"Kill them all!" yelled a rebel.

"KILL THEM ALL!" yelled a second rebel.

"Can we get this over with?" the third rebel's voice cracked. His infidel-like words seemed to solicit a collective groan from the cluster of camouflaged green-clad figures standing in the desert. The raging fervor fueled from their bone-chilling cries had dissolved back into the humid air, blown away by the wind.

"Haziq," there came a stern, irritated voice. The man with that name turned around, and couldn't tell which one said it. All of them, every last rebel, looked the same. Wore the same green beret and vest. Talked with the same deep baritone. Had the same immunity to rockets and tank shells and the same weakness to anything faster than a creeping goo of molasses traveling uphill.

"Err, kill them all?" he replied weakly, waving his AK-47 rifle in the air half-heartedly.

Another series of groans. One of them placed a hand on his shoulder, which Haziq found to be extremely uncomfortable. He found it hard to avert his eyes away from his face, but he tried anyway and ended up staring straight down. Regardless, he didn't need to look up to know that every eye was on him, brimming with the unspoken frustration they had to deal with ever since he, a greenhorn, had joined the squad.

"Haziq and I will stay behind," he said to the rest, "As for everyone else, your glory awaits you. Go forth, my brothers!"

The rebels responded with a fresh burst of newfound energy from the crystalline commands of their leader. "Yes, I go!" they said in unison. Haziq still hadn't got used to hearing a dozen shouts with the same voice simultaneously, and he shuddered.

The rebels half-marched, half-limped their way up the inclining slope of sand with the blinding speed of a lifeguard on Baywatch. Haziq watched them charge, or slowly approach if we're being picky, a miniature-sized tracked machine that bore the design of a Chinese tank, except instead of firing shells like they were expecting, its nozzle spewed out a burst of dark-purple flames like a waiting snake, engulfing its fearless but oblivious prey in a dancing inferno.

"Haziq, man of intelligence and skill. My brother," the rebel who was holding his shoulder began, "We have wanted to tell you this for a long time, but our journey for freedom spares us little time to pause and to talk like brothers should -"

"Allah, Save me! My face is on fire! It's melting!"

" – We know that you have left a family behind in your home and you did it willingly with full knowledge of the risks you would face."

"Actually, you stormed into my house and gassed me with chloroform, and then I woke up in a GLA barracks with you guys," Haziq corrected.

The rebel didn't seem to hear him for he continued anyway. "However, I fear that if we try to skirt around this issue any longer, we might place ourselves at great harm and vulnerability against the enemy. It is clear that your heart is not set on the fulfilling the purpose we are on this earth for, which is the liberation of our people. This is a most urgent matter. Like you said, let us discuss this -"

"Arrgh! My god, I think all the water in my blood has boiled!"

"Rebel . . . man," Haziq said with quivering lips, "Aren't there more important things we should be doing right now? Can't you hear your soldiers screaming in pain?"

"What could be more important than helping a friend lost in the tide of ignorance to find back his sense of meaning? What can possibly be more painful than the anguish that I feel in my soul for a brother who has lost his way? Tell me, brother!" How about 300 degrees celcius-hot black napalm eating at your skin? was the thought that came to mind. "Nothing at all," he said instead.

The rebel nodded grimly. "So true. My heart aches so much I think I might cry. Do you know, brother, the purpose of the rebels in this war?"

"To be a cheap ambush unit that can capture buildings and occasionally kill really weak stuff like other rebels?"

"No!" the rebel said with sudden vehemence, "To die! You are part of the GLA to die and the GLA will send you somewhere to die! You live to die! The only reason you have a name is so that they can write heartfelt epitaphs on your grave like 'Here lies Haziq, Died on Tuesday' to inspire the masses with your heroic death! That is your purpose! To die!" Haziq felt a lump form in his throat.

The rebel placed his other hand on his shoulder, ignoring the burning rebel who pulled at his leg as a plea for help, "Find strength in this, my brother! It is not our dirt-cheap recruitment prices or our invisibility cloaks that makes us strong! It is a much more powerful weapon, and that weapon is spirit! Use that spirit, brother! Channel all of them; your fury, your hatred, your duty for your country, channel them into your voice, and yell out with the passion of a thousand blazing suns! KILL THEM ALL!"

No sooner had he said this was he was mowed down by a swirling torrent of black, fiery death. His mouth struggled to repeat his final words one last time for nobody who cares to hear: "Argglgarbblll abbauuuuuhhh arrrgghhhhhhhh aaaaaaah. . . I'm dead."

Haziq stood frozen in his place, unblinking eyes watching the corpse burn to a crisp. A tingly sensation on his right shoulder told him that the dead rebel's hand still latched itself on him, only it was more 'toasted stump of flesh and pus' and less of a hand now. A human understanding of what is disgusting urged him to wriggle free of its grip as violently as he could, which he did. When the arm finally joined its master on the ground, Haziq glanced up to look at the carnage, the twelve-healthy squad massacred like trees to an axe-crazy lumberjack, their bodies already half-buried by the shifting sand. That day's breakfast was on its way out when his oesophagus stopped moving out of sheer fear. Haziq was given the gentle reminder that the Dragon Tank had indeed not forgotten him, allowing it to crawl close enough to jam the business end of its cannon onto his forehead. At the other end, he could hear the vigorous crackle of an oncoming conflagration jetting its way forward.

"Oh sh-"

DEFEAT

RESTART