Teardrops

24.2.25

I took in the bliss of the trees, the untouched bastion of nature. I wandered without cause or purpose. I existed for the sake of existing. The feeling of tree bark on my hands brought back such memories of times I knew I should never again come to know. But my memories were at peace. I was at peace. In the moment.

I walked from tree to tree, listening to the rustling of their leaves. The lowering sun cast everything in brilliant hues of gold and orange. From my vantage point, I could see the surrounding mountains, made yet more beautiful by the framing of the trees. The breeze carried soft scents of greenery. What it was did not matter. I smiled to myself, my worries safely tucked away. I missed only rain. Otherwise, in that moment, I had not a care in the world.

The deafening roar of an orbital blast cast my bliss aside. I threw myself to the ground before the largest nearby tree, ducking and cowering at its roots. The shockwave came in due time, the tormentous ringing with it. For an entire minute, the earth shook around me. When at last the residual blast of air came, I stood up and observed the damage.

The tree trunks stood firmly as ever, but gone were their leaves. In the distance, I heard the falling chunks of mountain crash, one by one, below. With a sigh, I returned to the path. I had wanted only a moment of peace and solitude: only one moment to simply exist with myself and put my mind to rest. It was only fate — earth’s righteous mockery — that this would be the next strike’s moment. My walk back was anything but peaceful.

The encampment’s shield stood strong. The dotted trees appeared intact. Scattered scorch marks were the only sign of war so deep into the valley. At the gate stood Amara, an expression of clear fear and anger on her face.

“What in the world have you gotten yourself into?” she asked me angrily. “Why go off on your own like that, without even telling anyone? Do you know how worried you made all of us?”

With a grimace, I simply shook my head, looking into her fiery eyes. Her fire extinguished. She understood everything I wanted to say without the need for a single word. We stood and looked at each other for a few seconds before her eyes began to water. She quickly turned away and walked off. My heart was already too heavy to feel anything more from her expression of grief.

I walked on to the canteen to take my meal for the evening. From the thin walls of the makeshift buildings came feeble and desperate voices. I overheard talk of eastern strikes, western advancements, unhindered flights overhead. Whatever faces I saw were either stern and focused or sad and forlorn. A wailing infant was the only sign of hope.

I ate in silence, as did the few others who came through. My thoughts occupied my focus, the world around me may as well have not existed. The image of the forest, the few moments of peace I was allowed to experience. I tried to hold onto them — to will myself to never let them go. To see so many trees together was such a rare luxury. The cruel irony of the attack’s timing hurt more than the loss of the forest itself. It made me wonder, too much, about why all this was necessary. Even the war was meaningless to me. I didn’t care who would win or lose. All I wanted was peace. Not the absence of conflict, rather that short-lived moment of solitude where all was well in my world.

The thought of how unfair life should be was churning away in my mind when I heard my name being called. “Ayel!” she said firmly, pounding the table with her fist. Reality flooded back as I found myself sitting across from Amara. “What?” I asked her. I noticed my plate was empty. I had no idea how long I had been sitting there.

“We’re going scouting tomorrow at midday. We need to investigate the blast’s damage and check on the southern camp. You can either come with us, or Deir was asking if you could work in the shop to repair some scavenged disks.”

“I can take care of the disks,” I said after a pause. Some solitude sounded nice.

Amara looked at me, neither of us saying anything. “Are you alright?” she finally asked.

“Yes,” I answered. 

“Are you sure?”

For a moment, I thought about telling her the truth. But I didn’t see how it would accomplish anything other than adding more unnecessary emotion to our predicament. “Yes,” I responded. Amara sighed and stood up. She gave me a concerned glance before leaving. I sat a short while longer before standing up myself and preparing for the night.

The following morning, I reported directly to Deir in his workshop. The scouting party left early; I knew I would have plenty of time to myself which gave me quite the plan. After a short conversation about what we were doing with the disks, I asked Deir if I could take them and the tools back to my structure. He asked why I didn’t want to just stay here, and I told him that it was a good distraction: that I would work late and whenever else I had free time, so there was no point in being constrained by having him around for the workshop. He didn’t seem entirely convinced, but allowed me anyway.

Upon returning home, I packed everything into bags and immediately snuck back to the path I had taken the day before. Traversing the sandy ground was arduous and tiring with the added weight, but I knew exactly what I wanted to do. For two hours, I struggled up the side of the valley until I finally saw the treetops poking out over the following ridge. Seeing them without leaves evoked a tinge of sadness.

At last, I sat down in the middle of what was only recently a forest. The view of the distant mountains brought mixed emotions: a jagged line of gray rock where a mountain once stood marked the orbital strike’s resting place. The thought of what its purpose was evoked further sadness. Perhaps it was another group of stragglers, exactly the same as us, I wondered. Perhaps it was to instill fear in any survivors, there is always at least one strike each month. Or, perhaps it was simply a test. We could never know. We could never leave the valley.

Ultimately, I did find a sense of stillness and peace as I worked on the disks, sitting between tree trunks, looking out on the world so far away. My hands worked while my mind wandered. I tried to imagine everything I saw as it once was: green and full of life. I imagined the sandy rock instead as being loamy soil covered in grass with bushes and flowers growing all around. I imagined the depressions and ridges as being filled with running water. I imagined the clear blue sky as being full of the abstract shapes of clouds, sometimes bringing with them rain. I worked, and I imagined, until the sun began to set.

I packed everything away and stood up when the ground beneath me began to shake. Instinctively, I threw the bag aside and cowered at the base of the nearest tree. When it ended, I stood up, forgetting about the coming blast of air which threw me straight back to the ground without mercy. When I was able to stand again, I grabbed my bags and ran back to the encampment.

My heart skipped a beat upon returning: the shield was down. Wherever this blast had landed, it was close enough to affect us. A handful of structures had fallen over. I saw a number of wounded being moved around and cared for. I ran back to my home which was still empty. I dropped the bags and continued running from place to place in search of Amara.

“Ayel,” came a voice behind me, “if you’re looking for her, the scouts haven’t returned yet.”

I turned to see Taya carrying a tank of drinking water towards the infirmary. “Where was the strike?” I asked her.

“Nobody is certain yet,” she said, “somewhere farther south or east... Where the scouts went.”

I followed her, without another word, to the infirmary. Of course, as she had said, no scouts were there. I returned home and worked on the disks for two more days, leaving only for food and water. When I finished, I delivered my work to Deir, collecting more disks. Again, I worked on them without pause. How much is enough? was the only remaining thought in my mind.

It took many more days before I wept.