I've been tinkering with things on this. Things like music and a little background ambience.  I've recorded this as an audio (link at the bottom) and would welcome any feedback you may have. This is the story of how the Narrator comes to be a part of the 280th Sunward Watch. I won't say any more so as not to skew opinion. All I ask is constructive criticism. Thank you!

 

=====

 

I gave a reluctant nod, jaw clenched, lips tight, and glanced at the orderly. He carefully replaced the sheet over her face.

 

The chill of the morgue was nothing compared to the cold inside me. She lay there on the slab, bruised and swollen, eyes shut. She’d left me months ago. The mines took all my time. She was lonely. I don’t blame her for that. I just wish we could’ve talked before she found him. A soldier, one with time for her. My Ida. And now she was dead. Now she was gone.

 

I stood there, unsure of the protocol. So, I just stood.

 

“Subject 07-B, confirmed as the deceased by husband,” the orderly muttered into his terminal. He paused, then looked at me. I barely noticed. “We’re finished here. Please go to the office for the paperwork.”

 

I nodded, slowly, then walked numbly to the door. The sand scratched at the windows, a soft, steady hiss that hadn’t stopped in two days. The light outside was the colour of rusted brass, sky and ground smeared together in the wind. I didn’t go back to the mine and no-one came looking. There were no calls nor knocks, just silence, and the low hum of the building’s backup generator when the grid dropped for an hour. I sat on the floor, back against the wall, Ida’s tags in my hand.

 

On the third morning, a slip pushed under the door. No name was on it, just block lettering: FAILURE TO REPORT – WORK CONVERSION ENACTED - MANDATORY SERVICE REASSIGNMENT - BLOCK C-7 – 0900 HOURS

 

I read it once and folded it. I didn’t pack. Just slipped the tags around my neck and left the flat as it was. The conscription hall was a prefabricated block off the railway line. Rows of benches, dust in the corners. A machine-voiced clerk read names from a slate while two enforcers handed out equipment bags. No-one spoke. They gave me a PDF uniform that didn’t fit, stained boots, and rifle with "Nowicki" scratched into the stock. No instructions, just a sector map, a bunk number, and a duty rotation I couldn’t read properly. My post was a wire-fenced pump station on the edge of the district. Nothing ever happened. No one even passed by.

 

On the fourth night, Czajka sat down across from me in the mess. He didn’t introduce himself. I had already asked who he was. I’d seen him watching me.

 

"Heard about your wife."

 

I nodded, eyes on the table.

 

"Can't have been easy."

 

Another nod.

 

"They... uh..." He paused. Searching. "She didn't get a burial. That's not right."

 

My jaw tensed. I kept my stare fixed on the scratches in the metal surface between us.

 

"It didn't have to be that way." He stood. He didn’t look at me when he spoke again. "There’s a unit. 280th. Rough posting. Not for everyone." He paused. "But they bury their own." He walked out without waiting for a reply.

 

The slip came at the end of second watch, folded once and handed across the table with no name spoken. I looked up at the corporal who’d brought it. He had already turned away.

 

Around me, the mess went on as it always did. Tin trays scraped. Someone laughed too loudly at something not worth the effort. The pump station’s generator hummed through the floor under my boots. Beyond the wire, the wind dragged sand against the outer walls in long, dry breaths.

 

I opened the paper.

 

REASSIGNMENT ORDER
EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY
REPORT TO TRANSIT YARD 6 – 0430 HOURS
UNIT: 280TH SUNWARD WATCH
AUTHORISATION: DISTRICT COMMAND / LABOUR CONVERSION OFFICE

 

I read it twice, then folded it along the same crease and slid it into my pocket.

 

No-one came to explain it. No-one asked whether I understood. At 0400, I was standing in the yard with my kit bag at my feet and the same rifle they’d given me four days before. The air was bitter with cold and dust. Floodlights buzzed over the loading bay, turning the blowing sand pale and thin as smoke. There were six of us waiting. Two looked half-awake. One was vomiting quietly behind a bollard. Another smoked with both hands cupped around the ember, staring at nothing.

 

At 0420, a Chimera rolled in through the outer gate, engine growling low. It was dust-caked and scarred, the paint faded enough that the numbers had to be read twice before they made sense. Men rode on the hull as though they belonged there. No one in the yard spoke while it approached.

 

The rear ramp dropped with a hydraulic shudder. A woman jumped down first, boots hitting the concrete hard. Broad-shouldered, compact, weapon slung carelessly in the way of someone who knew exactly where it was at all times. She looked over the waiting line once and seemed unimpressed by all of it.

 

Behind her came Czajka. He did not look surprised to see me. He stepped down from the ramp and checked the slate in his hand. “Names,” he said.

 

The corporal beside the yard gate started reading them out. Mine came third. Czajka made a mark next to it and moved on. Nothing in his face changed.

 

When the last name was called, he handed the slate back without ceremony. “These are ours.”

 

The corporal glanced at the orders, nodded once, and waved us forward. That was it. No explanation. Just possession.

 

I hauled my bag up and moved toward the ramp with the others. As I passed him, Czajka spoke without looking at me.

 

“You kept the tags.”

 

My hand went instinctively to my chest beneath the tunic.

 

“Yes.”

 

He gave the smallest nod, as if a detail had been confirmed. “Good.”

 

I waited for more. None came.

 

Inside, the troop bay smelled of oil, wet canvas, old sweat and hot metal. There was no room left for uncertainty in it. Men shifted to make space without much interest in who we were. One of them looked at my boots and snorted. “Fresh one,” he muttered.

 

The woman by the ramp gave him a look sharp enough to cut wire. “And you were born competent, were you?”

 

A few of the others smirked and left it there.

 

I sat where there was space and braced the rifle between my knees. The tags lay cold against my skin. Across from me, someone had scratched a line of names into the paint with the tip of a knife. Some were crossed through. Some were not.

 

The ramp clanged shut.

 

Darkness took the edges of the compartment first, then the light settled red and dim as the Chimera pulled away from the yard. The station fell behind us. No one waved. No one would notice I was gone until my bunk stayed empty long enough to be reassigned.

 

Czajka remained by the hatch for the first few minutes, one hand hooked into a strap overhead as the hull rocked beneath us. At last he looked across at me. “You know why you’re here?”

 

I thought of the mess hall. Of the scratches in the metal table. Of the way he’d said it, as if it were a fact and not a lure. “They bury their own,” I said.

 

A few heads turned at that. Not many.

 

Czajka held my gaze for a second, then nodded once. “Yes,” he said. “We do.” He left it there.

 

The engine note deepened as we cleared the district roads and took the long route out into the dunes. No one talked much after that. I sat with the rifle between my knees, my bag under my boots, and listened to the track noise rattle up through the floor.

 

For the first time since the morgue, I had the feeling of moving toward something instead of simply being carried. I still did not know whether that was better.

 

=====

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kvRjRRW3bJzTXJN0agh2zYBI5E6xqfoK/view?usp=sharing