"martyrs"

 We wait in the smoke, the black and choking air, your eyes burn, but you do not move. A tree cracks and splits, the ground shakes when it is felled, no one moves. A loud whirring sound and sizzling hiss overhead, it has begun, but we wait like living souls in the Field of Reeds. 

The silence must be unnerving to some, the trees splitting and the flashes on the horizon, the vicious tornadoes of dirt from the thudding artillery, the martyrs wait till you hear the howls of the foreigners.

 The Captain rises and with the heavy explosives intact, you disperse, it is like stopping a tidal wave with blood and bone, you run like shadows of ninjas headlong into the mass of unwanted soldiers and detonate, their tanks and batteries exploding, an unholy pink mist in the sorrowful dark, there are only a few of us and many of them, but before this night ends they will be few in number as well, the radiation from our bombs is a living thing, because past the gate await our children and they are waiting to be martyrs as well.