“Awake, arise or be for ever fall’n.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

Living and forever and me. Heh. Heh.
Heh. The drums of Hell kept beating —beating
—I fought next to General Zaptieh.
She was given the right rear flank, forcing
us to a stand still. I though my mind once
numb. As if all that heaven were a bell,
and that bastard —But an ear. I, silence,
some strange race born from a queer love, queer hell,
a queer fate —Our orders were to attack.
Instead we made a stand at the bridge. Drown
and drown in waves swept. Again and again
we fell. Rotten fate beaten falling back
through plank fell, faith fell, we dropped down and down
—We hit a world, dying and knowing —then—