The Fire Before the Fall
Author’s note: Today’s two Tuesday stories are designed to be read together, in the order published. This is story two of two. If you haven’t seen it yet, go back and enjoy “The Long Way Home” first. Enjoy!
Chapter One: The Killing Season
The sand burns like fire beneath my boots.
Somewhere in the distance, a mortar round whistles through the air, then—boom—it slams into the earth, shaking the ground, sending a plume of dust and heat into the sky.
My pulse doesn’t spike. I don’t flinch.
This is just another day. Another battle in a war that started long before I ever set foot in this place.
“Odell, move your ass!”
Jack’s voice crackles through my radio.
I tighten my grip on my rifle and push forward, moving through the ruins of what used to be a village. The heat ripples against my skin, sweat soaking through my uniform. The smell of burned flesh and diesel fuel thickens the air.
Bodies litter the ground—some of them ours, some of them theirs.
The difference stopped mattering a long time ago.
Chapter Two: The President’s War
“We won’t be here long. Just long enough to complete the mission.”
That’s what we all said at the beginning. That’s what we told ourselves when we were still young and stupid enough to believe in our own superiority and the vision of our so-called “leaders.”
The brass called it a “stabilization effort.”
Bullshit.
This war wasn’t about stability. It wasn’t about peace. It was about ego. About the men who sat in air-conditioned offices playing god with our lives.
Colonel McNally— like Agamemnon from Homer’s Iliad—didn’t give a flying fuck about any of us. All he cared about was glory, about medals on his chest and promotions on his desk. We were just pieces on a chessboard to him— if the chess board were just pawns!
And we were stupid enough to let him just move us.
This war started with the ego of a president and continues to be fueled by egos like McNally’s— a man-child who is still clearly fighting too hard to make his father love him. Or maybe it’s his mother. Hell I don’t know. I don’t care either: This mother fucker is gonna get us all killed!
“Odell, listen up.”
I look up from my cot. Jack is standing over me, arms crossed. His radio—his brick—hangs from his belt, patched up with duct tape and sweat-stains.
“We’re going out again,” he says. “Command’s pushing us east. More insurgents in the hills.”
I exhale. “Of course we are.”
Jack shrugs, trying to play it off. But I see the tension in his jaw, the way his fingers curl into fists at his side. He doesn’t believe in this fight any more than I do.
But we go anyway.
Because that’s what soldiers do. Fuck!
Chapter Three: The Blood Price
The convoy moves at a crawl.
I sit in the lead truck, rifle across my lap, eyes scanning the horizon. The heat distorts everything—the roads, the buildings, the sky itself. The whole world looks like it’s on fire.
Jack’s voice crackles through the radio.
“Stay sharp, Odell. I don’t like this.”
Neither do I.
The village is too quiet. Too still.
Then—
A flash. A roar. A wall of heat and fire.
The IED tears through the lead Humvee like a goddamn paper bag, throwing me from my seat, slamming me into the burning sand. The impact knocks the air from my lungs. My ears ring.
Smoke. Blood. Screams.
I try to push myself up, but my head is spinning, my vision blurred.
And then I hear it—
Jack.
“Odell, stay with me, man!”
I see him moving through the smoke, dragging me toward cover, his rifle still slung across his back. The side of his face is burned, his hands slick with blood—mine, maybe his, maybe both.
The ambush comes fast. Gunfire erupts from the rooftops, bullets slamming into the dirt, the metal, the bodies.
Jack fires back, dragging me behind the wreckage.
I reach for my weapon, but my fingers are slick with sweat and blood. My grip slips.
“Fuck,” I whisper.
Jack’s voice is tight, breathless. “Stay down.”
And then—
Another explosion.
The world disappears.
Chapter Four: The Wrath of Odell
I wake up in the wreckage.
The sky is dark, and the smell of burning hair is thick in my nose.
Jack is gone.
My hands tremble as I pull myself from the rubble, staggering forward. My legs feel like dead weight. My ears still ring.
I step over bodies. I don’t know if they’re mine or theirs.
Then I see him.
Jack.
Face-down in the dirt, his radio still clipped to his belt. His fucking brick.
The blood is everywhere. His chest—torn open. His arms—motionless. His fingers—still curled around his rifle.
Something inside me snaps.
I don’t feel the exhaustion anymore. I don’t feel the heat.
I only feel rage.
I grab my rifle and move through the ruins, my vision red, sharp, narrowed.
I find them—the ones who did this. The ones who ran when they thought we were all dead. I find their wives. Their children. Their elderly.
They don’t get to run.
I shoot.
I don’t stop.
One after another, I drop them where they stand. I don’t think. I don’t hesitate. I don’t let them beg.
This isn’t war anymore.
This is vengeance.
Chapter Five: The Fire Before the Fall
By the time the sun rises, I’m covered in blood.
Some of it mine. Most of it not.
I stagger back to the outpost, my uniform torn, my hands shaking.
The others look at me like I’m something else now. Something monstrous.
McNally tells me good work.
I almost laugh.
Good work?
Jack is dead. My squad is dead. I killed sixteen people today in cold blood—Men. Women. Children. Old people. And this motherfucker thinks it’s good work? Fuck him. Fuck me. Oh God! What have I done?
I stare at him, my jaw tight, my fingers curling into fists.
If I had any sense, I’d put a bullet in his skull, too.
But I don’t.
Because I’m not Achilles from some ancient poem. I’m just a common soldier in an all too common war that feels like it will never end.
I think of my wife—Penny. Will I ever go home to her? When I do will I be able to look her in the eye? I promised her “until death do we part,” but I feel dead inside already. Will she see that? What would she say if she knew what I did today?
We all die in the end—I know. And today was their day. But I wasn’t a soldier today. I was a friend taking vengeance. Should I even accept the medals they offer? Why did I even come here?
Epilogue: The Last Ashes
They send Jack home in a box.
I don’t go to the funeral.
I sit in my tent, staring at his radio, turning it over in my hands.
It’s cracked now. Useless.
But I keep it anyway.
I don’t know why exactly, but I do. Maybe it is because in the end, we all leave something behind. Or maybe because my friend died today for something stupid and I don’t know how I can ever let go. I miss him already.
And sometimes, maybe the fact that people miss us when we’re gone is the only thing of any value that proves we were ever here at all.
I have no words.....