Order Is Mercy.

They taught us that peace was something to be made, not something to wait for. Peace never arrived on its own. It had to be forced, hammered in until the screaming stopped. That was the first lesson, and I don’t really remember learning it, only knowing it, like how you know the back of your hand.

The banners have been there since I began school. Black cloth, heavy and hanging in every doorway. A White flame split down the middle. Beneath it, the words we learned to read before anything else.

Order Is Mercy.

I learned the flame was not for destruction. It was purification. Fire removed rot and made space for something clean to grow. If nothing ever grew, it only meant that the land had been too diseased to save.

No one argued with that. Arguing implied we were uncertain and uncertainty was how the enemy spread. It was a disease and those who were sick needed to be dealt with accordingly. I learned about how the enemy operated, we all did. In school we are taught through images and recordings, blurred figures running through smoke, bodies twisting in the rubble. Context didn’t matter; the enemy didn’t have a reason to hurt us other than they just wanted to cause pain and suffering.

“What do they want?” a boy once asked.

The teacher didn’t hesitate. “Chaos,” she said. “They want the world to tear itself apart.”

That answer was enough, never did we question it again. It was simple, the enemy wanted chaos and nothing more. At home, my mother reinforced these same lessons. She kept the radio on and tuned to the reports of the war, volume low but always on. Casualty numbers drifted through the speakers while she cooked, while she folded the laundry, while she helped me with homework.

“They are the cause of all our troubles,” she said more than once. “We’re blessed to be on the right side of things.”

I believed her. We were better, we would never cause harm just cause we wanted to. At least that’s what I believed.

By the time I was old enough to enlist, the war had no beginning in my mind. It simply was. A pressure, normal, like gravity. It was something you dealt with without thinking. Training stripped us down and rebuilt us all. Not just physically, although there was plenty of that, but mentally. We learned to think of zones instead of neighborhoods, targets instead of people, objectives rather than endings. Words are important as the wrong ones could get you disciplined.

We didn’t destroy villages. We denied them.

We didn’t kill civilians. We neutralized a threat.

The Enemy, we were reminded daily that they used civilians as weapons. Hiding behind them, inside them. Any difference between a fighter and civilian was something they exploited. Refusing to make that distinction was not a cruelty, it was wisdom on our part. I absorbed this information eagerly. Belief made things feel lighter. Belief turned it all into duty.

When the transport finally carried us to the front, I felt relief rise in my chest, so much so it felt more like joy. At last, something solid. Proof that everything id been taught had a purpose beyond classrooms and slogans.

The land looked dead when we arrived. Not destroyed but emptied. Buildings stood with their windows shattered, walls crumbled. Roads were cracked. The air smelled wrong, almost metallic and damp.

“This is what they do,” our squad leader said loudly, gesturing to the ruins. “They rot everything they touch.”

I nodded, believing every word.

Our first engagement was brief. Intelligence said Enemy fighters were sheltering in a cluster of low structures near the river. We shelled the area before dawn, the impact rolling through the valley like a thunderstorm. When we moved in, there was little resistance. A few scattered shots.

“Cowards,” I muttered.

Inside one of the buildings, I found a shoe. Just one. Small, pink, mud stained. It sat near the doorway, untouched by the blast, as if it were deliberately placed. I stared at it longer than I should’ve. Children lived everywhere, I reminded myself. Children were not evidence of anything. Children were unfortunate in any conflict the Enemy was forcing upon us. Still, I nudged the shoe into the shadows with my boot as if I was hiding it, before I took off and joined my squad. That night, sleep came slowly. The wind howled through the broken walls, and I woke more than once with my hands on my rifle, thinking that at any moment the enemy may come in and try to ambush us.

Days began to blur together. Patrols. Sweeps. Briefings. There was never anything about civilian presence. When I asked about it, I received an answer immediately.

“If they’re there,” The officer said, “they’re complicit.”

Complicit was another word used often. It made something that felt so complex into something much more manageable. There was one thing that did confuse me though. How the enemy acted. The Enemy did not behave the way I expected. They did not rush at us screaming. They avoided direct confrontation. They fled. They hid. Sometimes they surrendered easily.

“They’re luring us,” my squad leader said after one such encounter. “Don’t let it get to you.”

“Yes sir.” I responded, but a image stayed with me, an Enemy fighter no older than me, hands shaking as he dropped his weapon, eyes darting toward the hills as if he were deciding if trying to escape was worth it. We detained him, and what happened afterward was not discussed. I just reminded myself, who am I to question why the enemy does what they do, my elders know better than me, So, I moved on.

The first time we were ordered to clear civilians, I told myself it was different. They weren’t civilians, not really. They were sympathizers. The valley had been marked unstable, and stability could not coexist with those who sympathize with the enemy. So, we went house to house, marking doors, and issuing commands. Most people complied. Some cried. Some stared at us with a flat expression that made my skin crawl.

In one house, a woman stood in front of two children, the oldest couldn’t have been much older than eight. She spoke our language poorly, but it was clear enough to understand. “We are not them,” she said. Again, and again. “We are not them.” Tears streamed down her face, falling off her cheek and to the ground.

My squad leader checked the registry. “This area is compromised.”

The woman reached for me. Her hand was warm, trembling. “Please,” she said. “We just live here.” I felt a tear of hers fall onto my exposed arm.

For a fraction of a second, so small I might have imagined it. I felt something slip inside me.

Then my training pulled me back.

I pulled away. Wiping that tear off my arm.

I watched outside, as the house burned quickly.

That night I couldn’t eat.

I told myself it was the smell; that the smoke had clung to everything. The instructors had warned us about delayed reactions. Weaknesses would pass if you didn’t indulge it. Still, when I closed my eyes, I saw the banners. No longer did they hang proudly in the wind but charred and curling in on themselves as fire engulfs it, the white flame melting away behind the real fire.

I woke with the words in my head, louder than ever.

Order Is Mercy.

For the first time, I wondered what happened when the order never stopped. The question followed me for days. At first, I treated it like any intrusive thought. Training gave us methods for that. Redirect. Refocus. Repeat our doctrine until the mind aligned with it again. Order Is Mercy. Order Is Mercy. Order Is-

It didn’t quiet.

Instead, the war pressed on. Our patrols extended farther and beyond places that still resembled towns. Villages appeared on maps that no longer existed. Sometimes the buildings were gone. Sometimes, they were still standing but hollowed out, their insides cleaned out by fire. Ash was all that was left behind.

“These areas were unstable,” the briefings told us. “Stability has been restored.”

Restored to what, I wondered, but I did not ask. Questions weren’t encouraged. Questions only led to doubt is what we are taught. Is that what I’m experiencing? I shook my head, picked my feet up again, carrying on with my team.

The Enemy began to feel less like an army as time passed. They did not hold their ground, they didn’t announce themselves. They only seemed to endure. That more than anything, unsettled me. An enemy that wanted chaos should be actively doing so, fighting back. They should scream, strike, vanish into thin air. These people didn’t. Every time we pushed further, most complied or ran. It forced me to notice things I had been trained to ignore. Like the way zones that had been cleared were never filled with anything new. No schools. No markets. No banners raised high. It was just silence.

At briefings, the officers spoke with confidence. Just like always

“The enemy’s presence has diminished.”

“Resistance is collapsing.”

“Order is taking hold.”

We nodded, we marked our maps, we prepared for our next move. If order is truly mercy, is this what it looks like? Empty villages, and valleys?

During one patrol, we passed through what had been a town once. Now it was all debris. We were told not to linger, that nothing was here. But there was. I could feel it. I could feel the absence of what once was. I imagined streets filled with people. Markets bustling, children running free, mothers hollering for their wondering children. Once more I had to ignore those thoughts and keep going.

Later that day we came across a man sitting alone near a broken well. He was old, older than anyone id seen since id arrived. His back was hunched, hands resting on a walking stick. He didn’t run when he saw us, he didn’t beg, he just watched as we approached. Weapons trained him, even on my own. Commands were shouted, and he slowly raised his hands, complying with us. That’s when the order was given to me.

“He’s an enemy. Take him out.”

“He’s just sitting there, he isn’t harming anyone” I said, before I could stop myself.

My squad leader looked at me sharply. “And why do you think that is?”

I searched for an answer, what was I supposed to say? Everything I could come up with would be met with that the man is luring us. He could be signaling to someone or even testing our resolve. I hadn’t answered yet, but the old man spoke, in our language, roughly.

“You keep coming,” he said, “Even when there is nothing left.”

No one responded.

“This was a good place,” he continued, gesturing weakly around him. “Once.”

“Silence!” The squad leader barked.

The old man smiled. Not kindly, not cruelly, only tired.

“Fire cleans.” He said. “That is what you believe, yes?”

The squad leaders face flashes with disbelief before he barks out. “That’s enough!”

But the man only continued, “Fire also teaches. It teaches us what cannot grow back once its been destroyed.”

He looked at me. I think he could see what was going on in my head. How riddled with doubt it was. How much I was hesitating. He smiled once more at me with such a genuine smile. He began to say something, but as soon as he opened his mouth, a gunshot rung out, and the man toppled over. His body hitting the ground with a hard thump, his walking stick rolling to my feet. His smile fading away. I could feel my squad leader move towards me, his face near mine.

“NEVER again will you hesitate to carry out a command; do you understand me!”

“Yes sir.” I say, still staring at the cane at my feet.

We were ordered to move on. The man left behind on the ground as blood spilled out. That night the doctrine that had been enforced since I was just a boy felt even thinner. Repeating it no longer aligned my thoughts. Order Is Mercy. Order Is Mercy.

If that was true, why did mercy leave so many ghosts?

One evening, as the sun set behind the hills, painting the sky the same color as the old man’s blood, I realized something I’d never been taught to consider.

If the enemy wanted chaos, they were failing.

If we wanted order, we were doing something else entirely.

For the first time since my childhood, the words on the banners did not feel like truth.

They felt like a lie, hidden behind chaos that we created ourselves.

They felt wrong.