text: Rat #26! Lying on his stomach, J was watching over the vast hills from the tower in which he was positioned. Everything was grey, black, or broken; a scene that screamed war. From his bird’s eye view, blast craters divided what used to be a blanket of lush green hills which now resembled a dirty, torn up cloth. His rifle had been cold since he left the regiment to take a position at the top of the tower. "You are the arrow tip, J," his officer had told him before leaving. The rifle’s buttstock was pressed against his sweaty cheek when he decided to clean the scope. He rubbed the lenses for the fifth time that morning and sparked up a cigarette. Before long, his mind wandered back home. Reminiscing about better days before the start of the war, he made himself a cup of tea and indulged in his memories. As he picked up the biscuit box his daughter had given him before leaving for the frontlines ten months back, he thought, “Or maybe eight months,” he whispered to himself, exhaled, then murmured, “I lost count.” He dusted the box off and replaced it in his backpack. Unsure, he thought that he may have heard a ricochet shot, yet, when he looked down through the scope, he couldn’t see a single soul out there. His tea was as cold as river water by the time he took the second sip. The sun was rolling over the hills, extending shade over nothingness. J held his breath for a second and tightened his grip around the rifle. He saw movement.... at the dead center of the scope, the same scope he had used to eliminate two dozen invaders. He bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood and continued looking, but to no avail. Then he exhaled abruptly, "A sneaky rabbit!" He drank his second cup of tea warm that chilly noon. Beneath his vacant eyes dirt, fatigue, and the droplets of steam left from hovering over his hot drink all began to run together. One thing J had learned about the war was if you're not shooting, you're in a lucid dream. His daughter was showing him a headband she had made. While hidden under the cover of those sweet memories, two invaders were sneaking between the bomb craters. They exchanged serious eyes and sign language. When the invaders were mere yards away from the tower, J was heating his last can of salted tuna. He pulled it from the heat and peeled back the lid of the can. J pulled a pocket-knife from his coat and pushed it into the soft, steaming, shredded fish meat. Blowing on a hot bite of tuna, he suddenly thought he heard two mice moving. "Maybe two rats! Not mice." J whispered to himself while chewing up his salty snack. Just as he began to disregard the sound, he noticed a more familiar, more noticeable sound. The sound of boots stomping over loose gravel. There was no mistake about it. He quickly, yet quietly, laid his last can of fish down and sprang into action. The sound of the steps was getting closer when J took his first shot. And missed. The piercing tone of the gunshot echoing throughout the hills caused the trespasser to perk his head up, giving away his location. The invader quickly pulled his rifle from his shoulder and before he could locate the scope to see where the shot had come from, J pulled the trigger for a second time. “Twenty-five.” He mumbled as he lay back. He gazed up at the burnt wooden ceiling. He stared at it for a few seconds before slowly closing his eyes. “Twenty-five souls.” He whispered. The first mistake the other rat made was to hide at the base of the tower. And the second mistake was creeping up the stairs thinking that he would make it to the top unheard. The now lone rat realized how wrong he was when he saw a lemon-shaped grenade strolling down the tower steps towards him. The invader's ears buzzed, and agony came washing over his body moments after he opened his eyes. Then he felt the rope around his hands. As he was pulled up to the top, he drew two shameful eyes towards the sniper sharing the tower top with him. "Almost twenty-six!" the invader heard the sniper hysterically giggle. J gave the supine invader a breathless moment to accept the inevitable. Then J's daughter appeared again to say, "Daddy, I think he's hungry." So, he offered him two spoonfuls of the last tuna he had cooked up minutes before. Despite the fact that the hostile expression on the invader's face indicated that he had no appetite left after the lemon shower, it was a grounding moment for both of them when J helped the injured invader to sit down and to drink some water, then followed by cleaning his wounds. J looked into the invader's eyes and announced, "Interrogation starts tomorrow." He stifled a chuckle while tying a bandage and added, "I hope you understand what that means." J's nights were either a series of restless nightmares or dreamless, coma-like blackouts. Overall, he got used to the adrenaline rush the instant he opened his eyes, realizing that he was on the verge of being alive. He had little to no trust in everything and anything. His provisions and bullets were running low, but his hope was starting to run lower after each passing day. J didn't imagine reaching that level would ever give him strength. Every struggle he ​had​ been through was helping him climb over an imaginary ladder, away from his pitiless reality to a place where he started thinking himself the hero of a lousy movie that he felt no connection to. When he was most conscious, J remembered that he would give everything he had to see his daughter again. But, recently, those episodes never lasted for long. The invader freed his own hands and crept on a dozing J with a rusted blade; J calmly watched the man, slowly drifting off as if he was in a lucid dream. Then he pushed the weak rat by force of being the movie hero he was, followed by a bleeding punch on his nose. J sat over his sleeping bag and lit a midnight cigarette after he had tied the bleeding invader to a half-burnt, wooden beam. He then rolled two bowling eyes at him, saying, "maybe staying alive is too much for you!" As he ashed his cigarette. At midnight, J realized that the small space at the top of the tower wasn't enough for both of them when the invader started screaming. J responded by stuffing cloth in the invader's mouth after he had butt-stroked him twice with his rifle. While taking long gazes at the tied man, J drank his morning tea deliberately slowly. His daughter didn't appear again. Ahead of the interrogation, J was calmer than the other day. Until his patience cracked when he opened his backpack and found that the invader had pissed all over it. J approached the invader, smiling too sweetly, and while untying his hands, swiftly said: “Let’s go for a walk together, you and I, huh?” The invader was looking at the ground when J pushed him from the tower top. He pulled up his rifle and fired, looking through the open sights under his scope. The bullet pierced the head of the bound rat before his lifeless body met the gravely ground down below. After the pinging echo ceased, a voice was heard from the top of the tower. "Twenty-six.