It was so quiet it hurt.

She hadn’t been somewhere this silent for four years, besides the mass cremations every other day. They’d given ten seconds of pause to honor the fallen before getting back to war. It was all they could afford.

And now it was over. They’d won. Drinks were flowing, freedom songs being belted out as loud as possible, as people laughed and cried with relief. But she couldn’t feel anything. Her heart beat in time with her footsteps. Right, left. Right, left. They looked her in the eyes and told her she’d won. Then why did it feel as if had lost the part of her that mattered most?

She stopped automatically. She’d never been here before, but her feet knew where to carry her. The brick of marble came into focus. There was a whole field of them. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of bricks sat strewn around the field with uniform walkways, a bit of sense among insensible grief.

The memorial yard was empty, the revealers occupying the space furthest from it as if hiding from the truth.

That their joy had been won by blood.

But her reality was pain, her eldest friend Death. And as she stood there, she could feel It hovering over shoulder, as if contemplating — well, that was Its business.

Once again, her gaze fixed on the brick of marble in front of her. Her reflection shone back at her, but it wasn’t her thick eyelashes or full hair she gazed upon. Instead, she saw a longer face, similar features but undeniably masculine. Ruffled hair, sharper features resting ever so different from hers. A tear fell, breaking the illusion and seeping into the cracks of the incomplete inscription.

Where one name sat, hers was missing. A loyal soldier and loving twin, it read. But that wasn’t right, either. A part of her had been ripped away. She was incomplete, raw, naked. She hadn’t lost a loving twin. She had lost her other half.

And as she turned and headed towards the lights, she left that piece behind, trailing blood from the one wound that would never heal.