this took longer to write than i thought it would. but here it is. read with caution if you dislike violence.

for seven years, i was the marshal of the NSO. i was very young for the position, but i was confident, and fought well in the skirmishes around beliz. the politburo recognized my skill and gave me the position; i carried much influence and good approval, in both the party and out of it.

as i write, my country is at war, the second great war. like the first, it has been hard on us, and we have lost many, but it was a small city in the southwest that would be my downfall. the enemy had overrun it, many thought it impossible to rout them. in the politburo and in the great churches, priests listen for the guiding word of the trinity. i was in the field when the message came to abandon the city to the huns, as was the gods’ proclamation.

but i refused. there was no way we could, trapped as we were in basements and attics, fighting for every bare inch. but we had been listening, as well, gathering what information we could, and critical intelligence had come through just before the politburo’s message. we could see a way through to send them running for home, and the withered old men in their dusted halls wanted us to give in? to sacrifice far more men than would be lost if we fought back, just to run home like cowards?

we refused. i refused. and we beat them back. i am brought to say that i brought home as many men as i could. but i had shamed the politburo, and defied the warning of the gods. the first could be paved over, but the second, never.

they could not kill me, not when the common men and woman were so elated by the victory, but they could punish me all the same. and they did.

i had been in the field for almost a year at that point, hadn’t seen and scarcely heard from my wife and daughter for seven months. i was given a great feast in a beautiful hall just outside moscow, more food than you could imagine, beautiful women for entertainment, warmth and drink. they said my family would be joining me shortly, but ten, twenty, thirty minutes pass and they are nowhere. i ask, where are my ladies? they will come, they tell me. i wait longer.

then the main meal comes out, cooked meat in heavy sauces, delicious and rich after months of starvation on the lines. i eat, and eat well, and still i ask, where are they? where is my family, for i have missed them so?

and they say then, why, komidarm, they are already here!

when finally i understood, rage overcame me. i could not control myself; the fire came almost without a thought. i burned all those inside, the innocents too, and the fire that followed took the lives of thirty more. i did not care. who could care, after learning they carried in their belly the flesh of their loved ones?

they caught me easily, and i spent weeks in detainment, drugged and kept manageable. eventually the time came for the public trial. it was televised, as are all high court proceedings. i could barely stand, so drugged as i was. they used that as evidence when they claimed i had lost my mind, my way, that the stress of the war and my work had had its effects on me. i was a hero, yes, and my service to be revered, but punishment is punishment, even on the “broken-minded”.

i was sentenced to exile rather than death. after the trial was the surgeries, then some weeks later, i was taken before the court again for the branding. they did not drug me then, and i faced them with the dignity of a marshal. i took the brand and i was sent out to the screaming crowds, and i ran as fast and as far as i could from the capitol before the turning of the seasons. i have not been back until now. and now i am merely one of the nameless scarred figures that lurk the streets of moscow. at least until the weather changes, and it comes time to wander again.