Under the Starry Sky

Nikolai’s mother and fiancée were murdered by insurrectionists in retribution for Nikolai’s own killings.  After he visited his fiancée’s funeral, Nikolai
decided to cope with alcohol. He found himself collapsed in a ditch, drunk,
with a bottle of bourbon in one hand and his fiancée’s engagement ring in the
other.
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Bleak, blue eyes scanned the misty horizon in perfect
moonlight for answers. A shiftless fog hung over the slowly dying fields and
the rolling hills. The moon was full and it shown brightly over the fruited
hills next to a sky full of twinkling stars. The moonlight creeped through the
fog, giving it an eerie glean over the whole valley.
High above the dense fog rested an ancient steep, towered
over the valley and the crumbled highway below. It was here that the drunken
set of eyes were focused on a distant, lonely set of headlights making their
way down the moonlit mountain towards the misty valley below.  
 On the edge of that
aged highway laid Nikolai. Wearing a tuxedo and black shoes from his fiancée’s
funeral, he sported jet black hair and lonely, blue eyes. He took out his fiancée’s
engagement ring and tears streamed from his face as he read the handcrafted inscription
on the underside.  It was Latin for “My
whole world begins and ends with you.” The distant headlights got closer with
every jerking tear and every stinging sip of bourbon.
The farther the tears went down his wet cheeks the darker
and more terrifying his thoughts grew. Nikolai pondered his bleak future and decided that it was doomed to failure and took action. Slowly
and dizzily he stood up and stumbled into the center of the nearly vacant highway.
The wanderer held out both of his arms to his sides and prepared to die as the headlights
grew brighter through the low-visibility fog. 
The driver didn’t see the drunkard till it was too late. The
man in the middle of the road was dressed in black and the moonlight barely made
it through the thick fog. When he did see Nikolai he gasped, slammed on the
brakes and swerved, nearly running off the highway. 
His heart was still thundering when the Mongoose came to a halt.
He took a brief moment to catch his breath, analyzing what just happened, and
then jumped out of his warthog and scurried towards the man, who was lying down
on his back.  
The Driver called out, “Are you ok?” The body lay motionless
for a few moments.
Nikolai answered weakly, “My legs hurt like hell.”
The Driver exhaled heavily and then asked curiously “I’m
sorry I didn’t swerve in time.  Why were
you standing in the middle of the road?”
Nikolai answered with weak and slurred speech. “I wanted to
die… Life has lost all meaning.  Even if
I survive and continue to live on, I will die alone and depressed.”  Nikolai looked the Driver directly in those
worrisome eyes and proclaimed “Even you will die alone and unwanted.”
The Driver calmly responded, “I’m going out twenty-one guns blazing fighting
for something bigger than myself.”  The
Driver stepped through the fog and the moonlight lit his shiny uniform ablaze
with light.  He smiled widely, stretched out
his hand to help Nikolai up and continued, “If that’s something you would be interested
in then I’ll help you in the Mongoose.”
Nikolai thought about what the soldier had said for a bit,
this time thinking about what his fiancée and mother would have wanted instead
of what he wanted, and then clasped the soldier’s hand.  
Category:The Weekly