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English Chronicles 2025 26printed 92 · PDF 98
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printed 92 · PDF 98
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92
The Revolutionaries
The revolutionaries advanced, a wave that had lost its way back out. No
nobility in their battle. Only need. Only pain. The scythe did not sing. It
screamed. The blade did not shine. It stumbled. It caught on. It stuck in
flesh that fell not like an enemy but like a neighbor. One girl, little more
than skeleton, cut through a line of soldiers with a butcher's stroke. Her
eyes were blank, her mouth set in a mixture of a grimace and a prayer. A
boy, still round-faced with innocence, plunged a piece of glass into a
chest and stood, wide-eyed, waiting for someone to tell him what to do
next.
No one did.
They declared this a revolution. But it was a confession instead. Each
splash of blood was a secret finally told. Each scream was a guilt revealed.
They battled, yes, but not for tomorrow. They battled to punish
yesterday. Not for freedom, but because no one had shown them how to
mourn.
The city burned. Of course it did. That is how all myths are fed, on
flame, on flesh, on the backs of those who never had the luxury of
choosing anything else.
A man stumbled over the shattered cobblestones, his body already
disintegrating. He grasped a flag, dirty and frayed, its emblem smeared.
With a howl that was almost a bellow, he thrust it into the earth. He died,
as they would all die, with the delusion of victory gripped to his breast
like a child's final picture. The rest crowded around. They yelled to the
skies, but they would not hear them. They said it was victory, for to say it
was loss would shatter them.
AC Chronicles