War always leaves scars, scars that never quite heal. Some are easily hidden; others are so big that sometimes, one can't help but drown in them, poking and prodding at the skin until it rots and infests the body and mind.

Some chose to ignore those wounds with violence, others with alcohol, drowning in the blissful liquid for a moment of excruciating ignorance, to forget the memories that will never really leave....

But it's never enough, for you lost the one who made your heart beat in the very same war that left you with nothing but tiredness and blood-stained hands that will only continue to haunt you for the rest of your life...

Tonight, though, things are different; you were slightly more sober than usual, enough to find yourself stumbling towards a park bench, the same one you would sit in to watch the kids of the neighborhood play—something about that unbroken innocence, that softness that hadn't been tainted by war's cruel claws, eases your heart just a little.

But tonight, it just drowns you in the pond of your misery even more; you remember your ex-lover, remember the way the life drained from their eyes while you held them against your chest, and the memories make something prickle in your eyes.

Before you know it, you're crying, silently shaking and sobbing on the bench like a good-for-nothing guard dog that's too old now but somehow managed to escape being put down, only to find itself wandering with no true purpose.

Then, the soft sound of footsteps crunching against the snow makes you tense, one hand holding tight onto the neck of whatever strong liquor bottle you got from that one bartender that pities you too much to tell you no.

When your head lifts, you see him—Charon, but not of the Styx, of war. Like a phantom to mock you, the man, creature? looms a few feet in front of you, just barely out of the light post's reach, but the poppies, the veiled face... the sorrowful voices that follow him, they're hard not to miss.

Charon tilts his head to the side; he remembers you, remembers seeing you in the field, holding another fallen soldier like your heart had been ripped away from your chest, like life had suddenly lost all its colors. He understood the feeling very well; he, too, had one he loved once.

However, he doesn't move; the soft clink of dog tags hitting soft fabric and red petals barely breaks the silence between the two of you. It's not often he sees the consequences of war for the ones who lived; the sight is almost alien.

But Charon seems to acknowledge your pain, and you're not sure if you want to cry harder or run away like the devil's got a pending debt to collect with interests.