“Come on trooper! We’re not outta the woods yet!”

The voice is forceful as well as encouraging notwithstanding the severe gash in my left greave and consequently my leg, the red staining the metal. My brother slides up to my elbow and leaves a trail of dust with his boots that I almost feel a need to correct him about.

“Brett? You ok?”

I nod through the smoke and dust encrusting my lungs and stinging at my eyes as it’s the only action I can muster at the moment.

The firefight sounds distant due to the ringing in my ears but I know it’s simply just over the ridge, our brothers in arms baring down upon the enemy without regret or respite. My eyes shift in my skull unbidden, my mind grasping the fact that I will not be seeing tomorrow.

“Pres, you gotta get outta here. Save yourself,” my words come out coarse as though sandpaper lines my esophagus and I can barely make out his brown hair shifting as he shakes his head no amidst all the debris hanging on the air.

“Not on your life!” He stubbornly shifts himself beneath my shoulder blades, his own weight jacking me up on him with a series of strenuous groaning. I hiss at the pain in my side as Pres pulls me from the rocky crags, hauling my nearly useless body free from the area and in the direction of what looks to be a cave hidden among the rocky outcropping. As we draw nearer, my assumptions are rewarded with being truth.

“Stay here,” Pres whispers, placing my wounded form as delicately on the stony ground as he can and apologizing profusely when he hears me utter a cry of pain.

“Like I can go anywhere!” I mutter sarcastically, a cough reverberating against my spine as I wave him off, encouraging him to return to the fray.

I have finally settled into a semi-decent spot, applying a makeshift tourniquet to the wound on my leg and removing the greave for better access. I lay my head against the cool stone at my back and my developing headache begins to simmer less.

The sounds continue as I wait and watch as much as I can through the small gap in the cave. Mostly, I just see smoke and hear the cascading echoes of constant gunfire that it almost lulls me to sleep as the day passes by into night.

“Brett! Wake up!” The voice is louder than I expected, my eyes and my ears gradually returning to reality.

I stutter awake only to see my brother sitting before me, blood streaked down his face from an unattended wound to his forehead, but he is smiling, blood and dirt smeared against the white surface.

“What? What is it?” I ask, still trepidatious.

“We won! It’s all over!”

I don’t even dare to breath at his words. Over? Is he sure?

Pres nods, his teeth disappearing from his smile but his grin remaining all the same.

I instruct him to help me stand and we limp out of the space together, greeted by the sight of bodies strewn against the ground, across the hills and amongst the trees surrounding the gorge. The remaining Chaos Guard have surrendered and are surrounded by a number of our fellow soldiers armed to the teeth.

The sight of gold suddenly streaking across the bodies of our fallen comrades and the enemy forces both of us to lift our hands to shield our eyes.

“What is that?” I ask, uncertain.

“It’s sunrise, brother,” Pres replies almost reverently.

I sigh, breathing in the scent of the new day and the new beginning ahead of us. I feel the tears leaving tracks on my dirty cheeks as I gaze upon the sight.

“I never knew a sunrise could be so beautiful,”