After the fight (Five minutes freewrite)

marie-jay (61)in #freewrite • 6 years ago (edited)

The city is silent, at last. Nothing moves apart for the occasional can rattled by the dying wind of the storm that has cleaned the streets of the inevitable mess. Even the air smells clean again and so it will remain for a long time now. Here, at least.
The man at the top of the tower lays down his heavy binoculars, sits back and takes a swig from the silver flask that he always carries around, hanging from his leather belt.
He drinks in this moment of peace and quiet - nothing says victory like the silence that follows the bangs and the cries and the howls, hours upon hours of screaming that he has learned to black out. The first time, yes, the atrocious sounds of battle were exhilarating, the thought that it was in his power to unleash all that suffering. Back then, he used to go down, mingle with the fighters, look at their disgusting wounds, watch their faces contorted with pain until death overtook them. Not anymore, he's seen and heard enough - and, what's more, he doesn't need more proof of his power.
Alcohol does nothing to dull his senses and he braces himself for the moment it hits him again. It never fails to do so at the end of a battle - whether won or lost - the creeping sense of uselessness. This battle of their has been going on for ages and nothing ever changes - except maybe the scene and, sometimes, very rare, the plot. For the people below, those that do the actual fighting, that matters probably - gives them names and places to write down in their ridiculous books they call history, as if they knew anything about history, the real one, not the one they can measure with their clumsy instruments.

The battle has been going on for ages, not only here on this planet or this universe, but in myriads of worlds so improbable at times even he has trouble believing in. Worlds of fantastic creatures that did not know death until he arrived, worlds of ghosts whose deaths were in the past, yet they still fought each other. At least, that was a welcome variation - the silent fight with no cries escaping their milky-white ectoplasm mouths and no blood, no viscous entrails stenching up the air. They should do that again someday.
Nothing to do here anymore. The man at the top of the tower flies one more time over the city, not really taking in the view of his latest triumph. His all-black eyes peer into the distance to the edges of the fallen city. There, in the valley, his opponent is tending to his remaining army - a pitiful array of maimed soldiers, wide-eyed with fear, torn by grief and the shame of having been spared.
'See you on the other side', he waves at the man with the white helmet below. And they will meet again some place or another and they will fight again. Sometimes the man in white wins, but then this is what keeps the game interesting. The good guys would stop fighting if it weren't for these rare and heroic victories and where would he be then?
'See you on the other side', the man in the valley whispers as he watches the black figures flying away. He looks around him at the gaping wounds and broken spirits and it pains him to see them like this, but it's not actual pain, just the notion of pain, really, for his heart has been hardened by the countless defeats he has witnessed. They might have lost love or limbs, but at least their battle is over. But not his. He'll still be fighting when no trace will be left that this small world ever existed.