Icarus awoke in the soft, warm glow of the sun. An all too familiar bedroom enveloped him, with its black and white furniture and the always slightly ajar door of the bathroom. He rolled over and put his hand on his lover’s arm. They made a small noise in their sleep and shifted backward to ride up against Icarus. He smiled and ran a hand through their soft, black hair, putting his head up next to theirs. He savored the moment, hiding away from the outside world and lying in the warm, morning sun next to the love of his life.
But he knew it wasn’t real.
It was just a dream.
He blinked and was standing in a church, wearing a black suit that felt like it was choking his entire body. A lot of people were there - none of his family, but his lover’s family. He had none left by this point, they were all either dead or too distant to care. An organ behind him kicked to life and everyone in the pews stood up, and his lover came down the alley, wearing a beautiful white dress. Their green eyes glowed with happiness and youth, and Icarus put his hands behind his back and smiled nervously. As they got closer, an organ kicked to life and filled the church with a wonderful barrage of noise, and Icarus flinched slightly at the sudden noise.
He blinked and found himself standing in the open top hatch of a tank, wearing a black and gold trench coat with metal shoulder plates and a peaked officers cap. Behind him were a short row of other tanks, their own commanders standing in the open hatches. He looked side to side as they rolled down a nearly empty city street, rain pounding on their heads. Fires raged in the ruins of skyscrapers that now looked like jagged spires, and burned-out tanks and cars sat in the streets. As they turned a street corner, they heard yelling from down the street, and Icarus turned his head to see a concrete barrier in between them and the other end of the street, men in civilian clothes behind it armed with rifles. Icarus barked an order down to the soldiers marching with the tank and kicked his gunner’s seat, yelling down the hatch to begin firing the machine gun. The turret swiveled around to the barrier and unleashed a deafening roar of bullets at it, beginning to shred it’s weak concrete to pieces. The civilian volunteers hid behind it before one stood up straight with a grenade launcher, firing off a round directly into the center of the tank’s front armor, enveloping it in blackened smoke. Icarus leaned down the side of the tank and barked another order, throwing his arm forward. The soldiers alongside the tank began to charge the line, rifles raised and firing. The tank fired a single shell downrange at the barricade. Only a moment later, the barricade exploded in a cloud of grey dust and concrete chunks, raining down on the tank like a hailstorm. Icarus climbed out of the hatch and jumped down onto the street, grabbing his pistol off of his hip and taking a deep breath through his gas mask. As the dust dissipated, bloodied fighters became visible, lying on the ground, either already dead or close to it. Icarus’ soldiers began to make sure they were the former, loud gunshots ringing out every now and then, as Icarus moved towards the now destroyed concrete barricade and looked around carefully. A fighter suddenly grabbed his coat’s bottom, trembling and bloodied, their hair burned away and a large cut going across their skull. They said something in a different language Icarus recognized as Russian, and he lowered his pistol to their head and squeezed the trigger without hesitation, hot blue blood spraying upwards as their hand went limp and they fully collapsed to the ground. Icarus smirked slightly under his gas mask and barked another order out to the soldiers, walking towards the other end of the barricade again.
He blinked again and found himself in the burning streets of his home city of Kodar. He put a written note on the wooden door of his home and turned on his heels, running as fast as he could. Soldiers fired on revolutionaries from behind large metal shields and barriers in the street, and molotovs and improvised explosives flew from behind the line of revolutionary flags and their own shields. Icarus looked at the line of soldiers and ran towards them, waving his arms at them for just a second before a bullet from a revolutionary’s gun tore through his leg and sent him slamming into the concrete. He let out a pained cry and gripped his leg with one arm, trying to crawl away with the other. The impact to the ground shattered his nose, hot blood pouring down his face and into his mouth, the hot iron taste making him sick. His vision began to go blurry and dark as he edged closer to the soldier’s line, before he collapsed fully on the ground, closing his eyes and letting out a blood-soaked breath.
He blinked and found himself in the medical bay of a freighter ship. He let out a groan and sat up, pausing as he looked at the unfamiliar flag that hung on the wall - an eagle gripping the top of a globe, surrounded by olive leaves. Below it said ARFC, Aznian Republic of Free Colonies. His heart dropped for a moment before a short, blonde woman came in the door, wearing a white coat and slacks. She asked for his name, and he panicked for a moment before responding quietly.
“Viktor Veskar.”
He blinked again and found himself in a darkened graveyard, rain pounding overhead. The bright lights of Tadrigal seemed flushed out and dim here. He was wearing torn-up jeans, a red waistcoat, and a red tie over a white button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He had grown a beard now, his red and black eyes glowing softly as he looked down at the overturned dirt at the tips of his boots. The tombstone was barely readable in the dim light, its text black on a sad, grey stone backdrop. He kneeled down and put his hand on the dirt, sighing quietly and shakily. His arm began to shake with the ferocity of an earthquake and his heart began to race like a machine gun. His eyes welled up and he leaned it down, choking out a breath and beginning to break down inside. He muttered sorry and pleaded for forgiveness as he sank down both his hands, saying that he never wanted to leave in the first place, screaming out his lover’s name in agony before the scene went dark.
And he woke up.
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