I still walk these streets, these ghost roads of comments from years ago. I stop at the intersections where we once laughed, where the air was thick with the bustling life of a world that didn't know it was ending. I look at the words I left behind, the marks of a preteen boy playing at war, and I smile even as the bile rises in my throat. I hate the man who wrote those lines, the one who didn't know the weight of the pain he caused, yet I am the only one left to remember him. I am both the sinner and the monument to the sin. I wear this damned, half obliterated flak armor and this rusted Sallet not because they offer protection, but because they were the gifts of a beloved community and friends who stood unwavering until the very end. They are heavy, digging into my skin with the weight of a next 'over the top' order that never came. My rapier is blood-soaked, a relic of 'wins' in wars that no longer matter, but I keep it polished out of a habit that has become my only religion. Every morning, I clean a rifle that holds only two mags of expired ammunition. It's a useless ritual for a soldier guarding a graveyard, but it is the only way I know how to say 'I'm still here.' To my friends who took their own lives in this digital mud\u2026 I hear you in the silence. I march forward because you cannot. I beg for your forgiveness, and for the strength to one day forgive the hollow, hollow man I am. The soldier who refused the final retreat, Deathkorpscommander