Chapter 3: November 22 - 28, 2011

    That day began with a heartbreaking start. Ren woke me up, looking like he'd just seen a ghost. His face had gone white, and his eyebrows arched.
    "Gil!" he said in a tense tone. "Come quickly!"
    Feeling groggy, I said, "What? What is it?"
    "It's Michael!"
    My heart sank, and my eyes widened in growing horror. I then said, my voice as shaky as I was, "Show me what happened."
    Ren pointed to the tent's opening, virtually unable to speak. His hands were trembling. "He's right out there. Everyone's waiting for you."
    Immediately, I got up and put on my uniform. Then, I tentatively headed out the opening of the tent, with Ren following right behind me, both out of protection and out of paranoia. Everyone looked at me, frowning and sullen.
    Sonic managed to say, "He was killed last night by a rifle bullet."
    Everyone was gathered around Michael's body. I stepped up to it, with growing grief. Michael had a cold, dead stare in his eyes. He was sprawled out, with a bullet hole in his heart. I knelt before him, choking back tears. But that made my voice shakier.
    "He was a rebel," I managed. "He was completely against Ivan's tyranny."
    "He was a great leader," one of the soldiers said. His voice was rough and papery.
    Then, I began singing a sorrowful song in Russian, and everyone began to join in. Its lyrics went like this:

    Ваши рекомендации всегда будут помнить.
    Мы чувствуем себя потерянными без вашей помощи.
    Вы, возможно, умер насильственной смертью,
    Но вы дали своей жизни, чтобы быть на нашей стороне.

    After the song was done, we buried Michael's body just a few feet from the campsite. The tombstone was a thick, granite crucifix with smooth edges and about three feet tall. The engraving read:

HERE LIES

MIKHAILOV "MICHAEL" KHILOV

BORN: JUNE 24, 1993

DIED: NOVEMBER 22, 2011 

    I thought, He was only eighteen...I guess people at that age join an army nowadays. I'm just really sad that he had to die like that, especially at that age.
    I then stood up, now feeling determined. I looked to the grayish-blue sky and then thought, I hope you're ready, Ivan. We've yet begun to fight.

    I turned to the soldiers and said, "Did Michael choose a successor?"
    One soldier said, "Yes. That would be me."
    He stepped up to me. He was an anthropomorphic weasel, with red-orange fur, very broad shoulders, and dark, brown eyes. He was five-foot-eight—just an inch taller than me. He was most likely the brother of the one who got blown to pieces just two days earlier. They had the same features.
    He said, "My name is Molokov Tchaikovsky. I was assigned by Mikhailov, or 'Michael,' as you call him, to be next in command."
    "Very well. Our trust is in your hands. Good luck, Molokov."
    We saluted each other. Then, after a brief silence, Molokov said, "Well, what is everyone standing around for? We should find the enemies before they find us and wipe us out completely!"
    Immediately, everyone scouted the forest for enemies. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Ren, and I decided to scout as a group.
    We searched for days. There was nothing to be found from the enemies. We had ventured fifteen miles from our campsite. We were starving and parched, but we'd gone too far to go back now. At least, that's what I believed...
    We decided to return to our campsite on the morning of November 25, 2011. We had ventured for three days, so it took us another three to return. We arrived by the sunset of November 28, 2011. But when we got back, we were shocked.

    The sunset was a bright orange that turned red as the light went farther. It brightly lit up our ransacked campsite. None of the soldiers had returned, thank God, but Molokov was still there. Hastily, we headed to the commander's tent to check on him. When we got there, four of us looked away in disgust, while I stood there, motionless and silent. Molokov had been beheaded, and his severed head laid in front of the exposed neck. It had been cut clean off by what looked like a blade of light. We exited the tent and looked around at the remnants of our campsite. The tents had many holes in them, some of them ripped to shreds. We had to put off our extreme hunger for now; we had to fend for ourselves and fight for survival...even if we had to kill each other to do it. But for now, our main problem was to set up a new campsite. After setting up the tents, we decided to sleep for the night. By this point, eight days had gone by since the start of the war. We knew this war was going to be longer than the last one by a long shot. We were all starving, and we had no food to live on. Alas, the long night was over as we closed our eyes to sleep.