Aleksys_529
Legacy Name: Aleksys_529

History :: Welcome

He loved his country. For all of his human life, he was ready to give everything he had to serve the land, the people. Like for so many others, war was a simple opportunity of honor and bravery. The gun he assembled and picked up was a symbol of his strength, not a tool of harm.

He had a warm, beating heart before. A heart that would pound against his ribs, filling him with life as the high of battle would take control of his mind. He had a warm, beating heart that knew how to love and to cherish. He wanted to protect, not to extinguish.

He was a young soldier with ashen hair and eyes the color of snowy skies. He had only begun to taste the first breath of life, but under the bombardment of shells and the injustice that pit brother against brother, he knew nothing more than despair; he soon knew nothing more than death and ignorance, pain and loss, insanity and blind faith. It was not long before the image of fighting in the name of honor and peace fell apart between their fingers. They were human too, but it was the nature of this humanity that dragged them into a war fought between men who knew nothing outside of fine wine and lies crafted with more concern than for the young lives on the battlefield.

He loved his country. He thought he was a better soldier than a man (weren't they supposed to be the same?). Betrayed and violated, his love remained, but so did his contempt for the unspoken evil that forced innocent men to slay each other in the name of peace. His contempt brought forth hatred, and that searing hatred was his sole warmth.

His knew his hands were trained to kill, not to save. They did their job well. Time would pass and he would decide that he was a soldier, only a soldier. He would not be human anymore; he was better than that. He forsook his humanity, the same humanity that betrayed him and stripped him of everything he knew. The world of humans and their quarrels were no longer fit for him.

It was winter when he fell, his body left to freeze or decay. Only a whisper of his former self remained. There lied the ghost who mourned the end of life and the empty gestures of courage.

70 years passed since then. Like many others, his body was never found since then. However, those who found themselves lost in a mysterious snowstorm would sometimes claim that a young man in uniform appeared before them. He would lead them to their destination, but after every step, he would seem to decay before their very eyes. If they tried to help him, he would only grow more distant, whispering:

"My name is Aleksys... 33rd regiment... Please, give me an order..."

Ninety years ago, I was born to a young Russian woman and her Lithuanian husband. My life was not extraordinary but my parents loved and cherished me and in turn, I myself learned how to love and cherish.

My childhood may not have been centered around other people as much, but I remembered my first pet, a rabbit named Misha. She was my closest friend. I had little interest in the other children, but I still found myself surrounded by a group of friends whom I learned to love just as much as I loved Misha.

I loved my friends, my mother and father, my country. I grew up and fought. I was willing to lay my life down for her, but before my life was taken from me and added as just another tally to the growing list of casualties, I witnessed the mutilation and rape of all that I considered to be good.

My life was taken from me long before I fell.

I did not want it anymore; I did not want to be part of the world that justified these acts in the name of peace and humanity. War took away my heart, and I knew what I had chosen for myself and what had been forced upon me.

I was no longer a person, no longer a human who could go back to the life he once knew.

In death, my name is only Aleksys. In life, my entire being was shaped around the act of murder and subordination. It continues to haunt me even now and this is why I must continue to die over and over again when I am already dead. Your order will kill me, but I cannot resist it. If you are lost, I will lead you if you wish it. If you are in danger, I will save you if you wish it. Do not pity me, for I am only a mere soldier, and this is the fate I have chosen.