I am John Joyce. Just John. A nameless shadow in a world that has forgotten the meaning of peace.
It is the autumn of 1856, I believe. The air is so bitter it feels like shards of glass in my lungs. But when you look around, you don't see the cold—you only see one color: red. Have the leaves turned crimson because of the season, or have the trees soaked up the blood of the fallen through their roots? In this land, no other color seems to exist anymore.
I was only sixteen when this nightmare began in 1852. Four years have passed since then. Every morning, I make a silent vow: "Today, I will not kill." Believe it or not, I haven't taken a life in four days. It's my last desperate attempt to remain "human." I'm grateful I still have the strength to hold a rifle, yet I pray for the strength not to use it. Death is cheap here; it's the only thing we have in abundance.
Death isn't what scares me. It's the sheer pointlessness of this slaughter. We aren't out here defending a "Motherland"—that's a lie they feed the desperate. We are trapped in a cage, divided into two camps: the "Infected" and the "Pure." But no one truly knows who is sick and who is sane. Sometimes I wonder if we are just actors in a gore-filled play for some twisted gods looking down on us. But the sound of a comrade's final gasp is a slap to the face, a brutal reminder that this hell is very real.
The war rages between the Whites and the Reds. The Whites tell stories of the Reds—fables of men losing their souls and turning into "demons." They used these myths to tear the continent in half. Yet, in all my time, I've never heard a man scream, "I am Red, I am the plague." We all bleed the same color.
One... two... three... four... five...
"Dammit!"
The click of a hammer broke my trance. A man stumbled out from the brush right in front of me. I saw a crust of bread peeking out of his pocket. I was so starved I wanted to beg for a piece, but I was too slow. Panic flashed in his eyes, and he fired.
A deafening roar. Smoke filled the air. I closed my eyes, waiting for the cold embrace of the end. But... nothing. No pain. Why am I not dead? Why did the lead miss? "Curse you!" I spat as he vanished into the fog. Maybe God isn't done with me yet. Maybe there's still a debt I haven't paid.
My father taught me how to handle a musket. My mother taught me how to feel. Now, I have no friends. I refuse to call anyone a friend. A friend is just someone who will either throw dirt on your grave or have you throw it on theirs.
My village was a sanctuary once. Until December 1852. That winter night, the white snow didn't last. It wasn't "savages" who came for us, but city men, armed to the teeth. By morning, the snow was red, and by the next day, it was a frozen brown.
That was the night my father, a man possessed by the bottle, took his rage out on my mother for the last time. His drunken roar still echoes in my skull:
"Why don't you respect the head of this house?! You woman! You called me an animal in your last breath! Now, you'll kiss my boots!"
My mother didn't flinch. Her eyes held nothing but pure disgust.
"And if I don't, what then? Will you kill me?!" she dared him.
He leveled the musket and pulled the trigger without a second thought. Boom. The room filled with the metallic scent of blood and gunpowder.
"Mother!!!" I screamed, my world shattering. "You bastard! You shot her like she was nothing!"
I grabbed the rifle. In that moment, the boy named John died. I shot my own father. More red on the floor. After that, my uncle Silas dragged me by the collar and threw me into this furnace called war. Since then, I've only known how to kill and how to survive. But today... today, I want to try being a man again.