The vase of wilted flowers on my desk filled me with such sorrow, I rolled over in bed to face the other side of the room. The clock read six minutes to four but I stayed awake, fearful I would oversleep and miss my train, even though it wasn’t scheduled to depart for another two hours. My canvas messenger bag was already packed, and my blue jacket was waiting on the chair by the door.

Yesterday, I’d tidied my bedroom by sweeping the floor and dusting the furniture, but I couldn’t bring myself to toss the flowers. The pale yellow blossoms had filled my flat with their sweet scent this summer when I had taken a short leave from my job at the refugee camp and returned home to check on my brother, Will.

Ten years after he stepped in as my protector, I became Will’s caretaker following his medical discharge from the service. His spirit had been broken from what he witnessed when he was at war. While he was healing, Will moved into my flat and for the past two years I had tried to balance caring for my brother with my job as a refugee aid worker.

It was over a month ago that he brought the flowers home. “Wrenn, look what I found on my hike today.” He held a bundle of branches blooming with honeysuckle flowers.

We each plucked a blossom, put the clear droplet of nectar to our tongues, and spent the afternoon reminiscing about childhood adventures. “Remember how we always had to sneak a taste when we were kids?” I asked.

Will shook his finger at me and raised the pitch of his voice, sounding just like our mother. “Stop eating my flowers.”

I smiled at the bittersweet memory of our mother. Our parents died when I was twelve and, at that time, the courts appointed a distant relative as our official custodian, but she found us to be an expensive inconvenience. Our aunt continued to collect government funds for our care while Will and I bounced from the home of one of his friends to another. He was only four years older than me, but Will made sure I had a safe place to stay even after he enlisted in the GUA. He said he joined the service out of a sense of duty and to play a part in avenging our parents’ death. But I think he became a soldier to pay for my tuition at the university.

I placed the branches in a vase and handed the arrangement to my brother. “You can keep the honeysuckle in your room.” He could think about our childhood and forget the war.

He turned away from my offering, opened the cabinet, and grabbed another container. Then he separated one branch from the bundle I was holding and put it in his vase.

I lifted all of the flowers out of my vase. “You found the honeysuckle. It will brighten up your room and make you feel better.” I tried to put the stems back in his vase.

Will held up a hand to stop me. “There’s enough for both of us. You are always looking out for me and everyone around you. You deserve to be loved and protected as much as anyone else.”

He had spoken those words to me ever since we were kids, and while I knew he cared about me, I never felt worthy of his love or protection. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and stared out the window; I didn’t know how I was supposed to respond.

Will didn’t burden me with his pain. Instead, he had met with a therapist and journaled about his time in the service. He told me about trips with friends to the stadium to watch ball games and he mentioned a girl he had met during an outing. This past summer, he seemed to be doing well, so I decided to return to work after being home for only a few days.

I closed my eyes and tried to remember the sound of Will’s voice or what the flowers had looked like when they were alive.

The light fixture over my bed rattled, the ripple effect of Mr. Cenchrea’s feet hitting the floor one level up. He woke early for his job as a bus driver in the city, and without looking at the clock I knew it was four a.m.

Now the end of summer blossoms had withered to brown and lay as an offering beneath the bowed stems and the honeyed perfume that had filled my room was replaced by the faint smell of cleaning solution. It had been applied by a sanitation company that specialized in restoring homes after catastrophic events like fires or burst pipes. Mr. Cenchrea had given me their contact information, telling me that the city used their services to clean the transportation fleet following a beer and wine festival at the stadium.

“I’m sure they can clean up your brother’s room.” Mr. Cenchrea tucked his hands in his back pockets and looked down at his feet. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

The sea breeze scented disinfectant wasn’t as overpowering as it had been two weeks ago when the cleaning crew removed the blood from Will’s room. They had asked me to inspect the bedroom next to mine to make sure everything was put back in order, but I refused. I told them I would call if I needed them to return. I still hadn’t opened the door.

I turned away from the flowers and buried my face in my pillow, but I was smothered by the acrid odor of the cleaning solution that had permeated every surface of the flat, and I was drowning in the painful memories of a home where I had once felt safe and protected.

I threw off the covers, made the bed, and changed. As I twisted my straight hair into two braids, I looked in the mirror. Will’s friends described me as cute. I think they were trying to be polite since there wasn’t much about me that stood out except for my narrow nose. In elementary school, the other kids said my parents named me Wrenn since I had a bird’s beak in the middle of my face. I supposed that was better than having a catchy rhyme with my last name. I could have been Jodh the toad instead of bird beak Wrenn.

After I tied up my hair, I pulled on my jacket and drew the strap of the messenger bag over my head. I thought about bringing the flowers with me, but I knew they would crumble to nothingness if I picked them up. Instead, I left the flowers with their broken memories on the desk.

In the hallway, I considered opening the door to Will’s bedroom. If I let the smell out, it would eventually dissipate. The doorknob was difficult to grasp since it was covered by the filmy disinfectant. When I turned the handle, the latch released from the jamb and the door eased open. I spared only a quick glance in the darkened room at the shadowy silhouettes of furniture standing as memorials to their former owner. Just to the right of the door, atop the desk, were two journals.

Maybe they would tell me why Will broke his promise to always love me and protect me. War had taken our parents, but I thought Will was safe. Now I was alone. My hands shook as I grabbed my brother’s notebooks and shoved them into my bag.

Even though I planned to return in a few months, I couldn’t shake the sense that I would never see this place again. Still, the journey I began that day left me longing for home. I closed the door to my flat and walked to the train station. The sienna-saturated smog muted the streetlights and reduced visibility to one block. The sea breeze cleaner that had assaulted my nostrils was replaced with the smell of coal dust and burnt plastic. I pulled up the collar of my T-shirt until my nose was covered. But the disinfectant coating my shirt plus the smog made my stomach heave. I hurried along for three blocks until I reached the filtered air of the train station.

At the depot, I bought a ticket to the Amigre refugee camp. The first train was scheduled to depart in an hour, so I sat on a bench and looked out at what remained of my city. The vacant building across from the train station had housed a history museum I had visited once when I was ten. Now its crumbling facade told only of the bombings and war that had ravaged my city of Onesimus more than ten years ago.

Was there any war that was worth fighting? Land changed hands and people died. The whole process was fruitless. I wasn’t the only one who had grown weary of the constant bloodshed.

The peoples across the planet of Kohath had put their trust in His Excellency Dathan Merari to lead us to peace through Global Unification, a process he began after the Scars of the last Intercontinental War ended over twenty years ago. Executive Secretary Alexander Tereus enforced Merari’s objective by appealing to the undersecretaries in each of Kohath’s provinces and coordinating terms and treaties for peace. The Executive Secretary also established the Global Unified Alliance (GUA), a peacekeeping militia, to resolve the remaining battles and extinguish areas of unrest, which continued to terrorize the citizens of Kohath.

I trusted and believed that Global Unification was possible since Will, as a soldier with the GUA, affirmed Merari’s objective. Even though I had lost my entire family since the inception of Global Unification, I held on to the promise of peace. At times, I was skeptical of the methods Tereus used, but his approach had snuffed out war in Ashitar, Mendrea, and Tallaria although the regions of Shaphan and Perrang were not as fortunate.

I waited with a growing crowd of passengers until the train bound for Amigre arrived at the station, ten minutes behind schedule. It was the end of the work week and the cars were already packed with city dwellers looking for a quick and inexpensive escape to the countryside.

I avoided eye contact as I passed through several crowded railcars before finding an unoccupied section. The window seat in one row had frayed blue upholstery and mysterious stains, a far more inviting option than the naked, cracked plastic of its aisle seat. I claimed the window and deposited my bag on the adjacent empty seat. I stretched my legs over the messenger bag, reclined my head against the window, and let the double braid of my hair serve as a pillow.

The memories of the past two weeks tore into my soul like shards of glass. I pushed the images aside and let the hypnotic click-clack of the rails lull me into an empty sleep.

I had just drifted off when I was jolted awake by a gunshot. But no one else seemed fazed. The passengers across the aisle were sharing a hushed conversation and others in the car were silent. My heart continued to race even after I realized it was only the sound of the train coming to a sudden stop.

A quick glance at my watch showed I was still two hours from my final destination. The overhead comms made an announcement in the Common Tongue and then in Ele’os. “All passengers must exit the train. Ground transport to the train continuing to Amigre will depart in fifteen minutes.”

Detours like these were becoming all too common. The government had diverted all financial efforts to Global Unification, suspending funds for track maintenance and repair. I hopped onto a bus which shuttled us past a buckled section of track.

Once aboard the next train, I again claimed a window seat. My bag occupied the aisle seat, silently indicating that this row was taken. Unfortunately, it did not speak loudly enough. An older woman with a bright red sunhat and an oversized powder blue dress stood before me with a matronly smile. “Mind if I sit here?”

I stopped short of letting out a sigh as I placed my bag under the seat. “Of course not. There’s plenty of room.”

“My Henry, Sovereign rest his soul, told me to never go it alone on public transportation. Always sit with another woman for safety.”

I supposed Henry was banking on safety in numbers. She and I were similar in height although I estimated that I was about five kilograms heavier. It was suggested at my annual physical that I not gain any more weight. Apparently, sixty kilograms meant that I was a little soft. Still, I lacked any formal self-defense training making my ability to fight off an assailant only slightly better than hers with youth being my only advantage.

She arranged her handbag on her lap before she settled in and glanced at my dark blue jacket with its unmistakable Humanitarian Relief Corp (HRC) logo. “Are you headed to the refugee camp at Amigre?”

“Yes. I’m back from some leave.”

“You probably needed it. All those people jammed into tents. They should have just stayed where they were and fought their own war.” She shook her head and clicked her tongue. “The government can’t keep supporting them.”

She was only repeating what the newsvids broadcasted every evening. If she had spent any time at the camp, she would see the fallout of war with her own eyes and feel compassion for the refugees and their plight. I would normally take time to educate the misinformed, but my eyelids were so heavy I could barely nod in response. I forced my eyes open and changed the subject. “Where are you traveling?”

People loved to talk about themselves. They were shameless in what they would share and I was usually a compassionate listener. I would normally be ashamed of being insincere, but today I plastered on fake smiles at the appropriate times, frowned when necessary, and let out little chortles at opportune moments for the next two long hours. Grandma told me about the roses she planted last spring and about her sister who would be having surgery.

While she rambled, I thought about my job at Amigre. I had entered the field to help the refugees I saw on the newsvids. War came to my city over ten years ago, but I still had a home.

That wasn’t the case for the Ele’os, a peaceful agrarian nation living in the neighboring province of Shaphan. When a new ruler rose to power three years ago, his first decree was to seize land from the Ele’os. They refused to leave but lacked the numbers or weaponry to mount an effective resistance. Those who weren’t imprisoned or slaughtered fled to Amigre.

It was true, the refugees were pulling funds from a government that was on the verge of bankruptcy. But money needed to be invested to ensure peace. Our refugee camp offered the Ele’os a haven, a stopover on the way to Onesimus and other cities where they could find jobs, homes, food, and hope. His Excellency had dispatched GUA troops to Shaphan, but peace takes time.

I refocused when Grandma made mention of her nephew in the military. “He’s not with the GUA. He’s a real soldier.” She lifted her chin with pride.

Most older people, along with other extremists, were opposed to Global Unification. The evening newsvids spread their propaganda: We will fight to protect the rights and freedoms of our people. I couldn’t grasp their logic. Rights and freedom should be afforded to all people, not just one powerful group.

I wasn’t sure I could keep my composure if her talk led to another dead soldier, so I looked out the window and changed the direction of the conversation. “The sun is starting to show from behind the clouds.” I leaned back to give her a better view of the farmland that sped past our window.

She reached out a hand, steadied herself on the seat in front of us, and lifted her squinted eyes to the sky. “Thank the Sovereign. The rain was welcome but three days in a row is just too much. My roses were getting black spots. They need sunshine.” She proceeded to blather on about her plants and the weather.

I had started my first rotation at the Amigre refugee camp that spring, almost six months earlier. My boss, a seasoned government worker, had impressed one rule upon all of the aid workers. “The refugees need to be out of camp within two weeks. Keep them comfortable. But not too comfortable.” He didn’t care if the Ele’os went to the city to find jobs or back to their war-torn land to fight for survival. Part of the reason we had security on-site was to ensure the refugees moved on.

While the refugees and aid workers were housed in tents designed for only twenty people, the thirty plus inhabitants were grateful for the shelter. Aid personnel tried to make the two weeks at camp comfortable by working with refugees to identify marketable skills that would help them secure jobs in Onesimus and other cities. While parents received guidance about their family’s future, I taught the children a few words in the Common Tongue. The conditions at camp may have been miserable, but I was doing my part to ensure peace and help Kohath achieve Global Unification.

As we disembarked, Grandma said, “It’s a hard job you have. I’ll be sure to pray for you. You just tell those people at the camp that we don’t want any freeloaders here. They need to earn their keep or get out.”

I tensed up and looked away as she gave me a hug and said, “It was wonderful talking to you.”

As Grandma walked away, I knew I should have said more. But it was easy to stay silent when I had been seduced by the promise of peace.