Ethan sat with his back against a shattered wall, knees pulled up, rifle across his lap.
Someone had shoved a glow stick into the dirt near them; its sickly green light barely cut through the smoke.
It made everyone look half-dead already.
No one was firing.
No one was advancing.
Somewhere ahead, the aliens were doing what they always did repositioning, recalculating, deciding how to kill them more efficiently.
Someone laughed softly.
It startled Ethan more than the explosions had.
"Jesus," a voice muttered. "That sound doesn't belong here."
The laughter stopped.
The man who'd laughed wiped his face with a trembling hand.
"Sorry," he said. "I just… I don't know why that came out."
Another soldier leaned against the wall beside Ethan.
Older.
Large beard.
One sleeve torn clean off, blood dried dark down his arm.
"Because if you don't laugh, you scream," the man said. "And if you scream, you don't stop."
He checked his magazine, then checked it again like the numbers might change.
"How long you been here?" the man asked Ethan.
Ethan thought about it. Tried to count. Failed.
"Since the first push," he said. "Feels like forever."
The man nodded. "Yeah. Same."
They sat in silence for a few seconds. In the distance, something exploded.
No one flinched.
A younger soldier crouched nearby, staring at the ground.
He kept rubbing his hands together, like he was cold even though the air was hot and thick.
"They told us this was a holding action," he said suddenly. "That we just had to hold until reinforcements arrived."
No one answered him.
He looked up, eyes red. "They said the line was strong."
The bearded man snorted quietly. "The line's made of people."
Another voice cut in from the shadows. "People run out."
That did it.
The younger soldier's shoulders started shaking.
He pressed his helmet against the wall like he was trying to disappear into it.
"My brother was with the 14th," he said, words tumbling out now. "They were two blocks over. I heard their comms go dead yesterday."
Ethan closed his eyes.
No one told the kid what he already knew.
"They said casualties were heavy," the kid went on. "Heavy. That's what they always say. But they don't say numbers anymore. You notice that?"
The bearded man nodded slowly. "Yeah. They stopped counting out loud."
A medic walked past them, boots squelching in the mud.
His hands were stained so dark they almost looked black.
He didn't stop.
Ethan watched him go.
"How many did you start with?" the bearded man asked.
Ethan swallowed. "Platoon?"
"Yeah."
"Thirty-two."
"And now?"
Ethan looked around. Counted faces. Counted gaps.
"…Six," he said.
The bearded man exhaled through his nose. "Company started with one-eighty. We're under forty now."
Someone else laughed again, sharper this time. "We're doing great."
No one smiled.
A woman nearby helmet off, hair plastered to her face with sweat and blood stared at the sky.
"They're not even trying to break through," she said quietly.
Ethan glanced at her. "What?"
"They could," she continued. "You see how they move. How they adapt. If they wanted to push hard, they'd push hard."
Her voice trembled, but she kept going.
"They're grinding us down. Slow. Methodical. Like they're… learning."
The younger soldier hugged himself tighter. "Why?"
No one answered at first.
Then the bearded man spoke again, voice flat. "Because they can."
A shell hit somewhere far enough away that it felt more like an earthquake than an explosion.
Dust sifted down from the ruined wall behind them.
A soldier across from Ethan stared at his hands.
"I shot a guy," he said. "Human. Earlier. Thought he was one of them."
Silence.
"He came out of the smoke," the soldier continued. "Armor was burned off. He was screaming. I didn't hear words. Just noise."
His voice cracked.
"I didn't even check."
No one told him it was okay.
Because it wasn't.
But no one blamed him either.
Another voice, barely audible: "We're all going to have something like that."
Someone muttered, "If we live."
The comm unit on the ground crackled weakly. Static. Half-words. A voice trying and failing to sound calm.
"—all units—hold current positions—evac behind you—repeat—hold—"
The transmission cut out.
The bearded man shook his head. "They keep saying 'hold.'"
Ethan stared at the ground, at the mud caked on his boots, at the blood he couldn't tell was his or someone else's.
"What happens when there's nothing left to hold with?" the younger soldier asked.
No one had an answer.
A scream cut through the quiet close, sudden, real. Then another.
The aliens were moving again.
Ethan stood slowly, every part of him protesting.
He tightened his grip on the rifle he'd scavenged, feeling how light it was, how temporary.
Around him, the others stood too.
Not because they believed.
Not because they wanted to.
Because there was nowhere else to go.
As they took their positions, the bearded man leaned close to Ethan.
"If you get out of this," he said, "don't let them turn it into a story."
Ethan looked at him.
"Tell it like it was," the man continued. "Tell them we didn't hold because we were brave."
A beam sliced through the wall above them, showering sparks.
The man met Ethan's eyes one last time.
"Tell them we held because everyone who tried to leave died faster."
Then he stepped forward into the smoke and raised his weapon.
Ethan followed.
The line was thinner now.
The dead were piling higher.
And the ground beneath them was running out of room.
Later at night.
Ethan crouched behind a half-collapsed storefront with seven others.
Seven.
He was pretty sure it had been fifteen less than an hour ago, but the numbers wouldn't stay still in his head.
Someone passed a canteen down the line.
"Two sips," the man said. "Don't be a hero."
Ethan took one. The water tasted like metal and ash.
"Luxury," someone muttered. "Back home they'd charge ten bucks for that."
A few people chuckled. It sounded wrong, but it happened anyway.
The bearded man Ethan still didn't know his name checked his watch, laughed quietly, then took it off and shoved it into his pocket.
"What?" Ethan asked.
"Watch says it's still yesterday," the man replied. "Figured it was broken."
Another soldier snorted. "Yesterday died here."