Swan Song for a Soldat: The Youngest Child

Brandon barely managed to open his eyes, hazel met the fleeting slivers of the blue dawn sky through the tree canopy. His mind was foggy, his head heavy with only vague bits and pieces of the day's recent events bouncing around his brain. Pools of red, broken bones, the screams of a different kind of war, the end of an old life and the beginning of a new one; just out of reach and comprehension. Betrayal.

The vet staggered along an uneven dirt path deeper and deeper into the woods, blond hair matted to his forehead with dried blood and sweat. His only guide on this tour was the two figures in front of him, they ignored him, the ones who caused all of this. Why? Why? Why? He wanted answers damn it, he wanted… to be near them. They made the fog clearer. But why? They were the reason for it, the cause, the solution. The only thing he left behind him, aside from the carnage, was his own blood which was flowing far too quickly for his liking. At this rate he’ll never reach them, he’ll die without knowing them. Without knowing Her; the soft whispering voice in its full song. The whispers had only started up when he’d managed to haul his broken body from the forest floor and began to follow them. He had intended to fight to the end, pure stubbornness driving him, but then the voice began and he wanted more.

His brother and fiancée had suggested the fatal camping trip, a quiet retreat to nature away from the noise of the city and the overwhelming flood of faces. They were even planning a little exploration trip to the nearby abandoned forest preserve building, urban exploring was a pastime his brother had always enjoyed. He needed a break from it all, he had been back home for nearly a year but it was just too much. Three others came with them, none of them his personal friends, a mix of people his brother and fiancée knew. His brother… his fiancée… thinking of them brought a searing heat to Brandon’s body the kind that made his blood boil and bile rise to the back of his throat. His mind finally began to clear.

He was born and raised to French creole parents just outside New Orleans in Louisiana. The older brother was lazy and without direction so he was given up on as soon as the next son was born, free to do as he pleases while the younger one has all of his parents’ dreams and expectations piled onto him. A family full of military dogs. He gave up on having dreams and ambitions of his own; played the good boy and did what was expected of him, left for his deployment, came home and found a good girl, got engaged, left for more deployment and came home fucked up and embittered. Honorably discharged due to mental decline. Riddled with PTSD and unable to stand the touch of another person, left to piece his broken mind back together. It lead to a cliche tale as old as time; his brother had been screwing his fiancée the entire time he was gone. The baby wasn’t his… The friends that came along knew and were there to mediate when they told him the truth or were they even going to tell him at all? He doesn’t know and he doesn’t care. Not anymore.

They were the only honest ones, the masked ones that he had been following. They had been behind all of the strange happenings over the course of the previous day and night, the noises, things moving, strange figures in the corner of the eye. It had been driving them all crazy and had them at each other’s throats the whole time, just as the masked guys had planned all along. The one in black had videotapes, he seemed to have taken them during their camping trip, conversations those backstabbers had and the little rendezvous’ they had behind his back. The tapes were scattered around the abandoned building complex, they even left an old lavender-colored camcorder to watch the tapes on. They were meant for him. The more he watched the angrier he got and the angrier he got the more clouded Brandon’s mind became. He blacked out after watching the last tape and awoke covered in blood that wasn’t his with the two masked ones standing over him, he lunged at them on instinct with the little energy he had left and was met with a barrage of knife wounds from the smiley one while the one in black kicked him in all the right weak points. He was left a broken and bloody mess, left to either die or be found and take the blame for their little game. Brandon didn’t know how he survived but he did, he always did.

As I continue to follow them I see them tilt their heads ever so slightly in my direction and whisper amongst themselves. I feel my knees give out and once again I collapse to the forest floor. I strain to lift my head as I hear footsteps coming toward me, this is it they’re going to finish me, but at least they’ll be near me again. As I’m on the edge of passing out the masked ones stop in front of me, one on either side, they lean down and grab underneath each of my arms lifting me as best they can. I suddenly feel warm and content, am I smiling? Why? Why them? Who are they? 

As they begin to drag me, with what little consciousness I have left, far off in front of me and in the direction they’re taking me is a dark figure beckoning with the sweetest voice. She was tall and regal, with long hair like blackened spider silk. She whispered about brothers in arms and who she was; Mother. My last thought was this must be what it’s like to hear a swan song.