(So the one I'm doing usually is the liked one 😂, all rights for the idea go to him/her)
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Twenty years ago to this day was the day that changed my life. It was a day unlike any other. It was the day I was sent to war for the first time.
The war started when I was a boy, only seven. I watched as the strange looking creatures from a distant planet invaded and destroyed the place I called home.
I watched as my father, then my brothers, then my cousins all went away, and cried when none of them came back.
I was sixteen when I enlisted, two years too young, but the amount of eligible people to enlist was getting lower and lower as more people were killed before they could start families. They let me join, and never looked twice at my obvious lie.
I was young an anxious for violence. They sent me out to the front lines with nothing but a gun, some ammo, and a thirty minute lesson on how not to shoot myself.
But despite the lack of training they supplied, I was ready. Growing up on the farm, I practiced everyday on whatever I could to make my chances more even.
By the time I made it to where my squad was supposed to group up, they were all dead, and I was almost out of ammo.
Suddenly from the bushes one of them came at me. It looked wounded, but I acted on instinct and shot him in the chest.
The alien went down, and I rushed over to finish the job, when I heard it speaking. It's voice was muffled, and laced with pain, then it took it's helmet off.
I was shocked to see that not only was the alien a girl, but she was human... Well, she looked human, except het skin had a blueish tint, and her eyes and hair were of a dark, blood red color.
She was speaking again, whispering. "Please.... Don't leave me alone..." Her eyes were full of tears, and she was gasping in pain.
She looked younger than I was, and she looked scared.
So, I did something stupid. I sat down next to her, and held her hand. She seemed somewhat grateful, and she closed her eyes, trying to focus on breathing.
After some time, she gripped my hand harder as coughs shook her small frame. She was coughing up blood, and her skin had taken an even lighter hue.
"I'm sorry." Was the only thing I said to her. When she was able to stop the coughing, she glanced at me with eyes that held a different kind of pain.
"Do not be, Thomas Grove, you did what you thought was right, and my people are wrong to try and take over this planet." She said. I never did ask why she tried to reassure me for killing her, nor did I ask how she knew my name.
Within the hour, she had stopped her struggle for breath, and grew still. Her eyes were half closed, and she had a look of calmness to her.
She held in her hand a crumpled up, bloody picture of her and her family.
Silently, I closed her eyes, and took the picture from her hand.
I don't know why, but within the week the war had ended, and the aliens retreated from earth.
I still have the picture. I look at it every day as a reminder of not only the first and last person I ever killed, but also that the enemy was more than that. They were people too. And that's a lesson I will never forget.
