I’ve been looking for you all goddamn day.
Hell, I’ve been looking for you all damn year. Been looking since Svania when you wiped that village off the map. Been looking since Hedalga when you took the platoon out so fast, Sarge didn’t have time to cut you down with swearing, let alone his rifle.
I’ve been following your trail all this time. The ashes of all you’ve destroyed are white, mixed with bones from out of the hillsides, ground to dust beneath you. I’d even wager none of this stuff is snow. Not anymore.
Last I heard they were writing about you in the papers. They always do. Were showing those short grainy snippets on the evening news, showing everything you done, and how far you’ve gotten. How far I was behind.
It’s easy for me to kick myself. Kick myself for not stopping you sooner. I sit here in this fortress of iron, and I indeed couldn’t stop you. None of us could. We tried guns, planes, tanks, bombs, and the mother of them all. And yet you persist. You stand there staring without a light in your eyes, only a vacant skull sat upon fatigues and wrapped in the tools of destruction.
I’m out of everything. We’re out of everything. That means you too. You can’t claim anymore lives if there are none left to claim, not out here. And you ain’t taking mine. When you look down this barrel, know that I’ll be drawing the last breath of the two of us. I’ve got nothing left. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, just a shell with your name on it. And I mean YOUR name.
Everywhere I go this shell changes. Changes colors, changes words. It can be all shades of a rainbow or it could be a cold, blinding white. It can read “San La Muerte,” “Śmierć,” or “Horseman 4 of 4.”
It’s black now, and in bold print reads: Death.