The Golden East

The sky was pretty bad, gloomy, compare to his home town. He cannot see the sun, and the cold sea smell wind whistled beside his face.

“It’s gonna rain, isn’t it?” Louis said, nervously. He was lying on the wooden rail of the ship.

“You’d better pray for no.” said Kris walking towards him, “The battle is going to occur in five hours.”

Louis Wilson has a head of thick scarlet hair, fluffy like a rosebush; his eye were in deep blue color, thin lips are always open, as if he was murmuring to any soul of the St. Gallon maintain——Amalies, according to Louis, “They are lonely spirits of the world, wandering around finding no preople talking, and no where to stay; I can’t kept myself from helping them, ‘cause I know I will be one of them too.”

Nobody believe in him, but he just say it again and again. He doen’t seems to care also. Maybe he has already been a lonely spirt.

Louis opened his mouth again with a thoughtful facial expression, so Kris know he was going to announce his new philosophy again, with that soft, sad voice.

“Do you, Kris, really like wars and battles? Things are going too fast, people are dying too fast. I felt I was behind the others, until I killed my first man. Oh, then, I know why people likes to fight! They feel, from killing their buddies, either joy or distress, and because of unlimited desire, they do it, again and again.”

“Okay, Louis, your philosophy interesting, but for the sake of that 5 hours of time before victory, just tell me what type you belong to, eh, joy or distress, I mean.”

“Distress. That’s the reason I add this on. Wait, look, the whale was simming in the sky!”

“But I see no whales, and they will not fly.” Kris thought Louise might be having his delusion again, so he walked away, left Louise standing on the board himself, alone.

“ But you see, the clouds is ......” Louise turned his head and saw no one, “Maybe you should listen to me, all of you.”

Time pass slow when you want them to pass. But eventually, everything comes to an end.

Kris was standing on the front board, under the shadow of heavy rain cloud, overlooking the Terrico island at the egde of horizon. He lowered his line eye and saw a badge pin to the chest: it is a silver emblem of a pattern of three kite shape star arranged into a triangle; the party put it on when he was 16, and when the war starts, he immediately pull on the army uniform with that emblem on, and rushed to the frontline.

Now Skuld, both his sister and only families, should be on the frontline——over the ocean, hiding in the rolling hills and continuous forests, like a snake waiting for prey to walk into the trap. He don’t know how is she right now, either dead or live, he thought, can’t be in other situation.

He heard the bugle blowed, it was the sign of aproachness to the shore of Terrico.

After a few minutes, the fleet ashored. A snowy mountain was lying on the east, with large forest covered the area down it. Kris can hear the sound of wave splashing on the shore and wind blowing through leaves. But no sound of people. There was no sound of breathing, no sound of moving or wriggling; there were not a single people. Yeah, maybe, this should be reasonable since the nearest city was still distants away but...... Kris cannot think of any deeper reason, he just shout out the first word he gets:

“Everyone! Get off the ship!”

Soldiers hustle and bustle, all soaring onto the island. Just honestly, Kris haven’t got a well education, it was not a shame, but some times regret.

After all, the spreadhead landed. They go forward by their feets, all with confidence, because of the huge army behind their back and all the voctory they had before. They go alone the mountain, some of the soldiers had never saw such a mountain before; and some had and they remembered the same mountain at their home town, Kris was the second case.

Finally, by crossing a valley, they saw the first, and propably last, city on Terrico——the Urnen.

Battle begins in a second.

At first it was just a rock falling from a hill. Then it’s second, third and many. People runs to escape from falling rocks, they wants to fight back but can’t see where’d their enemies come from and how to reach them. A invisible force of scare quickly spreaded through the whole army, like a disease but much harder to cure.

That was really dark day. Soldiers can see no sun, all skies were covered by heavy clouds, those dark blue sky makes the falling stone looks hard to see and looks like hey were directly falling from sky. Dusts were floating in the air, like black little dots of insects, also imaginative blood dropps that really dosen’t exist but were believed due to religion.

Some people were injured by the rocks, but even more people died because of stampede accident; all of the screaming, crying, do nothing help but let frighteness root into those people’s mind: if they survive after war, they can still remember the thing happen this day.

Kris just saw everything happen, but finding himself helplessly standing in the crowd. Yes, he can not do anything, a single peice of wood can’t help a skyscraper from falling, and so does he. He can only call some soldier beside him to stop running and spreading fears, but more and more people runs and when he wants to stop those people, the man he just catched just ran away the first chance he gets.

Enemies were jumped from sky to ground. When everybody just seen them, they frozed into amaze and when the first man got killed, they ran. It doesn’t matter if their enemies were strong or not, their appearence just let all soldier’s mental collapsed: they were like gods from those childhood stories their mother told them before sleep. Very less people wants to fight, the and the man run just bring this misunderstanding to army that haven’t seen those enemies, and they told others, until they had no one to tell. Under this situation, no one can help. In other words, they had already lost. But all leaders , including Kris, know that they still got a last chance: the real army that will come in 10 hours.

Which means they still had to keep fighting for 10 hours.

Things were getting better. Kris leads his people get out from the dark valley and come to fight in a small plain, and infront of them is the Urmen. But things were also getting worse. They lost contact with half or the army and more enemies can come out from the city. Which means th other side can let ten person die for killing one person from his army, but he can’t let anyone die in order to win.

Rain droppes. Suddenly a woman with a sword rushed to Kris, she looks furious but Kris had no reason to wonder why. The attack goe to Kris’ left arm, he turned his body and slashed off a peice of flesh from the woman’s face. Blood sprays onto Kris’ face and into his mouth, tasts sweet and rusty. The flesh and more blood drops onto the grassland, dyed the grass into red. The women felt hurt and wants to stab his stomach, but when her sword was only ten centremeter in front of Kris, an arrow pierced through her head and let her fall down to the ground. Kris looks to the way that arrow comes and saw Louis. He was smiling at him, not sad, only pure enjoys.

Kris killed a lots of men and women, for him it was just a difference of calling. Although he and many people worked that hard to live, the failture will come. The rain kept being smaller, and heavy cloouds also seems to fade. Kris was so tired, and forget about the time.

Opps.

A man fall onto the ground beside him, he was also wearing the party’s emblem. A enemy run toward him, and Kris used the last strength to push him away, not try to kill but walk away. He comes again, so Kris tried to attack his neck as quick as possible, but failed. His sword were being smashed out from his hand and fly behind him. He was going to die, and Louis was not here. Kris felt dissapointed, he saw the emblem on his chest, and suddenly a crazy idea flown through his mind. He ripped off it from his uniform, grasped his enimie’s shoulder, wich made him lost his concentrate for a second, and stabbed that sharpped star hardly into his eye. At the same time, sword striked dirctly into his lungs.

That man screamed, using hands to cover his face. Then Kris falled, tired, onto the ground. He had never thought the grass ground could be so soft. He saw the sky turing to yellow, and the “whale”! It’s just a beautiful dark blue bird, bigger than other types of birds and often flys low. He remember now, that in Louis’ hometown, they call them whale and believe that they can bring the soul of deads to the St.Gallon mountain.

He thought about Skuld, where is she right now? Will she know his death? He remembers that before he go she said goodbye to him in a cold winter outside, snow flys into his eye. Maybe he wants to say goodbye to her again, but it was too late. Everything was too late.

Kris saw the red sun slowly walking out from his sight, down off the snowy mountain. It was dropping, drifting, and it was as everything on the world was unaproachable, either the gloomy sky he hate, or his families he love, was gradually going away from him, little by little; until his eye were going close because of tiredness, or rather sleepiness, he saw a glimpse of golden sunlight, so warm and pleasant, so essential . It’s not far away; it’s like a cloud of gas, filling the space around him: a embrace he’d never had. Sometimes he thought, if he could experience it earlier——but it would never had——maybe something would change, just a little bit. Eventually, he can see his end: the last beam of light were reluctant to part from the eastern mountain, bright golden sunlight struggled to leave the azure sky; then, he saw that golden hilside beside him; The golden east. Kris closed his eye, forgetting all the pains and distress, completely sinked into the mild sunlight, with a permanent, long-lost joy.