Wild Side [h.s au]

Epilogue

Harry

"Harry Styles!"

As soon as my name is called, I stand up from my seat, sliding my palms over the material of my military uniform to straighten any possible creases. The uniform is different than what I'm used to wearing, more formal and elegant looking, with a buttoned jacket and a cap, not to mention the colour is dark blue. My eyes glance over the lines of soldiers sitting in the countless rows of seats sprawled over the enormous green lawn. There's a stage in front of us, important men lined on it, a microphone at its front.

I push my shoulders back as I walk toward the stage with a firm and straight posture, my expression emotionless. I climb a small set of stairs and walk toward the man -our new president- standing next to the mic, a smile spreading over his face as I approach, his hand immediately extending to envelop around mine, my grip firm.

"Thank you for your service to this country and allow me to give to you this medal of honour," he tells me and takes an elegant thin box from another man, opening it and taking out the medal. It's a blue ribbon with a golden circular medal attached to it, words "Defensor pacis" engraved on it, meaning "Defender of peace" in latin.

He attaches the medal on the front left pocket of my jacket, shaking my hand while placing the other on my shoulder. A loud applause follows and I mumble a "thank you", feeling a sense of pride rush through me. "Would you like to give a speech?" The president asks and I nod without much contemplation, turning toward the mic.

I look at all the soldiers sitting in front of me, some smiling, some with typical firm expressions and some looking nostalgic. My eyes swipe over the first two rows to my left, seeing all the people I care about sitting there. Tommy, Niall, Liam, Louis, Jess, Tori, Zayn, Ethan, Alex. . . and finally, Elena. Our eyes meet and she gives me a subtle gentle smile and I catch a look of pride on her features, almost making me smile. With reluctance, I look away, focusing on no one in particular.

"A year ago on this day, we made a change. A year ago, all of us had willingly risked our lives in hopes of bringing peace to our lives, in hopes of making them better. We were born in a desolate world, taught to hold a weapon from a very young age to be able to kill and destroy once we're grown up. It's pointless to talk about how wrong that was or that's not how our lives were supposed to be. What matters is that it happened and we survived. We survived through it all, we survived the worst product of human hatred and need to have power - war."

"We can only learn from that war -the longest one out of all world wars- and hope it won't happen again, work on making our children and grandchildren aware that violence, destruction and hatred are never the answer. No exceptions. We need to work on maintaining this peace, we need to work on settling our differences with people that used to be our sworn enemies. We need to work on ourselves because we are the future, our actions and choices define what happens next, just like our choice to fight for peace a year ago brought us victory and allowed us to build something new, something better from the ashes."