Targeted

2024-08-09 Fiction

It wasn't a real war until somebody you loved died. This unfairness you understand without feeling.

You realized the person you loved was dead when you learned they had been killed before you first knew they existed; long before you fell in love, as planned, with a strength undiminished by your retroactive awareness that you have only ever interacted with a synthetic echo carefully dropped on your path. As planned, too, you will forever hate in your grief your government for killing them and yourself for your atemporal betrayal. It wasn't a real war and now it's an unending one your country will not lose but you already have.

There's a logic in this you don't understand but know is correct and a burning-cold awful justice you wish you didn't.