you know, i would be grateful to have been in the first world war, even the second. back then it was life in the trenches, simple maneuvering, just guns and a bayonet. i would have felt safer and more secure than out here in this dead field. the leaders cared about their soldiers then, too bad that’s gone away now. those early wars weren’t fought in some frozen wasteland. out here in the frost, we’ve nowhere to hide from their fucking kamikaze dronez and their missiles. i miss when my only troubles were the neighborhood bully, when a snow day meant a day watching the television under the covers. back then i believed that i could be somebody, have my name up in lights all around the world. i don’t know what i wanted to do exactly, but i know it wasn’t this. back then at least i was known in my circles, i had a face. now they’ve cut my hair down to the skin, they’ve marked me, they’ve beat me down into submission so’s i don’t get any ideas of escaping the horrorz of war. one word against the masters and it’s back in the hole. they gave us guns, trained us like apes, all in hopes that we’d get one step closer to the state of ruthless unblinking stoicity required for killing civilians. they had knives, then guns, then bombs, then napalm, and now it’s the whining buzz of flying devils with rockets and explosives zip-tied to them. it’s amazing when you think of it, some chap is cozy in some military base underground playing pilotwings with a controller and on the other end we’re huddled beside one of our tanks, hoping they don’t drop thermite on us. i at least want my family to be able to see my face when i’m dead, i don’t want to be some nameless charred skeletal frame that was forced to fight a war he didn’t want to, heaped in a pile of a hundred others. why are we here? i don’t remember. they explained it all so well back home, before they abducted us. there are a lot of things i don’t remember. i suppose it comes with the territory. we’re a long ways from home, exploring frozen ghost towns, hollowed buildings blown apart by bombs, clearing out any signs of life. one of our company slipped and fell into a crevasse of the glacier we’d crossed just north of here. we heard his screams echo and echo, lost in the wind and the snow. they told us to keep moving, so we did. i wonder if they’ll tell his family he went missing, or if he was killed, or if they’ll give them hope that maybe he’ll return to them someday. i haven’t received any letters from my loved ones, i’m not sure they know where i am. if i went back now, i don’t know if anyone would recognize me. maybe it’s all for the best, after all why would they make us shave our heads and beat us down if it wasn’t good for us? sometimes i wonder what the people who sent us here are doing at this very moment. probably enjoying a nice warm meal, relaxing in their penthouse, traveling to make another speech, enjoying their third summer house. those people, the profiteers, the ones that see us as currency, they scribble their pens across dotted lines to determine the movement of our bodies, deciding who we take out and who we leave alive. some here in the company think it’s a blessing to be able to do what we always did in video games, to practice our aim with live targets. some couldn’t take it, went mad in the snow, abandoned us. i’ve thought about escaping, but doing so would ensure a long and cold death. if i keep moving with them then maybe i’ll get out of this wasteland and see my family again. maybe i’ll settle down, start one of my own. there it is again, the whining buzz of the dronez overhead. the noise sends shivers down my spine, locks my joints in place, my neck shakes my head violently in the cold. i’ve been able to make myself numb for the last few weeks, but the sharp knifing pains of the bitter cold seep into me as that infernal noise passes over me. one of them diverts, seeming to have seen something in its mechanical eye. the men scatter. i try to bury myself in the snow, disguising any perception of human form to this airborne harbinger of death. it fires into the snow, ceasing the movement of some of our company, staining the snow a deep and cruel red. it moves at an imperceivable speed, ripping through the air above us. i try anything and everything in my power to stop the shivers of fear. the horrible snaps of the bones as bullets pass through them rings out across the dark snow. the cry of my fallen peers echo in my head. i’m sure they’ll stay with me if i ever escape the fire of the dronez, they’ll return any time i’m met with silence, any time i close my eyes. i’ve seen worse than the spray of gunfire across the countryside staining the shallow earth crimson. i’ve seen the aftermath of their chemical warfare, i’ve seen men eat each other after their rations run out, i’ve seen men and women with their bones removed. but these sights filled me with disgust and sadness, no sight can fill me with fear quite like the sight of these evil mechanical devils that burrow through the gray sky. and as to read my deepest fears, the drones open their little compartments and spill molten fire down over us. the pattern snakes around where i lie covered by the snow, melting the snow and the earth under the red flames. the fire burns into my vision, but i do not move from my hiding place. the last living men of my company are now engulfed in the spreading flames of hell brought down by these deathly flying apparitions. the dronez circle the smoldering earth watching for any other movement in the snow, and eventually their rattled hums quiet with distance. they leave me with the silence of death, the crackle of the still burning remains of what was left of my company. i wait in the silent snow. maybe it’s minutes, maybe it’s an hour. the dronez are gone, but i cannot move. i am afraid they will come back. i am always afraid they will come back.

“DRONEZ” by SAMUEL KINSELLA.