The dust tasted like iron. Everything did, these days. Iron and regret. Another sunrise bled across the skeletal remains of what used to be Port Azure, painting the rubble in hues of rusty orange and bruised purple. I hacked, spitting the grime onto the cracked pavement. Another day. Another chance to not die.
I unfolded the tattered envelope, the paper brittle and yellowed. "Letters From the Front," it was labeled, in shaky handwriting. Someone had found them tucked inside the helmet of a soldier - a ghost from the early days of the Collapse. Molly, the nurse who never seemed to sleep, found it while rummaging for medical supplies. She'd handed it to me, a silent question in her tired eyes.
I read the first one:
Day 12, I think. Time's a blur. We pushed back the New Republic forces near the old highway. Saw some real nasty stuff today. Chemical weapons. People… changed. But we held the line. Managed to evacuate a few families. A young couple with a baby, another with two kids clinging to their legs. It felt… good. Like maybe, just maybe, we were doing something right in this godforsaken mess.
I sighed. "Good" was a luxury we couldn't afford anymore. I remember those early days, the blind hope that things would get better. Now, hope felt like a liability, a weakness the world would exploit.
Day 18. Molly's a saint. She patched up a kid today who took shrapnel to the leg. Didn't even cry. Just looked at her with these huge, scared eyes. Makes you wonder what kind of future kids like that will have, if they even have one at all. We found a cache of water purification tablets. Small victories, right?
Molly was my rock, the one thing that kept me grounded in this ruined world. Her smile was like a tiny light, always struggling against the dark. We had faced so much together: saving people, fighting endless battles, and dodging the mutated horrors that roamed the night.
Day 25. The radio's been silent for days. Command must be gone. We're on our own now. But we're still fighting. For those families we saved. For a future that might not even exist. The New Republic's getting desperate. They're throwing everything they have at us.
I flipped to the next letter. The handwriting was more frantic, the ink smudged.
Day 28.It's happening. The rumors were true. They're deploying the Genesis bomb. I saw the flash. Too far to kill us instantly, but close enough. Close enough to change everything.
My stomach churned. The Genesis bomb. A weapon of mass destruction that twisted the very fabric of reality, leaving behind pockets of mutated horrors and landscapes warped beyond recognition.
Day 29. We're trying to get the families further away from the blast radius. Molly's working miracles, keeping everyone calm, patching up the wounded. We packed what we could in the old trucks. Praying they hold up.
I could picture it: Molly, her face stained with dirt and blood, her voice a soothing balm against the screams and chaos. A true angel in a hellscape.
Day 30. We didn't make it. The blast wave caught us. The trucks… they're gone. Everyone's gone. Except me. I don't know how I survived. I saw them… the mutations. The pain. The horror. It was all for nothing.
My breath caught in my throat. All those families. All that hope. Gone.
Day 31. I can't live with this. I can't. I see their faces in my dreams. Hear their screams. The world is broken. And I'm broken with it. I'm sorry. Maybe there is peace in death. Maybe… maybe there's something better on the other side.
The last line was scrawled almost illegibly, a final, desperate plea.
I closed my eyes, the weight of the soldier's words crushing me. I'd seen so much death, so much destruction. But this… this felt different. This felt like the final nail in the coffin of hope.
A gruff voice interrupted my thoughts. "What's got you so down, soldier?" It was Marcus, one of the few men I trusted. Life had left its mark on his face, making him look tough. His eyes were stern, but for a moment, you could see that he understood.
"Just reading some old letters," I said, shoving the paper back in the envelope. "From before… before the end."
He nodded, his gaze drifting towards the horizon. "We all got our ghosts, soldier. But we can't let them win."
I looked at Molly, who was tending to a young girl with a fever, her touch gentle and reassuring. Maybe Marcus was right. Maybe we couldn't let the ghosts win.
Then, the ground trembled. A low rumble echoed in the distance, growing louder with each passing second. We both knew what it was.
"Looks like we're about to have some new neighbors," Marcus said, his voice grim. He raised his rifle, scanning the horizon. "Another wave of refugees fleeing from the east."
And that's when I saw it. Not just the huddled masses of survivors, their faces seared with despair, but the unmistakable glow on the horizon. The iridescent shimmer of a Genesis blast zone.
But this time, it was different. It wasn't moving away from us, but towards us. Faster, closer.
I looked at Marcus. He looked at me. Understanding dawned in our eyes at the same time.
The New Republic wasn't pushing people towards us. They were herding them. Towards the next blast zone.
The letter suddenly had a final, unspoken sentence: We are all the front.
I looked back at Molly and the girl, and I realized the grim lesson of the Front. The world isn't destroyed by bombs or poison, it ends when we lose our humanity. And maybe, it already had.