The storm hit while we were in the middle of an op, and it hit hard like the sky decided it'd had enough of everyone's shit.
We were forced to pull back to the nearest outpost, a squat prefab shell of a building barely tall enough to keep the rain off and just sturdy enough to not collapse if the wind had a bad day. From there, we watched as the storm tore into the world.
I hadn't been out in the field long enough to see something like this. Not a storm like this.
And holy hell, it was beautiful.
The sky lit up with purple lightning, not in bolts, but veins, fractals lashing across the clouds like some pissed-off god had cracked the dome of the world and was trying to sew it back together with plasma.
The thunder wasn't just loud, it was violent. Explosive. It shook the earth, rattled the glass, made your bones vibrate like tuning forks. It didn't sound like thunder; it sounded like artillery. Like the sky was waging war against itself.
I couldn't take my eyes off it. Just stood there, gawking like some idiot who's never seen weather before.
Then the rain came.
Not a drizzle. Not even a heavy downpour. This was different from the usual. Sheets of water slammed down so hard it drowned the streets in minutes, mixing mud, oil, concrete, and whatever filth had been sitting in the ruins. The whole place stank like soaked ash and rotting metal.
The air was electric. You could feel this buzzing around your ears, a constant whine and snap of lightning cracking through the sky. It never really stopped, just danced from one end of the clouds to the other, painting the whole damn city in flickering hues of violet and sickly white.
We were stuck.
Cyma Unit had hunkered down under the outpost, waiting the storm out. Dan, Gino, Foster, and Berta's squad. The whole dysfunctional pile of them was somewhere downstairs. Probably trading crude jokes or arguing about who was better at knife-fighting while completely ignoring the weather actively trying to murder us.
I stayed posted near the top.
Near a window. Alone. Watching.
There wasn't much to do again. Couldn't scan properly with too much distortion from the static in the air. Couldn't use thermals as rain washed the readings to hell. Couldn't patrol unless you wanted to get zapped or swept into a ditch.
So I watched.
And weirdly? It felt… peaceful.
Not in a holding hands around a campfire kind of way. More like being crushed into stillness. Forced to stop. No thoughts of supplies, orders, rotations, tactics. Just sit there, stare at the storm, and ask yourself the same question over and over again if you're going make it through this.
Not the storm.
The war.
Reclamation, they said.
Four years. That's what they ask of you. Four years of killing, burning, purging. Four years of monster guts and bureaucratic bullshit and the smell of burnt meat that never leaves your nose.
And I was only what… half a year in?
Some days, it felt like I'd blink and the whole year passed.
Other times, a single hour stretched forever. Like the clock was mocking me.
Alone in that room, watching nature throw a tantrum, I let myself go quiet. Let my brain breathe. No one to bark orders. No Berta trying to climb me like a jungle gym. No Dan making jokes about Foster's love life. Just the storm, the smell of ozone, and the faintest hum of anxiety humming at the base of my skull.
I knew it was this ability of mine.
This thing in me, whatever it was, kept me level. Keeps me cold. Controlled. Let me fight better. React faster. Think clearer.
But sometimes I wondered if that same calm was eating me from the inside out. If the reason I wasn't panicking was because I wasn't really feeling anything anymore.
Like something important in me got turned off.
And at that moment, I wasn't sure if it was comforting… or horrifying.
A part of me, some stubborn, lingering piece of who I used to be still feared what came next. Still imagined waking up in the middle of an ambush, or seeing the squad get ripped apart in a blink. Still thought about what it meant if we failed. If we didn't hold the line during a fight. If all of this, the land, the cities, the people we were trying to protect, just got swallowed up again by the same monsters we were wiping out.
But the rest of me?
The part now wired for war?
It was quiet.
And that silence scared me more than the storm ever could.
I sat back against the wall, helmet resting in my lap, watching the lightning crawl across the heavens like angry roots.
Just waiting.
And wondering how much of me would still be left by the end of this contract.
If any.
* * *
I must've nodded off at some point, lulled into a half-sleep by the rhythm of rain hammering metal and concrete. My dreams were weird just flickers of past missions, Dan yelling, Gino laughing like a maniac, Foster chewing on rations like a cow chewing cud. Somewhere in the haze, I swear I saw Berta riding a cannon like it was a stripper pole, and even my subconscious told her to fuck off.
Then I heard footsteps.
Not rushed, not sneaky, just heavy, relaxed, and stupidly confident.
Sgt. Berta.
She slid into the room like she owned it, her uniform half unzipped, soaked at the edges, sleeves rolled up like she just punched the storm itself and won. A cigarette dangled from her lips. She looked like trouble wrapped in tanned muscle and bad decisions.
"Couldn't sleep?" she asked, like we were on a porch sipping beers and not sitting in a goddamn warzone.
"I sleep just fine," I said. "It's the thought of you climbing up here to trap me in conversation that's keeping me awake though."
She snorted, pulled the cig from her mouth and leaned against the window frame, just close enough to piss me off.
"The storm's a beast, huh?"
"It's a storm, Berta. Water falls. Sky shouts. We don't need poetry."
She gave me a sidelong glance, puffing smoke like she was in some noir film. "You've got the soul of a broken filing cabinet, you know that?"
"And you've got the tact of a rhino with a head injury."
"See, that's why I like you," she grinned. "You say the most romantic things."
"I try. Especially when I'm talking to walking war crimes with tits."
She let out a laugh—deep, unbothered. "Don't flatter me. I've only committed a few light war crimes. Can we even consider it one when they aren't human? It's modest."
"I'd call that modest, if I believed for a second you knew the meaning of the word."
She flicked ash out the window and leaned closer, lowering her voice like she was letting me in on some scandalous secret. "Y'know, the girls downstairs keep saying I've got a soft spot for you."
"Tragic. You could've aimed higher. Like a cactus. Or a corpse."
"Come on, Wilson," she purred. "You've been out here with me for how long now? You telling me not once, not once, you thought about bending me over a sandbag and giving me the ol' rifle cleaning?"
"I've had more romantic thoughts about my boots," I muttered. "At least they don't try to fuck and probably kill me in my sleep."
"Not yet," she said with a grin.
We sat in silence for a moment. Just the storm and the soft burn of her cigarette between us.
Then, she got a little quieter.
"Have you ever thought about after?"
"After?"
"Yeah. All this," she said, gesturing toward the war-torn landscape outside. "Four years of this shit. What happens when it's done?"
I shrugged. "I sleep for a year, then maybe open a bar and drink myself to death."
"Same. Minus the death. I want to run a dive bar in a half-ruined building. Serve shots to people missing limbs, listen to them scream into the void."
"Sounds charming. Are you going to decorate with skulls and blood bags too?"
"Only if I can hang yours on the wall."
"You flirt like a serial killer."
"And yet," she smiled, "you haven't walked away."
I looked back at the window, watching lightning carve the horizon. "It's raining. And you smell like smoke and regret. Kind of comforting, in a disturbing way."
"Don't get soft on me now."
"Don't worry. I'm still emotionally constipated."
She chuckled again and stood up, stretching like a cat. "Alright, grumpy. I'll let you mope in peace. But you ever decide you want a bit of warmth in that cold, black soul of yours…"
She tapped the butt of her cigarette on the sill, dropped it out the window, and gave me a wink.
"…you know where to find me."
"Yeah," I said, dry as sand. "Probably on top of someone."
She gave me a mock salute and sauntered off.
Alone again.
Not that I minded.
Berta was a hurricane in human form, and while it was sometimes nice to share the silence with another warm body, I preferred the storm outside. At least the lightning didn't flirt.
I leaned back in the chair and watched the water pool across the rooftops below.
We were holding this outpost for now, but Sector 12 was still crawling with filth. More warbands were expected. That much was clear. We'd be sent in again soon, asked to clear another tunnel, torch another den, shoot another wave of shrieking, bone-blade-wielding bastards until our ammo ran dry and our arms ached.
But right now?
It was just me. The storm. And a window overlooking hell.
And for once, that felt almost peaceful.
* * *
The storm didn't let up that night. It just kept hammering down, like the sky was having a personal grudge match with the earth and losing its temper in slow motion. Every now and then, purple lightning carved veins into the sky like it was splitting at the seams, and I just sat there, watching it paint the world in quick flashes of electric madness.
The sound was the kind that you didn't get used to. You just endured it. Like a drunk uncle yelling at a family barbecue you couldn't leave.
I sat with my rifle across my lap, my legs stretched out, rain pelting the glass beside me, and for a moment, I let myself zone out. Not sleep. Not fully. Just... drift. Like someone turned the volume down on reality and I was stuck watching it move without sound.
It didn't last.
Footsteps again. Softer this time.
Not Berta.
This one was lighter. More cautious. I looked over and saw Stacy, cigarette already lit, expression unreadable.
"Are you hiding from the chaos too?" she asked.
"Not hiding. Observing," I replied. "Like a miserable gargoyle."
She smirked. "Heard Berta came by earlier. Is she trying to mount you again?"
"She made a valiant attempt."
Stacy chuckled, leaning against the same window frame Berta had occupied earlier. "You're stronger than most."
"No, just tragically uninterested in catching syphilis in a war zone."
She raised an eyebrow. "Y'know we're immune to that shit, right?"
"Yes, and radiation too. Doesn't mean I'm going to fuck the microwave."
She barked out a laugh, then exhaled a long plume of smoke. "You really do talk like a man who was raised by sarcasm and disappointment."
"Correct. And unlike you lot, I don't see war as a free-for-all dating app with bullets."
"Not dating. More like... distraction."
I gave her a look.
She shrugged. "It's not easy for everyone, Wilson. Some of us need noise to drown out the screaming."
"Try earplugs. Less chlamydia."
She gave me a tired smile. "You're not wrong."
For a minute or two, we both stared out at the war-torn sprawl below, listening to the storm chew on the buildings like a dog with a bone. The lights of Damasa flickered in the far distance, looking like someone forgot to turn off the world's worst Christmas display.
"Reed says more Orc movement is coming through Sector 12," she said eventually. "Maybe even a full migration."
"Joy," I muttered. "More heads to pop, more stomachs to turn."
"Think we'll ever stop doing this?"
"No. And if we do, it'll be because we're dead or because the enemy ran out of bodies."
"Guess that's hope. In a grim, soul-destroying way."
"It's the only kind we get."
She flicked ash onto the floor and pushed off from the wall. "Get some rest, Wilson. You're going to need it."
"Tell that to the thunder god outside."
"I'll send him a memo."
She left quietly. Unlike Berta, Stacy didn't need a grand exit. Just a puff of smoke and the faint smell of cynicism.
I stayed where I was, the quiet creeping back in. Until—
A heavy thud of boots, the sound of someone deliberately trying not to sneak. Of course.
Berta again.
"God," I muttered, not looking. "You orbit me like a horny comet. What about that whole allowing me to mope in peace?"
"I forgot my lighter," she said. "And maybe also wanted to see if you're still pouting."
"I'm brooding. There's a difference."
"Whatever helps you sleep at night, gloomy boy."
She knelt beside me, elbows resting on her knees, head tilted. "You know, you really talk like a man who's planning to be miserable for the next ten years."
"Only four," I corrected. "Then I vanish like a fart in the wind."
She grinned. "You keep saying that, but I don't think you're going anywhere."
"Why's that?"
"Because you belong here. You're like furniture. Depressed, uncomfortable, but always present."
"You flatter me."
"I aim to please."
She didn't press further, which surprised me. Maybe she was starting to get it or maybe she was just tired too. Either way, she sat beside me for a while, the only sounds being the storm and her occasional crackle of lighter flame.
Eventually, she leaned back against the wall, eyes closed. "Y'know I've been thinking about something I want after this. Aside from the bar, of course."
"Hopefully a vow of celibacy and a restraining order?"
"A bakery."
I blinked.
She cracked one eye open. "What, too girly?"
"I just thought you'd want to run a brothel and a bar."
"Nah. I like bread too. And peace."
"That's terrifying. The most dangerous woman I've ever met so far wants to knead dough."
She shrugged. "We're all full of surprises."
"I don't like surprises."
"I know," she smirked.
We didn't say much after that. Just sat, watching the lightning split the sky again, lighting up the world in electric bursts like a broken slideshow of hell.
Eventually, she fell asleep right there, back against the wall, mouth slightly open, still somehow looking smug even unconscious.
I stayed awake. Guarding. Thinking. And just existing in the quiet violence of the storm.
Somewhere, the war kept grinding on.