Hope

Tired and lonely, I sat down on the soft sand and leaned against the pole behind me. My friends, my fire team, killed in the heat of the battle. As I thought to myself, I couldn’t help but relive those same moments of my closest allies dying before my eyes. I wanted to believe that we were invincible and that nothing could ever stop us. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. As I looked upon the corpses around me, different memories sprung into my mind. One of those memories was of a peaceful hunting trip with my fire team. I was the new guy back then. The trip was very exciting for me, as I had yet to kill anything in my entire life. Not only did I kill my first creature on that trip, but I also killed my first enemy. While we were out hunting, a group of Fallen soldiers dropped down near us. As any fire team would, we set out to kill all of them, which we did swiftly. The whole experience was exhilarating. Just thinking about the story made my heart pump with excitement. Another memory that came to me was when my fire team and I were out riding our shrikes. It was my first time riding a shrike, and boy was it fun. As adrenaline pumped through my body, I would go faster and faster, feeling the wind as it blew my hood off of my head and ran its cold yet soothing fingers through my hair. The whole moment was exciting, to say the least. At last, after many minutes of reminiscing on the past, I found myself becoming upset over the outcome of the battle. I had known these two for so long, and now I saw their cold bodies lying face first on the warm sand. As my simple sadness began to slowly grow into a form of depression, I knew I had to leave the area and try my best to forget about everything. What I needed was some time off, some time to think. I stood up and knelt down beside one of my old allies. His body flopped over as if it were a thick pancake. Like any good soldier, I retrieved his dog tags, and then did the same to my other fallen friend. Before my shrike could arrive, I took one final look at the scene. With my eyes now tearing up, I set out for the City. When I got back home, everybody in the town knew exactly what had happened. They showed as much sympathy towards me as they possibly could, which I admit helped my cope with my loss. Knowing I would quickly be assigned to a new fire team, I went to my room immediately. I had to calm myself down before I could go back into the fray. Like I had suspected, I was assigned to a new squad the next morning. I met up with them right outside of the wall. One of the guardians was a Titan. He told me he was an Exo, and that he was looking forward to having me join the team. The other guardian was a Warlock. She was obviously an Awoken. She welcomed me to the squad and apologized for everything that had happened. I was happy to hear that they understood what I was going through and that if I needed some time to myself, all I needed to do was ask. Later that night, I looked back on all of my memories once more. What I realized is that while my friends may be gone, I had new adventures to look forward too with my new fire team. It was like I was a Rookie all over again, only this time, I had experience. There was no way for me to predict the future, however. I knew that I, or my new allies, could possibly be slain within the next minute. All I could do was hope.