---

Invisible Protaganist

Bullets streamed overhead of Z-unit, interspersed with laser blasts from the Draths, enormous lizard people laying down withering firepower from the northern ridge.

In the trenches, three doomed soldiers, the last of their race, sit stoically, waiting for death to find them. All around them are littered the corpses of their compatriots.

They sit in silence, all three of them first paying attention only to the ground in front of them, or shaking in place with their eyes closed, their spirits utterly shattered. But slowly, something draws their shared attention, and after a few minutes, for no apparent reason at all, the three soldiers are cheering, their spirits renewed.

Now, facing the unstoppable barrage above them squarely, all three soldiers turn towards the direction of their enemy in the fields, the deadly Slims, sentient anthropods, deadly accurate with a slug tosser.

The three waited, their eyes once again drawn towards the same nothing – just an empty space in the middle of the trench. Really, nothing is there. But all three of them stare in the ame general direction with a look of profound readiness.

It happens. The lasers stop and the final few bullets whiz past before the air above the trenches goes silent. In unison, all three soldiers scream bloody murder and charge up and out of the trench, energy shields activated and glistening in the sun.

The battlefield comes to life again. The three soldiers raking the enemy with their repeating plasma rifles. Dozens of Slims are mowed down by a barrage of plasma bolts…the…uh…source of which is presently unclear to me.

But while all of those Slims die, the three soldiers, none of whom, I realize now, have a name, charge to the east towards the deadly Draths. The soldier’s energy shields absorb blast after blast of Drath lasers, glowing yellow, then orange, and finally bright red. Still they charge, up the ridge, their incredible renewed motivation totally narratively unearned.

One of the nameless soldiers lost his shield, spontaneously revealing his flesh to the torrent of enemy laser fire. A Drath squadron took notice and release a deadly salvo onto the soldier, who… fell? . . . or maybe dived, sort of fell dived, out of the way. I’m not really what happened there – but it didn’t look volitional.

The other two soldiers pressed on, periodically dispatching enemy Drath, but mostly missing them outright. Still, something was killing a shit ton of Drath. Just plasma bolt after plasma bolt, picking Drath off like no ones business.

The unshielded soldier ducks down and fires blind over a mound of dirt, while the other two soldiers take their own defensive positions. All three seem to watch another random point in space with rapt amazement, their insane eyes tracking empty space in perfect unison.

All along the Drath line chaos breaks loose. Drath implacements are blown up by hand grenades that appear from absolutely fucking nowhere. Drath are sliced in half, scorched and disintegrated left and right. Almost the entire Drath vanguard is effectively and systematically eradicated by what I can only describe as spontaneous self destruction.

When the battle is won, the three soldiers cheer heartily, punching their hands in the air, facing in the direction of nothing in particular. Then they stare for minutes – like literally ten minutes – of prolonged silence, just each of them staring at the same empty spot. It’s weird.

Eventually, they cheer again for no reason at all, and together race up and pretend to pick up something. It is an impressive miming routine, all told, and they persist with it as they walk off toward the horizon.

---

CLICK ANY GENRE TO CONTINUE READING A RANDOM FLASH FICTION WITHIN THAT GENRE

READ LONGER STORIES

THE DEMON’S CANTOS	INCIDENTAL SUPERHERO
BENEATH	THE HUMANITY SAGA
THE TRAVELER	I, LYCANTHROPE

---

If You Enjoyed This Story – Or Any Of The Hundreds Of Other Legends From The Multiverse – And Want To Give A Dollar To The Madman Behind The Curtain Who Writes Them All:

Subscribe to the RSS feed or leave a comment anywhere on the r/LFTM subreddit with “!subscribeme” or “subscribeme!”, and you’ll receive a notification whenever a new story or continuation is posted.