The Reporter

Nobody was a better wartime reporter than Joshua Evans. He was one of the lucky few to not have had his documentaries censored by the Office of Naval Intelligence and even worked directly with them. I guess he was more of a propagandist, as most of his works had been filled with just constant reminders that people "need" to volunteer and people "need" to donate. Why didn't anybody care like they did about any other propaganda-spewing journalist? Well, lets just say Joshua was rather attractive for his age.
They really just cared about his looks, and this was clear. He looked like he was in his early to mid 30s when he was actually in his late 40s. His works were complete bullshit and often provided false statistics about battles. He was able to slander and bribe his way to the top of the media and nobody cared. He placed all the blame on the civilians, even claiming that some were directly contributing to the failing war. When some guy from Reach tried to sue him, you know what happened? Joshua got the best damn layer in the whole galaxy to defend him. Poor bastard lost everything.
His merchandise became exceedingly popular, with his signature catchphrase "The Undeniable Truth" on tee-shirts were being replaced with his face. When the war was coming to a close he began to stop posting about it and started "blogging". His daily routine, how he survived all these battles, and how he bought a seven billion credit mansion. He was more of a model than anything and stopped making documentaries that same year. However, behind the scenes, he was planning something. Something so big, it would unite both his adult and child fanbase. A blog in Voi and a seven-hour long documentary about the still ongoing Human-Covenant War.
This seems like a lot, right? Wrong. Director Marius Paulsen had made a forty-two hour long special detailing modern humanity's history, from the Interplanetary War to the Human-Covenant War. Seven hours wasn't even half that amount of time and he refused to have interviews with actual veterans, while Paulsen did. He scrapped the documentary and decided just to do the blog, uploading the footage to his main website, not his side one. He was accompanied by his girlfriend and camerawoman, Jessika. 
Voi was beautiful and the two were planning to go swimming on a beach, but they were removed from the beach by the Voi Greater Outlands Police Bureau following a bomb threat. They decided just to sit down and watch the sunset together during the stream, picking out a nice viewing spot on top of a small hill. Their "romantic" stream was interrupted by the arrival of the Indulgence of Conviction. Thinking it would be a perfect time to videotape a crashing Covenant ship, he picked up his camera and spouted some nonsense about it. He didn't know about the Flood.
The Flood spread through Voi like wildfire and Joshua tried to escape with Jessika. The two were cornered by infection and combat forms, some being former marines. Joshua tried to make one last joke but was cut off by a leaping infection form. The two were turned into combat forms and the camera was still recording. The last thing they saw was Joshua's "perfect" skin become decayed and bloodied and Jessika's neck being snapped violently. The camera was then found by a civilian who was also trying to escape.
After discovering the recordings on it, he decided to publish this to multiple websites. ONI didn't like this and executed the kid with a gunshot to the back of the head. People have claimed to have seen the reanimated Joshua and Jessika, some claiming that two are holding hands. These are rumors, however, and should NOT be taken seriously. All of Joshua's documentaries have been compiled and placed into one seventy-hour long movie called "The Reporter". It falsely stated that Joshua and Jessika were killed during the Covenant's invasion of Earth, where they were killed alongside thousands of other civilians by the Brutes.
Some people thought that Joshua was a legendary journalist, some thought that he was shit at his job. Me? I think he was alright when he started off, but the quality of his works fell when he was contacted by ONI. It was horrible when people started constantly talking about his looks, and he only focused on this because of their obsession. No matter what, nobody deserves the fate he was given.
As he once said, "War can be a hell of a thing, if it's shown correctly."
Category:Short stories