"Blood tastes like iron and ash".
That's the last clear thing in my mouth, hot against my tongue as it leaked past my teeth and for a moment, I felt death closer than ever before.
The machine yard tilted around me; rusted beams, trucks gutted by fire, sky burning with Rift scars. My body's failing, but my mind? My mind's never been sharper. Death doesn't blur me, it clarifies.
I see the boy with the Wheel watching me, his golden glow flickering like judgment. He thinks he's won. He hasn't, none of them have.
Before all this, I was a soldier. A good one.
I can still smell the diesel fires, I can still taste sand blown into my mouth, and I can feel the bullets stitching the air too close to my head.
I can still see the faces of boys under my command, boys too young, too soft, burned away because someone in an office thought a hill was worth their blood.
That's where I learned the truth.
Men are bullets… you fire them until the chamber's empty.
