No fear of the setting sun

As he looked back to the town, he started to have regrets and quickly turned around to stop himself from turning back. Continuing up the hill, each of his steps felt heavy, wondering if what he was doing was the right thing, but it was how he had always lived. The news had come last night that the front line had been breached, his contractor had been killed in the battle and, with the enemy forces coming soon and without any obligation to stay, it was obvious what he should do. These were not his people. Facing death for some people without any hope would be foolish. Yet still, a part of his heart felt bitter. These people were the first to welcome him this way. These people saw him as a protector and opened their homes to him. It was a first for someone like him and an experience he may not ever feel again. He would be lying to say that it didn’t feel good to be seen as a hero everywhere else he had been. All that surrounded him was death and fear. It’s not to say he felt sorrow for those he had killed, those whose lives he had destroyed. No, he simply did as he was hired to do. There was no need to feel sorrow that was a mercenary’s right.

Now, as he finally reached the top of the hill, he looked at the sky that was once bright and calm slowly turned red as if blood was slowly encroaching, covering everything within its path. He looked back now peering down at the village, and he thought of the people there, the future that would soon fall to them. What was he to do? After all, he could not oblige his men to face their death like this, and even if they would agree they had long left before him. He had chosen to stay behind to help prepare the small militia force the villagers had mustered up in their defense. It was hopeless. There was no way such a small and inexperienced group of peasants could do anything but delay the inevitable. Still, they pleaded with him, and it was the least he could do for people he had truly come to love as his own.

Looking over to the sun slowly disappearing over the horizon, he began to think of when he was a child. The fear of the dark was something that tormented him as a child. His father saw him as a coward and a disgrace when, even at the age of ten, he still clung to his mother and asked her to tuck him in at night. His brothers mocked him relentlessly until he stopped, but the truth is he had never gotten over the fear. He was not a brave man even as he fought in battles as he marched across endless fields through the heat and cold. At night, when it was time to set up camp, he always made sure that his tent faced the fire so he wouldn’t be swallowed by the darkness around him. His men thought he kept his camp open for the sake of alertness, so he could be the first one out in case of an enemy attack, but the truth was far more pathetic.

Yes, this fear consumed him even as a man. In truth, he was a man of constant fear. Every accolade he received, every look of admiration made him feel like a fraud. It was as if he was living the life of a better man, unable to ever let the truth of himself out. In fact, that was why he was happy to take this assignment in the village. While the other companies may have been paid far more to stand at the front lines, he was happy to be stationed in this random village away from danger. Some of his men felt the same, while others saw it as a slight to them and to him that they weren’t entrusted a greater role and, most importantly, a greater pay. But he was happy to run away from the danger. After all, it was what he was best at. He ran away from the truth of himself and even now he runs away, leaving all those lives to fend for themselves, but what else was he to do?

He remembers again those nights when his mother used to comfort him, the stories of brave heroes she would tell him. The assurance she gave him that he would one day become like them, but he was no hero, he had stained his hands with the blood of the weak and any chance to protect them he had run away like a coward. He looks once again to the sky. He thinks of how the blood-red sky will soon give away to darkness, only for the sun to come again as if nothing happened. This was a cycle, a cycle that he could not control as just one man, a cycle that no one could expect him to do anything about. Yet still he knew that he was just lying to himself. He thought back to the things his mother told him. She used to say that we can’t change the world around us, but we can change how we react to it. She was right, of course, he could count on one hand the amount of times she was wrong. He looked forward at the trail left by his men as they left. Those men were far greater than him. In truth, they did not need him. There were multiple men far more capable of leading them in his absence. This, itself, was a truth he ran away from facing. He looked back to the village once again, and he thought of those men who were without a true leader. Those were the ones who needed him. It’s a truth he thought that he wouldn’t ever escape. He looked one last time towards the setting sun, he knew what he had to do, and he knew what would most likely come of it. Still, for the first time in his life, he could say that he no longer feared the setting sun, or the darkness that it would surely bring.