I woke up.
That alone felt like a mistake.
My body rose from the bed before my mind could object, muscles moving out of habit rather than will. There was no desire to live waiting for me in the morning. No hope. No purpose. Just momentum—like a corpse still walking because it hadn't realized it was dead yet.
I kept moving.
Not because I wanted to.
Because stopping meant thinking.
The floor was cold beneath my feet. The room smelled faintly of damp concrete and antiseptic, the kind of smell that clings to places where pain is common and privacy is rare. I stripped out of my clothes and stepped under the shower.
The water hit my skin like punishment.
I didn't flinch.
It ran red at first, washing away dried blood and dirt, carrying pieces of yesterday down the drain. I stood there longer than necessary, longer than sensible, letting the water beat against me as if it could carve something human back into my flesh.
When I finally looked into the mirror, I almost looked away.
My body was ruined.
Scars overlapped scars—old bullet wounds, shrapnel marks, burns that never healed properly. Purple bruises bloomed across my ribs and arms like rotten flowers. Some injuries were fresh, still angry and swollen. Others had faded into pale reminders of battles I barely remembered.
I traced one scar slowly.
"I'm still standing," I whispered.
The reflection didn't look convinced.
Yet somehow… I kept walking.
The world had ended.
Not dramatically. Not all at once.
It just… collapsed inward.
A few people still lived well—army generals, rich politicians, men who spoke about sacrifice from rooms untouched by war. Some escaped into jungles and forgotten lands, choosing animals over armies, hunger over bullets.
The rest of us?
We were trapped.
Food storage rationed down to crumbs.
Water guarded like gold.
No income. No stability. No future.
Families starved together, pretending not to notice the hunger in each other's eyes. Parents wondered how to protect children in a world where protection no longer existed. People didn't die only from bombs or bullets anymore.
They died from stress.
From despair.
From waking up every day knowing tomorrow would be worse.
Everyone was fighting something.
And everyone was losing.
I was born in India.
A simple life. A simple beginning.
No grand destiny. No childhood dreams of glory or power. I didn't want to conquer the world. I didn't want to be remembered by history.
I just wanted a normal life.
I was sixteen when the war started.
Sixteen.
Old enough to understand fear.
Too young to process what it took from me.
I saw too much, too fast.
Love that didn't survive the chaos.
Betrayals committed in the name of survival.
Deaths stacked so high I stopped remembering faces.
At some point, names disappeared too.
Only screams remained.
Sometimes I wonder if that's when I truly died—not on a battlefield, not under fire—but quietly, somewhere between watching the world burn and realizing no one was coming to save us.
Today, we move again.
Another location. Another front. Another place already occupied by Chinese forces. Orders came without explanation, as they always did.
"Prepare to deploy."
No reason.
No strategy shared.
Just obedience.
I packed my gear mechanically, fingers moving with the precision of someone who'd done this too many times. My rifle felt heavier than usual. Or maybe I was weaker.
As the transport vehicle rumbled to life, I stared out at the ruined horizon. Broken buildings cut the skyline like rotting teeth. Smoke rose endlessly, staining the clouds a permanent grey.
"Let's see what happens," I muttered.
Not hope.
Not fear.
Just acceptance.
Because in this world, tomorrow didn't belong to the brave or the good.
It belonged to whoever survived one more day.
And I didn't know how many days I had left.