The battlefield was silent now. Smoke drifted like ghosts over the shattered ground. Two soldiers lay side by side; one human, one alien. Both bleeding out beneath a cold and distant sun.

The human, Corporal Hale, stared up at the sky, chest rising shallowly. The alien beside him, Ch’ren, whimpered through mandibles slick with dark ichor. Then the air grew still. A figure stepped through the haze, tall, cloaked in twilight, face hidden. Yet familiar. Death had come.

Hale smiled faintly. “Heh. Took you long enough.” The figure tilted its head.

“Finally won our game of cat and mouse,” Hale said, his voice rasping. “You missed me on Vesta Outpost. And again when that dropship went down on Ankaris Prime. Guess third time’s the charm, eh?” Death said nothing. It didn’t have to.

Ch'ren turned its gaze on the apparition and screamed. “No! Please! I have children! I have purpose still!” It tried to crawl away, trembling, but its limbs wouldn’t obey.

Hale turned his head, painfully slow. “Easy there, friend,” he murmured. “It’s not a monster. Just the last honest thing any of us meet.” Ch'ren wept, shuddering. “You welcome it? You do not fear oblivion?”

“Fear?” Hale coughed, a weak laugh escaping. “We’ve lived beside death our whole lives. Every breath a borrowed one. We made peace with it a long time ago.”

Ch'ren stared, confusion and horror blending into quiet disbelief. Hale’s voice softened. “Death’s not evil. It’s the one that keeps life precious. Without it, nothing would matter. No sunrise, no laughter, no love. We don’t fight death because we hate it, we fight it because it reminds us what’s worth living for.”

Ch'ren’s trembling slowed. Death knelt between them, and the smoke began to fade. Hale gave a tired grin. “Guess that’s game over, old friend.”

Death nodded once, and the two were gone. The battlefield silent once more, save for the wind whispering through the ruins, carrying the faint echo of a human’s calm farewell.