Eternal Winter

Alastor gasped and shot straight up. He coughed in his mask and cupped his side. He was losing blood and had a hole in his suit. With difficulty, he rose to his feet. He was a dead man walking, and he knew it. Al surveyed the area, his men and woman dead on the ground. He may have been harsh on them, but he cared for them. Despite what he told Lance they were important to him, and it tugged at him to see everyone so lifeless.

Lance…

He had taken everything. First, he forced Alastor to shoot Liza. He could still remember the despair from shooting the accursed rifle that was laying in the snow just a few feet from him. Second, Lance disgraced her name and continued living his life as if she had never existed. Third, he stole away the robot. The robot that Al had sent to that compound for repairs and updating when the bombs struck. Fourth, Lance had killed every one of his people. He mercilessly slaughtered them without a second thought, even after disarming them. And finally, he didn’t have the common decency to kill Alastor face to face, instead of leaving him for dead. Al wheezed as he stumbled out of the city, not consciously sure where he was going.

Al stumbled over a rock and fell to his knees. With the city behind him, he had reached a cliff overlooking the valley. Alastor looked up over the view, He pushed himself before a large circular outcrop of snow, maybe a bolder? Alastor didn’t care. He leaned against it as the sun touched the mountains in the distance. For once in his life, Al didn’t feel anything toward Lance. It surprised him, but he was dying, it was alright to be surprised about himself. Maybe one day Lance would realize just the amount of pain he had inflicted, but then again, maybe he wouldn’t. Al exhaled as his head tilted to the side.

As the world went black.

It was all over for him.

He’d bring himself down.