In the dark of the room, the sharp glow of the television is all that’s visible. A game. Little solders moving through a virtual war. Suddenly, an explosion. The controller shaking in his hands, buzzing. Pieces of programmed metal and cyber flesh flying out of the parameters of the tiny screen. Lost coding, exactly the way it should work. But it’s just a little too exact, too real. He closes his eyes and like movie stills, those last few months flicker across the backs of his eyelids.

Sneaking into the women’s bunker late at night, cuddling behind covers. Stealing moments in tents when they should have been in a control tower or a command post. Playing heated games of basketball or throwing dead sand spiders on their brothers and laughing as they ran away. That one night, one question, and the greatest answer ever given, in a way that was so perfectly her. “My fingers a size 7.”

And then, in one instant he had to watch it all blow to pieces just 3 hum-v away. The loud booming in his ears, the screaming. God the screaming "Man, I think its your girl!! It's her Hummer!"
Its all so fresh, so exact still. He opens his eyes, those images, forever pushed and burned into his memory, are still too sore to look at. For the first time, he notices his face is wet. Soaking wet. The television casts taunting shadows across his face, the screen flashing. Mocking.

RESET?

He sobs loudly now, his shoulders shaking violently. Crying out to the one who isn’t there. But should be.

“WE WERE SUPPOSED  TO LIVE FOREVER  TOGETHER!!”

And then it hits. His chest caving in under the weight of a thousand invisible tons of pressure. The pressure of realization. His sobbing slows, the running faucets behind his eyelids closing off.

“No” he says, “We weren’t. We were supposed to DIE together.”

With that, he leans forward and wraps his fingers, stiff like frozen twigs, around the controller once more. Clicking the green button, he selects

“NO.”

Slumping over he buries his face in her uniform. Gripping it tighter then a child would his blanky, his knuckles white. Clutching the place where it all should be.