the movie, I believe). I accomplished many things in my career, and not many of them am I proud of…”

• • • • •

He gradually tapered off, likely realizing he had been reflecting on the past philosophically for quite some time. As he had spoken, I’d completely forgotten to ask questions or take notes. I had been lost in the story like some simpleton, good thing my pocket recorder was on.

It all was nonsense, though. I was always taught in school that the U.S.’s involvement in the war was minimal and near the end to promote peace. Of course, that had failed when the Northern Coalition blew the whole continent to kingdom come, destroying their government in the process. Because of that, they capitulated to the occupation and eventually statehood.

His story seemed incomplete somehow. I kept thinking back on those things he had called renders. Was it even possible? I wanted to know more. “And?”

He glanced up, scowling at my usual look of arrogance and superiority, “huh?”

“What happened?”

He laughed, “Do you really want to know? I didn’t think you would’ve been able to take much more disrespect to our ‘great nation.’

“There has to be more,” I cajoled.

“Well, even if I told you, it isn’t likely you’ll publish it, you being their own man and all.”

For some inexplicable reason, I wanted this foolish old man to think well of me, to realize I wasn’t one of the treacherous trundlers who would so easily give in to the government’s agenda. I wanted him to think I was different from other reporters and that they couldn’t push me around.

“Well, I still don’t know how the war ended!” That was a lie, but I wanted to hear his version of the burning of Antarctica.

He turned back to face the fire, breathing slowly and softly, rasping occasionally and pressing on his chest. I wondered if the scar continued down past the neck across the chest. Was his lungs damaged? His chair creaked, or maybe it was his bones, then he began in a soft lisp, “It was dark and cold… I guess Antarctica generally is, but it gets worse two thousand feet underwater.”

• • • • •

“At more than half a mile underwater, visibility is near zero. No human has ever gone that deep before. Even when they tested these new military diving suits, they used pressure chambers, not actual divers.

“Sargent Lewis, a friend of mine and another special op was with me as we carried our payload towards the shore, the second destroyer: The Stormer.

“The war had been going on for a year now with no side giving ground. More countries had joined in the war than the original four. Even the peace-loving ES got dragged in on the side of the Asian Alliance.

“None of these governments, though they proclaimed it in their propaganda, wanted peace. Even our own was motivated by greed. There was no distinction between the various governmental types. They all behaved the same, horribly.

“The Oceanic States finally had victory right within grasp. Their chemist had developed a heavier-than-air toxin to drop from the sky that would spread out across the ground, invisible and deadly, to destroy every military encampment. It wouldn’t disperse readily into the air. And would still kill anyone who got a whiff of it for at least a year. They had been recalling troops for weeks now. That is what allowed our spies to catch on to their plan. Now, the full force of the Oceanic States military was on shore ahead of us. Their constant patrolling of ships and planes made almost any kind of assault either a failure or an easy way to get tackled by another country once we finished. Our Renders had long gone out of fashion since their large forms and unique energy signatures made them a target for satellite cannons. So, instead, they delivered us to the site further down than submarines usually go and sent us out to swim up to the delivery point.

“The stormer was initially made to be a healthy alternative to the nuclear bomb. It could destroy cities without contamination. It worked by emitting large amounts of energy beneath itself to, in effect, trigger the force of an earthquake downwards into the sea, raising up an immense artificial tsunami wave larger than any real one.

“The two of us were equipped with Bintium rifles, ready to disintegrate anything that came at us, though ironically, there was nothing to fight the one time we were overly equipped. The stormer was rather heavy, a large black box covered in dials and controls. We swam upward toward the continental shelf and placed it among the rocks. I set the controls, and we prepared to leave for the Rendivaze point.

“Once we got to the submarine, we should have had three minutes to spare, but an enemy ship picked us up on the radar. They were probably confused by how two life signs were that far underwater, but we managed to maneuver away from them and out to sea. In two minutes, we arrived at the pick-up, only to discover that the submarine was not there.

“The command knew it was almost impossible to think the device could go unnoticed for that long. As we arrived, the Oceanic States dispatched more ships to search the area where we had been. The researchers had set the device to go off as soon as we started the non-existent timer, and only now had it finally built up the energy required.

“We headed for the open sea, swimming as fast as possible, but I knew it was too late. They had lied and attempted to kill me for the sake of their victory. As the wave surged upward toward the sky from right beneath us, I was just barely far enough to be sucked downwards in a draft and spun out to sea. Lewis was caught on the crest of the wave and flung forward, dashed to pieces on the shore.

“I was found some days later, floating in the water, nearly dead. They never admitted to trying to kill me, they congratulated me on my success, and never once gave any notion that they wouldn’t do it again. I’ve heard stories of men who’d gone against impossible odds to serve their country. In the march on Saldor’s hill, we swore to fight to the end, though it had been considered a lost cause to rescue everyone up there. Something seems different to me about choosing to go into danger to save lives and the lies they told.

“I rose higher in the ranks for the stormer mission and other acts of horror. Until I was a captain in charge of a whole squadron of men.”

• • • • •

I glanced down at my cup, cold cider inside, and then I looked up at his animated face, “That’s war…” I said carefully, trying not to offend him, though I wasn’t sure what about my attitude towards him had changed to that effect. I was unsure what he was upset about. Being a military man, he’d probably seen plenty of death.

He scoffed, “You think I don’t know the difference? I would fight tooth and nail until the end to defend our country or take down an evil leadership, but I am sick to my stomach over wars of greed. What kind of warfare results in a continent that is still burning? What kind of warfare is just a meat grinder taking lives in?”

He sighed long and quietly, then wheezed a bit. Maybe he would be done talking, “I wasn’t involved with releasing the plague. It was a bad idea to start with. While yes, those idiots in charge managed to think of making a vaccine for it first. The thing spread too fast and started to infect the unvaccinated, not to mention the vaccine was hastily put together and sometimes didn’t work until they finally managed to perfect it. In the end, the third destroyer killed more of our men than it did our enemies. They might have been a little touchy over my remarks about the stormer. Either way, when it came time for the hunters to be released, I was the top commander in charge of the operation.

• • • • •

“The war was getting desperate. We had the technological advancements necessary to win. However, we were far outnumbered in manpower. When we destroyed Oceanic States’s garrison, we knocked them out of the running. And the Asian Alliance, Northern Coalition, and the ES joined forces against us, suspending all the infighting that had given us an advantage. Things started to look grim, and so the hunters were born.

“They were horrifying abominations, nearly hairless, slimy greenish-black skin and long lizard-like snouts. Biological warfare had reached a new extreme. These were lab-born monsters, bred for one purpose: to kill.

“I strode through our small camp, glancing now and then at the shimmering sky above that denoted our dome shield. The dome shield created a scrambling frequency around us to avoid anyone being able to detect us from space or lock on a target with their space cannons; such innovations had rendered the satellite lasers useless early on in the war.

“There were rows and rows of cages full of man-sized slimy lizard creatures. They screeched quietly in the backs of their throats, a weird ‘pre-hunting call’ that no one had taught them, yet they all knew. They had small chips implanted in their brains that could cause them to go into a coma if they got too near an American soldier. Their arms were stunted and short, with longer legs to make up for it and a long, thick lizard’s tail.

“I gave the command, then blew that blast on the whistle as hundreds of hungry monsters rushed into the valley below. The garrison of Asian Alliance and ES soldiers was below, in numbers almost twice as large as our own. Their position made assaulting the ground a tenuous and unlikely-to-succeed venture. Our tanks and heavy artillery weren’t helpful, but we did have transport helicopters.

“The hunters rushed into the valley below, screeching and screaming their hunger and furry. The soldiers never stood a chance. How can you beat an enemy that doesn’t know the odds against it? That can’t feel pain or injury? A beast driven only by a desire to kill?

“We landed by helicopter later and shut down all the hunters, calmly packing them up into cages, noting that only two hundred or so were dead and several more slightly injured. We packed them up like dogs after a good day’s work, like all was well in the world. I have become callous to many things in my life, but one thing I will never forget is the mass of gore around me.  Arms and other appendages littered the ground; most of the men were still half alive, groaning in agony. Others were long dead, rapid bite marks all over their skin. It wasn’t supposed to be a victory. It was a message to the others: don’t mess with us lightly. We abandoned the base later, taking all of the supplies. We left the mess for other countries to find and clean up as if the whole issue weren’t our fault.

“To this day, leaders everywhere are doing that. It seems like the whole world has gone… Just… bad. Everyone plays by technicalities. When everyone knows their intentions, just like we didn’t technically horribly kill all those troops. Just like how technically that nation (I forget its name) didn’t attack the place just north of some sea last week. Because they only helped some rebels and supported them the whole time.”

• • • • •

When he stopped talking, I set down my notepad and got unsteadily to my feet. I nodded a good night to the man and thanked him for his story. I wanted to thank him somehow, to show him that I respected him and everything he had done. Then again, he didn’t seem too happy about his accomplishments. How do you congratulate someone on something they are ashamed of?

I zipped up my coat and adjusted my hat. It was going to be a long drive, even without the storm. As I walked towards the door, I glanced back, wanting to ask one more question but not daring. It seemed like something had changed. In his stories, he followed instructions and kept his views to himself. However, now he appeared to be outspoken against the government.

I decided not to ask and went to open the door, but then he said something. “The Hell Blaze.”

“What?” I asked.

His eyes were glazed over as if he didn’t see me, lost in a reflection he never meant to share, “It was ill-fated from the beginning. Perhaps it was our disregard for human life that defeated us. We made some un-strategic moves and backed ourselves into a corner. Only one thing was left, the Hell Blaze…”

• • • • •

“Fifteen million men. We finally fell to the odds against us.

“The ES decided suddenly to be neutral after their soldiers found the dismembered bodies of the hunter’s prey, and a few dead hunters too, still just barely alive. After we pressured them, we guaranteed the information wouldn’t leak out. No one knew what might have happened if we had publicly revealed our butchery. The ES was already concerned that their citizens would demand war if they found out what we had done. Their corrupt leaders wanted peace with our corrupt leaders. Like many governments that kept our secrets, they were eager to share in the victory.

“The Northern Coalition and we were the only ones left in the war, clashing like two stubborn bulldogs until they called up 15 million soldiers and sent them all off to fight. Our Renders and Plague had been counteracted, and our stormers only worked on the seaboard. Our hunters were helping, but their numbers thinned, and they couldn’t be put together in a factory: they took time. Our technological edge on simple weapons such as our Bintium rifles and our laser-shielded tanks did stop us from being instantly overwhelmed.

“They pressed forward, forcing our hand, and the government prepared the Hell Blaze.

“With the institution of all types of electron shields in space, cannons weren’t much in use, but as the Northern Coalition troops rushed past McMurdo, conquering mining stations and destroying bases, the Hell Borne was under-constructed in space. It was so large that even if it could’ve taken off into space, it would’ve been impossible to miss, so they put it together with robots and astronauts in the highest reaches of satellite space.

“The idea was born out of some notes from a researcher who recorded the strange fact that a fire started with Nethtain (a Nitrogen atom with four corons) would burn on any Corsite material with a hot steady blaze for weeks. The plan was to fire this mega cannon straight into a seam of Myonic Tetrachloride and start a chain reaction that would cause the whole continent to combust in flames, with temperatures reaching more than 200 degrees Celsius for weeks. The problem was that the blast would have to be strong enough to penetrate 25 feet of rock and hit the target point. The Hell Borne had no problem with that once it was ready.

”I was a commander at the time (the youngest yet), and they offered me and other high-ups the chance to escape on a transport a day beforehand. I was the only one who refused. I wanted to help everyone get on transports. They called me a fool and left me to my fate. The government was willing to sacrifice a million lives of our servicemen to destroy the Northern Coalition once and for all, with the bonus of getting to invade their continent.

“When there was one hour left until it fired, the command came to load up everyone and leave. The commanders knew it wouldn’t be enough time to save them all. I stayed behind, giving orders on where to stack supplies and pitch tents, and called for retreats, waiting and being ready for that one-hour window in which I had to help everyone escape.

“When the hour came, I requested more ships and helicopters to help the retreat, but none came. I organized them to move them out, which egged the Northern Coalition on. They moved in and cut off any ability they might have had to retreat. Only half of our men escaped, and a third of the ships that did leave were caught in the blast zone and sunk, though some of the men on board escaped, and even a few on land survived like me.

“I was rescued by five privates left to die. They were young recruits, maybe sixteen or seventeen, not that I was much older at 29. They saved me in a small outboard after dousing me with water and concluding I was still alive. They nearly died for this act of mercy, as the fires were only worsening. I told them to leave without me, but life was of too great a value to them. A month later, I returned to the U.S. after a transport ship picked us up off the coast of the American Occupied Oceanic Territories (A.O.O.T.).

“Around that time, I learned of the Kamacatcha invasion and the Oceanic States capitulation. It covered up the invasion part, as was most of the war, and most people think the Northern Coalition started the fire that still burns in Antarctica today, apparently they still don’t know what caused the fires to get so out of control from their original one-week plan. So now know one gets any Corsite materials and thousands of wasted lives are gone.

“I wouldn’t forget though, I attempted to share my story as did many, but because of that and other governments trying to rile people up by sharing stories of the hunters and the plague, the government consolidated all news programs into the Gov. news outlet.

“They silenced me and cut me off, kicked me out of civilization. Denied the right to change anything, and so I will die here moldering away. Sometimes I think to myself, could it be true, what I remember, but I have the burns to prove it. And like all Corsite burns, it always pulses with a dull heat reminding me of what I have been through, telling me never to forget.”

• • • • •

I stood there in reflection, thinking of all the times I’d heard rumors of brutal punishments for rebels or the supposed slave labor used in military factories. I had dutifully turned my eyes the other way each time, “In one sense,” I said tentatively, “at least it ended well, not that that justifies the means though.”

“Ended well?” he asked in contempt, “we can lengthen life and heal all injuries, yet that is only for the elite. Our cities are swamped by crime, and our leaders are more corrupt than ever. We claim to be a rich country, yet almost no one can afford a car. Our government went through a change in that war. We lost what was left of our good leaders. Our system was never the problem. No government system ever is. It all boils down to leadership. Everything that can be wrong is wrong. No, it did not end well, but it’s a good thing this isn’t the end.”

I couldn’t help but feel depressed, “well, what do we do? There is no changing anything.”

“Just like those boys who rescued me, everyone can make a choice,” He muttered softly, “and every change began with one man… and a choice.”

I stood up and thanked him, walking towards my car, thinking solemnly of what he said. I remembered that story that my great-grandfather told me once. I hadn’t paid much attention, but he said he remembered when the fires were first lit and told, as I mostly ignored him, the exciting tale of his escape and rescue of his commander, which had nearly cost him his life.

“All change,” I said to myself, “begins with one man… and a choice.”