Selfish

(This does not follow any specific timeline)

Name: Lyria Askoff, the paper reads.

Parents: Isaac Askoff (presumed dead) and Nyla Askoff (dead)

Hometown: Cliffwood Township (destroyed during the Fourth Bombing)

Other Affiliations/Relatives: Unknown

The man sighs, flipping the page over to skim over the first few categories.

Age: 5 (Birthday: 5/11/2081)

Height: 3'11

Weight: 58 lbs

Eye Color: Brown

Hair Color: Brown

He clicks his tongue, shaking his head.

What a shame. The rich and powerful start these wars, and the poor and weak have to pay the consequences.

There's a knock on the door.

"Come in," the man calls out.

The door squeaks open.

A mousy-haired woman peeks in. "Lyria Askoff, sir."

He gives the clipboard in his hands another once-over, and nods.

"Let her in."

-

The walls are white and the room is mostly empty, save for a few framed group photos on the walls and a large oak desk on one side, behind which sits a rather thin man.

Lyria scrutinizes him with narrowed eyes. His military uniform is faded, but adorned with countless shiny pins and medals. Two stars are embroidered onto either side of the raised collar of the uniform.

His skin is wrinkled and tanned from long days in the sun. His eyes are stern but kind, and evidence of many smiles and much laughter creases the sides of his mouth and corners of his eyes.

Lyria decides she likes this man. He reminds her of her father.

"Lyria, right?" the man rises from his desk, crouching in front of her so he can easily meet her eye.

Lyria nods, glancing at the woman who brought her in.

She offers Lyria an encouraging smile. There's something else there, too - a look that nearly everyone on her way here had given her -, but she's not sure what it is.

The man salutes with a bright smile, introducing himself in a fake-serious tone. "Ethan Kove, sergeant of the East Coast Army."

Lyria giggles at the playful formality.

"Here, have a seat," Ethan directs her to a chair in front of his desk.

Lyria sits, and Ethan sits opposite of her.

He takes a deep breath, folding his hands in front of him. There was no time to waste. He'd never been one for beating around the bush, either.

"Do you remember what happened?"

His voice is gentle; a kind of shield against the true weight of his words

Lyria's gaze falls from the medals on his jacket to the miniscule scratches in the wood of the desk.

It seems as though the hushed whispers pointed her way were right; she was here as a "witness" to the bombing. Though why they'd need the testimony of a child, she was unsure.

Lyria sighs, the sound too pained and too heavy for a child no older than five years.

"I had lunch," she starts, voice threatening to tremble.

Lyria swallows.

She continues.

-

Lyria recounts the spaghetti her mother had made her for lunch.

She remembers her mother giving her permission to play in the meadow that lay just several yards from their home.

The sun was high in the sky, green and yellow grass dancing and rolling in the slight breeze.

Lyria remembers the sudden, rapidfire pattering of what she was later told were gunshots.

Lyria remembers the shout. She remembers the sudden screams, the panic that welled up inside of her as she remembered her parents talking about a war.

Had the war come here, too?

She remembers getting up, her dolls forgotten on the ground as she ran towards her house, to her mother.

She remembers the explosion; the explosion that burst louder than any thunder and shone brighter than the sun.

She remembers the ringing in her ears, the force that knocked her to the edge of the field.

She remembers the panic as she couldn't breathe for a full minute, the deafness that muffled her desperate attempts to breathe. She remembers the weakness in her limbs, her heart beating all too quickly but not fast enough.

She remembers her blood, flowing from a cut at the side of her head. She remembers the heat of it; the stickiness, the metallic, salty scent and the dark, ruby hue.

She remembers the blurriness of her vision, her fear as she regained her wits and gathered her strength.

She remembers the horror as her vision cleared, as her eyes swept over the burning grass and the ash-rain that fell from the sky.

She remembers seeing the stark nothing where a house - her house - had once stood. The house that her mother had been inside of. She remembers seeing ruins where there was once a city, how it looked wrong without its usual life and laughter and people.

She remembers understanding it, wrapping her head around it, staring at the bitter pill she knows she must swallow.

She remembers standing on weak legs in a dreamlike trance, moving through the mess of flaming debris that had once been assembled into the form of a house. A city.

She remembers the blackened wood, the soot-covered bits of stone.

She remembers the corpses that lay half-buried in the destruction. She remembers seeing the unlucky animals that were caught in the blast; the pets of her neighbors that would never run or bark or play again.

And she remembers her mother's body among the rubble.

Broken and burnt and torn and horrible.

She remembers the bitter pill being shoved down her throat, how she'd swallowed the scream because it wouldn't be enough to vocalize her agony.

She remembers the troops, the good guys, coming to fight the ones who destroyed her home.

And she remembers the fury and the misery that had coursed through her veins.

What's the use? What more is there to protect? Everything is destroyed.

She remembers being swept up in the arms of a soldier. She remembers being marched into a room with doctors and nurses and patients.

And she remembers being told she was going to be okay.

Lie.

-

Ethan offers Lyria a tissue.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly.

To think that this little girl, younger than his own granddaughter, knew more of the horrors of war than most of his soldiers did was unthinkable.

Lyria sits with her shoulders hunched, staring at her lap.

"Why can't there just be peace?"

Ethan agrees with her. He'd asked himself that question many times before.

He tips his head back, blows out a breath, and gives her the most honest answer he can.

"Because people are selfish, Lyria. The rich would rather watch the world burn than take their greedy hands off their wealth. The powerful would rather start wars and throw away lives than give up their position."

Ethan reaches out to pat Lyria's head, guilt and sorrow swirling heavily inside of him. "I'm sorry that you have to live in this kind of world. I'm sorry that these selfish people still exist. I'm sorry that your generation has to inherit our problems.

"And I'm sorry that we can't be better."