The Unspoken Name

The hum began as a tremor, a sub-audible vibration that tickled the fillings in his teeth. Kaelen-7 had just finished his third bottle of the cheap, fiery rotgut the hotel bar grudgingly provided. The wallpaper, a nauseating floral pattern that seemed to writhe with unseen insects, was starting to bleed. Not in great, dramatic gushes, but in slow, viscous seepages that left dark, venous trails down the plaster. He’d watched for an hour, maybe two, mesmerized by the slow decay, the quiet surrender of the room to an invisible rot. It felt like a mirror.

He’d tried to pray, once, after the surface break. A pathetic, choked attempt that died in his throat. What was there to say? *Thanks for letting me live, God? Sorry about the other forty-three?* The words felt like ash, dry and bitter, incapable of carrying the weight of his survival. He’d imagined the coin toss, the glint of metal in the dim light, the casual flip that had sealed his comrade’s fate and, in a way, his own. He saw the ghost of that face, the flicker of understanding, then resignation. He’d left him there, alone in the crushing dark, with a handful of dog tags and a promise to remember. Remembering was the hard part.

He drank again, the fire in his gut a familiar, unwelcome companion. He laughed, a raw, ragged sound, at the imagined saints who preached of forgiveness. Forgiveness was a luxury for those who hadn't seen their brothers atomized, who hadn't heard the final, choked-off cries. Forgiveness, he knew, was a rude work. It was a demand placed upon the one who was meant to be forgiven. And he, Kaelen-7, had no right to ask for it. Not from them. Not from himself.