Hi~

So this is a small piece I just wrote after re-reading my other story Glimpse in order to progress on the sequel. I realized that there was still a little bit that I wanted to explore regarding the war (because I'm not a big fan of the cannon on that)

Anyhow, this is technically a OS, but it can also be taken as part of the Glimpse "universe", although this is not the real sequel for it.

Home

It was not joy that welcomed them back.

It was ruins and hollowed eyes. It was broken limbs and broken hearts. It was reality slamming into them.

The war was over.

They were home.

With the few shaky buildings of the once big city revealing themselves past gates that were crumbled and broken on the ground, it was loss that welcomed them.

For the war was over.

Now, they could feel. The absence could reveal itself.

So many had gone through those gates, marching towards the end of their world.

So few were walking back in, looking through the silent crowd for faces that would never be there anymore.

The sound of shuffling feet was soon covered by cries and despair and anguish. They had lost so much.

People touched. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, lovers, families, friends, strangers. It didn't matter. They just needed to touch. To feel. To cling to the person next to them. To make sure this was real.

Then broken smiles started to appear, struggling past tears and sobs that contained too much to be from any particular emotion.

And then names. Names yelled out in hope, names yelled out in return, names yelled out in search, and names that echoed, unanswered.

Slowly, feet started shuffling again on the uneven ground, bringing people in. It didn't matter who. There was not enough space for everyone anyways. Spaces were shared, divided, crowded. But it didn't matter.

Because the war was over.

And they would make do with not-enough beds, not-enough blankets, not-enough crutches, not-enough bandages, barely-enough food, and not-enough soldiers coming back.

Somehow, organization emerged from chaos, and strangers who were family managed to scramble enough to take care of the last clutches of the war lingering, unaware that it was supposed to be over, and still burning, still bleeding, and there was not enough medics to take care of the injured.

But there was a butcher who kind of knew how to amputate a foot that was destroyed beyond repair, and a seamstress who made the prettiest scars, and a baker whose mother used to know which herbs worked best against infection, and wasn't there a carpenter who said he'd make more beds if we could find him more planks from the rubble of houses that had collapsed and buried memories?

And just like that, for a little while, the cries quietened, the overwhelming too-much of everything spilled, tears and sobs retreating in the face of so-much-to-do.

Lines of relays were established, and lists of names started to appear on what used to be the wall that protected them. Names were crossed off, written down on a too-long list with a shake of the head and glistening eyes. Names were crossed off, written down on a hopefully-longer list, with eyes that closed with somuchrelief and hands clasped together, never letting go again.

And the lists were taken to what was left of the people leading them, hard to find in the same broken overcrowded buildings where everyone else was trying to make sense of it all. Heads were shaken, trying to come to terms with how short the lists were compared to the one that made years ago on their way.

Lists of names, hundreds long, of hearts beating. Lists of names, thousands long, of lives shattered. Lists of names, hundreds long, of hope and fear, and how would they ever find out the truth?

A list of a handful of names, unknown names, names that were on another of the thousands-long lists of years passed, but everyone I knew is dead, and please let me stay here.

All those lists were copied and sent. And the same lists with different names were received. And it was thousands and thousands of names that were never to be forgotten, whichever list the ended up on.

Cries started to rise again. Cries of anger and of sadness, of people lost and people broken, cries of the soul, cries that would not let you breathe. But there were cries of joy too, of names recognized on the List of Life.

Walls rose and roofs protected once more. Ruins were cleared out, to forget, or remained, to remember.

All across the land, in places beautiful and pure, giant white marble flowers bloomed, the light shining on them reflected on the rough surface, ribbed with thousands of names. All the flowers were the same, coated in the List of Angels, visible from peaks and valleys, high and low, so that they would be remembered.

Songs were sung wherever the Flowers were, rising into the sky. Songs without words, for no word could be so meaningful. Songs of emotions and pure voices.

The war was over.

And on the ground or on the petal of a flower, they were home.