Part 3
Parith craned his neck towards the sky. He froze as the bomb descended. The cylindrical device headed towards the ground with force. Despite the impending doom, Parith chuckled at the red tip of the bomb. He knew that bombs had to be cut so that they whistled as they dropped. Whoever dropped this bomb had gone to the trouble of painting it red as well.
He knew that he needed to will his legs to move if he wanted to survive what was about to happen, but they wouldn’t move. Luckily he felt the hands on his shoulders pull him away from his statue-like state.
He watched as the bomb exploded next to the sliding door in the wall. He had just been standing by it. If he had left just a second later he would for sure be dead. He felt the searing blast on his face first before he was thrown sideways. His feet and head wrestled with themselves as they fought over who would hit the ground first.
They both lost. He landed on his back, looking up at the sky. Once again, he willed his body to move, but it refused his control.
He gasped for air, his lungs also decided to rebel against him. He pleaded with them to work for what felt like hours, but only took seconds. Finally, the warm, burnt air filled his lungs. He took as deep a breath as he could, unsure when he’d get the chance to do such again. He lifted his head off the ground and looked at the wall.
The wall was nothing but melted rock now. The heavy concrete blocks at the top were all starting to tumble in like dominoes. For the first time in his life or anyone around here’s life, the wall wasn’t blocking their view of the neighboring land.
His mind changed focuses for the first time since he heard the whistle of the bomb. If he had just been standing there, what had happened to Reyansh? Fear was finally beaten out of his body by worry. He managed to get to his feet before Arjun put an arm on him to stop him. He knew that he couldn’t continue forward, but his mind raced towards Rey and what had become of him.
Parith still had no idea what was happening as Arjun’s face filled his view. He and Vivaan pulled him away from the blast, away from the wall at the last second. They had saved his life.
“Are you okay?” Vivaan asked him as they pulled.
Parith nodded, his brain felt like it was still rolling around in his skull.
“What is happening?” he croaked out, his throat pained with every word. Arjun and Vivaan looked at him as if he was missing something.
“Did you not listen to the news today?” Vivaan asked him, his eyes never focusing on one spot more than a few seconds.
“No,” Parith admitted as he started to move. He swung his arms around testing his mobility. He managed to glance towards the hole in the wall, hoping that he could steal a glance at his friend and that he would be just fine.
He couldn’t see anything but the smoke and the crater that the bomb had left.
“Are you serious right now?” He looked at Arjun. “They declared war on us Parith.”
“Who?” He asked, knowing the answer to the question before the words even left his lips.
“Them,” he nodded towards the wall. “They threatened our country, and the leaders told them that they will not back down. ‘They believe in the wall’ they all say. Well, they didn’t like it. They said they would bring it down. Now look.”
Parith struggled to get his mind wrapped around what Vivaan had said. They were at war. They were at war with the other side. They were enemies. They always were.
“What does that mean? Why would they bomb us?” He asked, wanting a more logical answer that he knew that he wasn’t going to get.
“It means that we need to get out of here before the next bomb drops. It means that we are at war, and we need to kill every one of them.” Arjun said motioning towards the hole in the wall. Arjun and Vivaan drew their weapons they had about them.
Parith turned looked past Arjun, hoping that the smoke had cleared enough to allow him to see his friend. The smoke from the bomb started to clear. Thin wisps of smoke still created a veil that kept him from seeing the other side. A crater formed from the wall that traveled to just a foot from his feet.
“Do you hear me?” Vivaan asked him again. “We need to get out of here. We can’t hold this wall by ourselves.
“We can’t leave!“ Pirath shouted. Vivaan looked at him in shock, as if that was the last thing in the world that mattered right now.
“Are you crazy? You will die if we stay here.”
“What are our orders?” He asked, his eyes searching for structure, for order. With the smoke clearing more by the second, he could start to make out the area on the other side. He couldn’t see the ground, but he also couldn’t see soldiers standing over a body. For the moment, his main concern was abated.
“Our orders are to defend the wall,” Arjun stated. Vivaan looked at him as if he had just said the worst thing in the world. Parith knew that Vivaan had expected Arjun to go along with him. “We must hold the wall until reinforcements come.”
“You’re both crazy. We have to get out of here.” Vivaan said as he began to crawl away from the wall. “No one has radioed us. We don’t even know if they are coming to save us.”
“Our orders are to defend the wall,” Arjun said again.
“I don’t care what our orders are. We will die here, either by bomb or by solider. I’m leaving now. You can follow or you can stay here to meet your maker.” He turned and took a handful of steps away from the wall. He turned and looked at the two of them. When neither of them moved, he swatted at the air, turned back away from them and ran off.
Arjun looked at Parith. They both knew that their future was sealed by duty. They couldn’t abandon their post. It wasn’t within them to abandon their post. Neither would turn their backs on what they had been ordered to do.
They hadn’t been ordered to be scared though. Parith, having never seen real combat, didn’t know what he would do if soldiers from the other side started to come towards them. He had no idea if it was within him to kill.
A rustle from the other side of the wall caught both of their attention. Neither of them sure if the should, or if they were able to move. Arjun drew his rifle from his back and aimed it at the hole, while Parith withdrew his handgun. Parith’s breath had stopped again, but he didn’t will himself to breathe this time.
The two men stood there, weapons drawn, and watched as the soldiers started to pour through the hole in the wall. To Arjun, it was like someone had kicked an ant hill. There were too many soldiers running through to even tell what was what. Not a shot went off on either side.
While there were dozens of soldiers pouring through the hole, the first people from that side of the wall to set foot in his country for hundreds of years, all he could focus on was Reyansh. To Parith, it was a shock to his system. He was the second guard through the hole, and he stood there and waited as the rest came through. Rey’s gun was drawn and pointed at Parith.
Neither Parith nor Arjun dared to move. It didn’t matter if they move, they were outgunned and flanked on both sides. They were outnumbered two to five.
“Kill and toss them. Leave no man alive.” Reyansh said and began to move into their homeland. “This is our homeland, which they have stolen from us. They would do the same if the roles were reversed.”
Parith could feel words piercing his heart as if they had been shot from a rifle. That was not who he was. This was not the friendship he had created over the years. He clenched his fist. Had he been played for years? He just couldn’t believe that.
“You know that’s not true, Reyansh,” he whispered. One of the soldiers from his side was on him in an instant. He felt the cold steel of the gun pressed into his neck. He didn’t look at the man that might kill him, be the one that had given the order. He hoped that Reyansh knew that the tears that were flowing out of him were not tears of fears, but betrayal.
As the soldier cocked the gun, Parith thought of his mother and sister. He didn’t think about all the happy or sad moments in his life, nor did he pray to any god. He just thought about how much his family might miss him. He worried that they too would be killed soon as well. He didn’t know what else he could do.
“Hold,” Rey barked at the soldier holding him. ” What did he say?” He moved towards them and pushed the soldier off of him. “I will handle this. You sweep the rest of the area south of here. There should be one more guard, be careful. Kill anyone that is not from our side.“
“Yes sir,” he said and started to move.
Rey waited behind with Parith and Arjun. Parith kept his eyes on Rey, but the other two watched them leave. Rey didn’t speak. He didn’t give any indication that he was anyone other than the soldier that was there to kill them.
“Was it all a game?” Parith asked as they were marched to their death.
“Nothing is a game in this world,” Rey said with a cold voice.
“Is it even really your birthday?” He asked. He could feel Arjun’s eyes on him, but he didn’t care. They were both about to be dead.
“Do you know him?” Arjun asked Parith between sobs. Parith glanced at the man that had stood the ground with him. Arjun’s eyes looked just like Parith’s felt. He could see the betrayal, this time the one that he had created by not telling anyone that he had spoken to someone from the other side for years.
Parith opened his mouth to say something when the gun went off. Parith clenched his eyes shut and braced himself for the gunshot, but it never came. Once he realized that he was alive still, he opened his eyes and saw Arjun on the ground. His eyes, still with the look of betrayal in them, were dead.
“It is my birthday, Parith. What more could I have asked for?” He said stopping in his tracks. “A cookie and my homeland back.“
“So all those years? All those days? What were they?”
“Stop talking Parith,” Reyansh whispered.
“I thought we were friends,” Parith didn’t stop.
“We are friends. We were friends.” Rey said.
“Did you know this was about to happen?” He asked. He focused his attention full on at Reyansh.
Rey shook his head. “I knew that something was about to happen. It is not my fault that you didn’t seem to know, nor is it my fault that this section of the wall was picked as the entry point, Parish.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” He asked not sure if he even wanted to know the answer.
“What? Did you think that we would continue to be friends with this wall between us? With your country thinking that they are that much better than us. That they could use this wall to keep us from our homeland?” He cried. Parish could see the collection of tears starting in the corner of his eye.
For a moment, he began to think that maybe he was wrong about all this. Maybe he had gotten through to Reyansh. This might have all be a rouse.
“I don’t know,” Parish admitted. His gaze dropped and he spied Arjun. He knew that it wasn’t a game. He knew that his life was about to come to an end.
“Me either,” Reyansh claimed.
“Do it. Kill me. Can you just promise me that Arjun will have a proper burial? He has a family, kids.“ Arjun looked at Parish with caring eyes. “If our friendship meant anything, do this for me.”
Rey looked at his friend in shock. In this moment of death, this man, this friend was asking for someone else to be taken care of. “You are a good man, Parish. You will be looked after in the afterlife.” He still hadn’t raised his gun.
“Maybe. It’s not the afterlife that I’m thinking about right now.”
That seemed to cut Rey. “No? You think you will live?” He raised the gun towards Parith, the barrel still smoking with the death of Arjun.
He shook his head. “No. I don’t plan on making it out of here alive. I plan on dying, by my friend’s hands. I plan on feeling pity for my friend until my death as well. We could have been more than the wall made us become.”
Rey reached into his vest and withdrew the half eaten cookie. “I do not want to do this Parish. I am a dutiful man. I have been ordered to do this. My country wants me to do this.”
Parith nodded. Rey took a bite of the cookie. He extended it towards Parith, who shook his head. “I too am a duty-bound man, but yet, I made friends with someone beyond the wall. I guess I just hoped that if I could do it, that maybe one day, we all could. That we could destroy the wall.”
“That sounds like a dream.”
“Maybe, but it was my dream.” Rey smiled at that.
“I wish we all had that infectious desire to be happy.” He said as he bit the cookie again. He looked at Parith and Arjun again as if he were weighing something heavy in his mind. “This cookie is so perfect. Your mother bakes well.”
“Please don’t speak of my family as if you are still my friend. If you were my friend, you would not be doing this.” Parith said.
Reyansh looked at him. “Would you not do the same thing if you were ordered to by your country? Would you be any different towards me?”
Parith had no answer. He had never thought about what he would do if he were ordered to go beyond the wall. He had just envisioned the wall standing forever. He had imagined that he would always have this friend just beyond the wall.
“I don’t know,” Parith spoke. “I would like to think that I would do differently if I were in your position, but I don’t know.”
Reyansh smiled at him. For the first time since crossing the wall, the two were equals. Since Parith had no answer other than what had happened, Rey felt like they were on equal footing, as if they finally understood each other.
Rey moved forward towards Parith. The gun was held at Parith’s chest until they were inches away from each other. Reyansh finally leaned towards his friend and whispered in his ear. “Stay low, and get out of here.”
Parith’s eyes went wide. This was not how this moment was supposed to go. “What?” he stammered with a glimmer of hope for the future.
“Run! Spread the word that love can climb the wall.”
A smile crept across both faces. Rey had dropped the muzzle of his weapon to the ground. Rey backed up and nodded at him. Parith turned to leave.
He thought to glance at his friend one last time, but he didn’t. Duty bound by his friend, he moved away from the wall.
If he had looked back, he would have seen his friend crying as he aimed his gun and opened fire. He might have seen Reyansh openly crying at killing his best friend. The pain that filled Rey’s heart because he had been ordered too. He would have been dead by the time Reyansh dropped to the ground gripped with guilt over his duty.
But he didn’t look back. The last image he had of his friend was one of peace and love. The way he would remember his friend for the remained of his life. The thirty seconds that it lasted.