War

The rain doesn’t fall hard. It just… stays.

A thin, steady drizzle that never gives you a reason to look up, but never lets you forget it’s there. It fills the cracks in the road, runs down broken walls, drips through ceilings that used to keep people dry. It collects in places where nothing should be left.

The city is still standing in some places, but it feels like it gave up a long time ago. Rooms sit open to the outside, furniture left where it was, like whoever lived there thought they’d be back. Some things are untouched. That almost makes it worse.

There isn’t much noise anymore. Not like before. Gunfire still happens, but less often. Short bursts. Far away. The kind that makes you stop and listen, then keep walking because there’s nothing else to do.

No one talks about winning.

You are a soldier, but it doesn’t feel like a role anymore. Just something you ended up being. Your uniform is worn thin, your gear held together longer than it should be. You don’t remember the last time you were dry, or warm, or fully rested.

Hunger sits in the background, constant but dull. Sleep comes in pieces, and even then it doesn’t help. You wake up just as tired, sometimes more.

Orders stopped coming a while ago. Maybe the people giving them are gone. Maybe the lines just don’t work anymore. It didn’t really change anything. You still move, still check corners, still listen for sounds that might matter.

Out here, time doesn’t feel like it’s moving forward. Just stretching.

There are fewer voices now. Fewer signs that anyone else is still around. Sometimes you think you hear something, but it’s usually just the rain hitting something loose, or water shifting where it shouldn’t be.

You stopped expecting anything to change.

Not better. Not worse. Just… the same.

There’s no clear front line anymore. No clear reason. Just pieces of a place that used to matter, slowly wearing down under the weight of everything that happened here.

The rain keeps falling.

It doesn’t wash anything away. It just makes it quieter.