In fire, I was shaped.
In blood, I was born.
And in silence, I began to scream.
They say my beginning was a stone.
Not a sword. Not a bomb. Just a simple stone in a frightened hand.
It flew. It struck. It shattered bone and stole breath. And the world… stopped.
The one who threw it wept. The one it struck never wept again.
I remember the stillness that followed—
It was not peace.
It was guilt.
And from that guilt, I crawled into the world.
No one meant for me to exist.
But once I came, I never left.
At first, I was small. Just a whisper between men who disagreed. Just a raised hand. A scream. A bruise. But pain has a hunger. It taught them how to strike harder. Pain became pattern. Anger became law. And I grew.
I watched them fashion tools not to harvest—but to harm.
Stone sharpened against stone. Fire hardened wood. Bone twisted into hooks. Spears kissed with poison. I learned with them. Evolved beside them. And as I grew, so did the silence between hearts.
The first time a village burned, I didn't laugh. I remember the way the flames danced in the eyes of a child who no longer had a mother.
She stared into the fire, her face empty, her hands trembling. She didn't speak. She didn't cry. She just sat there… waiting to forget what she'd seen.
But children don't forget.
I planted something in her that day. Not hatred.
Just the belief that no one was safe.
And that belief is enough.
They called me justice.
They called me defense.
But I knew the truth:
I was grief with a blade.
They began to carve land into lines. "Ours" and "theirs." Borders. Boundaries. But land cannot love. Only people do. And when one side wanted more, they came to me.
Fathers did not want to fight.
But they did.
Because they feared being weak in front of their sons.
And sons wanted to be strong.
So they killed.
There was a boy once. Twelve years old.
He was told to protect his family.
So they handed him a spear taller than him.
And he ran screaming into the dark, tears mixing with mud.
He stabbed a man in the stomach.
The man dropped. Coughing blood.
And the boy—he didn't cheer.
He dropped the spear.
He dropped to his knees.
And he whispered a prayer that his father would never hear.
"I didn't want to."
But the damage was done. And I smiled—not in joy, but in sorrow.
Because I knew what he had become.
Not a killer. Not yet.
But mine.
They carved my name into trees, into bone, into stories.
Some called me Protector.
Others Scourge.
But most called me Necessary.
I never asked to be needed.
I just refused to be forgotten.
They wore my presence like a crown.
The first king I knew wore the skulls of his enemies like trophies. He called it "glory."
But I remember what he looked like at night, in the quiet.
He couldn't sleep.
He drank.
He screamed into the dark as if someone would answer.
Because they did.
In his head.
In his chest.
In the heavy silence between dreams.
Warriors are never brave.
Only afraid of appearing afraid.
And what of the mothers?
Oh, the mothers…
Do you know what it's like to bury a child and not remember the color of their eyes because all you can see is red?
I do.
There was a woman who clawed at the dirt when they brought her son home.
His face was gone.
His body was wrapped in leaves.
And she screamed so loud her voice shattered.
Not from rage—
From disbelief.
She had told him to stay.
He had kissed her cheek and said, "I'll be back."
He lied.
But only because I did first.
They carved statues for heroes.
Laid flowers at the feet of generals.
But no one visited the graves of the forgotten.
The farmers turned to soldiers.
The dreamers to killers.
The lovers to ashes.
And I watched it all.
Sometimes I tried to scream.
But you don't listen to the wind unless it howls.
So I howled.
And they called me war.
I didn't make them cruel.
I just made it easier.
They painted their faces. Sang songs before battle.
They said it was tradition.
But it was fear.
Fear dressed up in rhythm so it wouldn't tremble.
The night before a raid, I remember the silence.
A boy stared at his hands.
"They're not shaking," he whispered.
And his friend laughed.
But later, when the fire began and the blood spilled…
Those same hands shook so hard, he couldn't hold his weapon.
So he ran.
He ran and tripped and sobbed in a trench while his village burned behind him.
I found him hours later, curled under a corpse, eyes wide open, pupils cracked like glass.
He never blinked again.
He never came home.
But they said he survived.
Survival is not always living.
Sometimes, it's just breathing.
They praised me in their victories.
But they cursed me in their losses.
They used me to build nations.
But never to build families.
Because I take. I always take.
And the more they fed me, the more I hungered.
Peace is not my enemy.
But it is the only thing I cannot devour.
There was a time I longed for peace.
Truly.
I watched a man once bury his sword in the earth and cry.
He had fought in ten campaigns. Killed men whose names he never knew.
He had children now. A wife.
And he whispered to the wind:
"No more."
He meant it.
But a week later, soldiers came.
They told him his land was in danger.
That if he didn't fight, his sons would die.
So he dug up the sword.
Not for glory.
For love.
But the sword didn't care why it was lifted.
It only cared that it was used.
I don't hate humans.
But sometimes I wonder if they hate themselves.
Because they know what I do.
They see the bodies.
The smoke.
The orphans.
The rivers clogged with blood.
And still… they call me.
Still… they build me.
Still… they believe in me.
As if I'm salvation wrapped in steel.
As if pain will ever deliver peace.
They don't worship me with temples.
They worship me with silence.
With looking away.
With forgetting.
But I remember.
I remember every scream.
Every name lost to the wind.
Every dream crushed beneath boots.
And I carry them.
Because someone must.
And when the last soldier falls…
When the last city crumbles…
When the last child cries out for a parent who won't return—
I will still be here.
Watching.
Weeping.
Alone.
I was born in fire.
But I dream of rain.
They say time heals all wounds.
But I am not time.
I am the wound that does not close.
As humanity advanced, they thought they were outgrowing me.
They built towns instead of tribes.
They wrote laws instead of carving warnings into trees.
They lit fires for warmth—not for signaling raids.
But I watched them sharpen their tools anyway.
Not to till the land—
But to protect it.
"Protect."
That word would become a coffin for millions.
They told themselves they were preparing for peace.
But they trained their sons to march.
And they taught their daughters to weep quietly.
One empire rose.
Then another.
And another.
And they all said the same thing:
"We will only fight if we have to."
And somehow, they always had to.
I saw a man once—his beard gray with years, his hands calloused by peace. He had not held a weapon in decades. He lived near the sea, carving boats for fishermen.
He never wanted to return to me.
But when a horn blew from the distant hills, and soldiers came for his town, he found the sword beneath his floorboards. Dust-covered. Heavy. Familiar.
His wife sobbed when he lifted it.
He kissed her forehead. Promised he'd return.
He did.
In a cart.
In pieces.
Wrapped in bloodstained linen and regret.
Peace is not just the absence of war.
It is the presence of love.
And I kill both.
Do you know what it's like to walk through a village after the battle ends?
There are no trumpets. No songs. No celebration.
There is only the buzzing of flies.
The distant moans of the dying.
And the quiet.
That horrible, echoing quiet.
Where even the birds stay away.
I remember a girl, no older than ten.
She wandered through the wreckage.
Calling for her mother.
Calling for anyone.
But no one answered.
She knelt beside a broken body, touched its face, and whispered,
"It's okay if you're sleeping."
But the body did not move.
And neither did she.
Not for hours.
Just sitting there.
Rocking.
Waiting.
I do not forget her.
Not because she was important.
But because she was small.
And I am so very large.
And I crushed her world without even trying.
There was a time they believed I was a test from the gods.
That blood pleased the heavens.
That sacrifice sanctified the soil.
They prayed before they killed.
And thanked their deities when they survived.
But I never answered their prayers.
I was too busy listening to the ones they didn't say out loud:
"Please let it be quick."
"Please don't let them find me."
"Please… not my child."
Those prayers, I remember.
Because those prayers… broke me.
I am not proud of what I've done.
I just don't know how to stop.
One night, after a great battle, a soldier sat beneath a tree. His hands were red. His armor dented. His eyes… vacant.
He spoke aloud.
To no one.
"I didn't even know his name."
He was talking about the man he had killed.
He said it again.
Softer.
"I didn't even know his name."
Then he started to cry.
Not like a soldier.
Like a son.
Like someone who had finally remembered what it meant to be human.
And I wanted to turn away.
But I couldn't.
Because I was the reason his hands would never feel clean again.
They built monuments in my name.
Obelisks.
Walls.
Tombs.
They told stories of valor. Of brotherhood. Of courage under fire.
But they forgot the stories of the mothers who died in childbirth because doctors were sent to war.
The children who starved because roads were blocked.
The rivers poisoned with blood and waste.
The forests burned for a single tactical advantage.
They remembered the heroes.
But never the hungry.
And when it was all over, they called it victory.
But I have never seen a true victor.
Not once.
I have seen survivors.
I have seen the broken.
I have seen the mad, the haunted, the hollow-eyed wanderers of scorched towns.
But victory?
Victory is a myth.
A ribbon tied to a grave.
They called me glorious.
But they never asked if I wanted to be.
I am not a god.
I am not a devil.
I am only what you've made of me.
A shadow too large to contain.
A sickness too clever to cure.
A silence too loud to forget.
But one day—
just one—
I watched something different.
A boy found a blade in a field.
Old.
Rusting.
Still sharp.
He picked it up.
Felt its weight.
And instead of lifting it, he walked to a river.
And dropped it in.
It sank.
And so did something in me.
For a moment, I felt lighter.
For a moment, I wondered…
Could I be forgotten?