Returning to No Applause, Only More of the Same

Something seemed to grip at Kreig’s heart with invisible claws. It felt strange, all of a sudden. He could remember every aspect of these four people, from their appearance to their personal beliefs. And yet, he couldn’t remember a single thing from the day he had been summoned, apart from the moment he woke up in the otherworld. It left a bad taste in his mouth.

Only one thing here felt worse to him.

There was a monument. To him. Something he had never and would never deserve. Not in death, not in life.

He didn’t deserve to be placed next to his deceased comrades.

He bent down, eyeing the rose on the far right, with its glistening golden petals where people had touched it and still-shiny nameplate that stated in bold letters like a gravestone when he was born and when he was summoned. No flowers surrounded it, likely because his siblings had known his fate as of over a month or so.

He picked the rose. Snapped the metal stem right in half, bringing the rose to his eyes.

His siblings seemed as though they wanted to say something, likely along the lines of ‘please don’t destroy public property’, but he had no ear for it at the moment. The rose was a false idol of his lacking death.

It would burn in his hand.

Purge of the Holy (X)

Burn into petals of snow. But he wasn’t done. These people, these roses…

Nobody had ever told their families what happened, had they? After all, nobody knew any details about it. And maybe it would be cruel to force such a harsh reality upon these grieving families, but he knew right then and there that they needed it. They had to hear that their sons had not died in vain inside a portal to feed some oversized animal. They were soldiers of God, and their families deserved to know that.

“Where do they live?” he asked. His siblings shared a glance.

“Um, you aren’t going to, like, extort-,”

“No.”

“Oh. Okay. Uh…“ Sam scratched at her neck, “I’ll make an assumption and guess that you know what happened to the other four, right?” Kreig nodded. “Right. Then… you’re going to tell them? How they-, how they died?” Kreig didn’t deny that. “I… Yeah, I can understand that. Losing a loved one is-, it’s the worst thing I’ve ever experienced, I think, but not even knowing how or why it happened is just-, there’s no closure, you know? Never knowing if they went out in a blaze of glory or snuffed out like a dying candle. But I don’t think we can send any letters by post, I think it’s pretty confidential, so if you want to do that, we might need to deliver them personally.”

He could accept that. “Anything.” Consider it a well-meaning gesture to his former comrades. Even if he had to jump through hoops to get it done, he’d do it.

Sam turned to George. They could accept that, couldn’t they? It was needed, after all.

They went home.

Even though neither George nor Sam ever had the need to buy a printer, they did keep paper and envelopes in the house, mainly since Sam once had a phase where she enjoyed hand-writing letters and stamping them with wax seals to give to crushes/friends/teachers she actually liked. Thanks to this, they were able to get Kreig paper and pencils quicker than normal.

The only thing separating Kreig from writing four individual letters to four individual households was George’s incessant need to first introduce Kreig to a phone.

“It isn’t complicated, it’s just-,” and then he went on to explain in the smallest words possible how this little rectangular thing was, in fact, extremely advanced. In the end though, his main points were in ‘this is the button to press to call me, this is the button to press to call Sam, and this is the button to call the authorities in case of an emergency’. Everything else was by far too complicated for Kreig to fully understand. Messages? Social media? Internet? Kreig felt a headache coming on.

And when that was done and Kreig had successfully pressed the button to call George twice and George seemed happy with his use of the little artefact, he then went on to threaten Kreig’s sparse sanity with teaching him how to use a ‘computer’. A bigger version of the phone.

At this point, Kreig could not listen. The information went into one ear and out of the other. George noticed this, growing irritated, but finally deciding to cut his explanation short.

And with a final grumble and a reminder to keep the phone charged and on hand at all times, George left Kreig’s room, leaving him to his own devices. All he had was his desk, his paper, and a pencil. With this and nothing more, Kreig would narrate a tale to people. One of hardship and woe and truth. He would spare no details, not in how it began, and not in how it ended, either. Only his own identity would remain hidden. He’d write it as though he was an outside force, merely observing.

Each of the four letters would be slightly different, focused on one of the four boys and how their lives played out.

In the otherworld. they had all become adults. Or, as adult as five child-soldiers could become. They had lived full lives, seldom lacking anything, becoming fulfilled as humans. Upon their deaths, all of them were over 35. They had not died as children, they had died as men.

Kreig hoped that knowing their children had not died young would bring them some form of solace. The tale he spun them was almost nonsensical in nature, he knew that, but he hoped that he could earn their trust. If he couldn’t earn it through usual means, he always had the skill Convince (II) though it was not one he liked using. For now, he was prepared to use even underhanded methods to ensure that his comrades remained known and remembered by people other than himself, people who needed to know this.

It took him two hours to fully write the letters, to completely pour out the memories of his first thirty years in the otherworld. He could only hope that it would be enough.

He placed each letter inside an envelope, addressed them to the families of the deceased, and sealed them shut with wax he borrowed from Sam. And now, to deliver them.

Whether they accepted his letters or not, he would make them understand exactly what happened.