In three days he would be back in the sky—home.
The combat shift on Earth was over. Excitement ran high, along with fear: the unknown of what would happen next once they left the battlefield, and the fate of comrades on a world that had long since died.
Victor was in the barracks bathroom. Dirty, damp. Moss crept up the lower corners of the walls; the smell of sewage was thick and persistent. The light above the mirror flickered; the sink tap had been open for at least a couple of minutes, waiting for water. As often happened, it was slow to come, and Victor—bare-chested, wearing only a pair of pants and black boots—knew he wouldn't get a shower. It was the third time that day. Water was scarce and the pipes were starting to fail, clogging with mud and debris.
When the brown water finally flowed, it began slowly, in spaced drops, then sped up into a steady thread. It was a dark, foul brown—acrid with sewer rot and the stench of dead rats. It would have turned black if Victor hadn't shut the sink, disgusted but dulled by habit.
"Great…" he huffed. "No shower again today."
He pulled on the shirt he'd left on the other sink, its hem slightly damp from the basin. It smelled of sweat from two days, but there was nothing he could do: the base had been short on resources for weeks. When he first arrived, assigned to the Oberhaupt, in 2052, the facility had been suffering from water shortages, constant blackouts, and food scarcity.
In fact, today he'd skipped lunch.
Before returning to Remnant, he would be transferred to a more stable military base—the Martinelli, in the Italian Alps—and from there sent to space. Europe was relatively well organized for military bases. America, on the other hand, barely survived; the continent had been almost entirely evacuated, largely because of the monsters.
He couldn't remember the faces of the monsters. He only knew he had fought them; beyond that memory everything went dark. The last fight slipped away like a nightmare. He had woken from a long sleep about four days earlier. He was still sore, tired: the cough and the difficulty pulling on his shirt were proof he had a long way to go before recovery.
Yet he knew that, if needed, he would be forced back into combat.
He was a war machine. That was all he was: one of many counterattack units, trained and armed to exterminate as many monsters as possible. Monsters he would never remember.
He wouldn't even be conscious when he died. Afterwards there would be nothing: void, darkness. As if he had never existed.
"Finally… today I leave." He stared at the mirror, motionless. His blue eyes were fixed but empty. His lower lip was cut, the scar still fresh, the scab soft and red. He took a deep breath, then walked toward the bathroom exit.
He switched off the light and closed the door.