“Wait up, I wanna enjoy this,” the youngster yells back to his friends. But everyone just looks at him like some alien and continues walking on. The pink and fiery orange hue of the sun setting mesmerized the young boy.
Fast forward 10 years later, lighting strikes across the horizon and illuminates the sky revealing a starry night. Thunder cracks, booming through the midnight air. Clouds move in to cover the barely visible milky way looming above. Rain kisses the concrete, slicks the asphalt, and soaks the soil.
Sitting on rubble from the previous battle, the ODST takes it all in. Breathing in deeply, his helmet lays beside him. Gunshots echo in the distance. Tracers and plasma light up the night.
“It wasn’t always like this…” he mumbles. His squad ignores him, marching on to the next nearest abandoned outpost to scavenge for supplies.
He kicks a piece of metal on the ground and into the burnt grass several feet away. And before him a red garment reveals itself with the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers insignia bourn into it.
Smirking, he picks it up, and tucks it away for the next day, for the next hour of fighting; grateful for every second he’s still alive in this godforsaken universe, grateful for still being able to enjoy the little things in life.
Feet first into hell. Kicking and screaming on the way in and strutting back out; brushing off the burning embers from your shoulder like it was nothing. We are ODST.