marvelous rosaline

28

The thick smoke in the sky completely dissipated, and the bright moonlight poured down on the earth, illuminating the whole world in white.

Sebastian Moran covered the wound, but blood gushed out from the gap in the knife.He took a few steps forward and fell to the ground.

The whole moon hung in the night, and Moran stared coldly at the whiteness.

How did it all start?

How did you get to this point?

Sebastian's memory couldn't help but go back to the past.

…………

……

In 1906, Sebastian Sullivan married his mother to London.

When his mother led him into the exquisite and quaint apartment, Sebastian sighed, but what responded to him was his mother's slap on the back of the head.

"To shut up!"

The young and beautiful mother lowered her voice and warned: "If you talk nonsense again, I will throw you into the river."

Then a gray-haired man greeted them.

He was nice to his mother, but cold to Sebastian.It soon became clear to him that this man was his stepfather, a watchmaker whose surname had changed from Sullivan to Moran.

It's just that it doesn't mean that Sebatisian's life will be stable from now on.

His stepfather, Mr. Moran Sr., sees Sebastian as an unnecessary liability.Sebastian also has an older brother who is not related by blood. This elder brother is weak, smart, but mean by nature.

In order to have a foothold in this family, the mother tried her best to please her husband and her stepson. She hated Sebastian, and maybe her life would be better without him.

Hungry, cold, beaten from time to time, rejected and scolded by my mother, it seems that this is not much better than the life of exile in the past.

Sebastian is like a weed with no support and no soil. Even if the icy road in London is above his head, he finds a gap, breaks through the difficulty, and welcomes the sun.

Discrimination and abuse did not prevent Sebastian from growing up.

He began to grow taller, healthier and stronger, thriving under the envious gaze of his stepbrother.

So the time came to 1916.

In the second year of the war, a conscription order landed in front of his house.

His stepbrother John didn't want to go to war, and his father didn't want to lose his only son.But the young people went to Europe with their guns in their hands. As there were fewer and fewer people of the same age around them, young men on the street became more and more rare. The longer John stayed at home, the more criticism the Moran family received.

"I filled out the information."

That night, John solemnly declared: "I'm going to war."

After that, the anger of the stepfather, the sobbing of the mother, and the sound of the tableware crackling on the floor had nothing to do with Sebastian who was kicked away and crawled into the basement.

He hid under the quilt in the basement, and even had a glimmer of hope.

—If John is gone, will mother stop hating him?John is gone, he is the mother's only son.

But the next day, what greeted him was not a new life, but his mother roughly lifted his quilt.

"Come with me."

Mother pulled Sebastian out of the quilt: "Change your clothes."

Along the way, the mother didn't say what they were going to do.

She just babbled a few words over and over, as if possessed by a demon.

"In a moment you tell them, your name is John, this year, understand?"

"You are tall, so others can't see it."

"Mom, please, please? I can't live without this family. You have dragged me down for most of my life, so just do this for me, okay?"

But, who did anything for Sebastian?

In the end he didn't ask the question.

Sebastian replaced his brother's name and followed the large army to France.

This year, at the age of 13, he came to the north bank of the Somme.

In July 1916, Sebastian was pushed onto the battlefield with a rifle in his arms.

He didn't know at the time that the Battle of the Somme would be recorded in human history. A total of 130 million people died on both sides of this battle.

A full 130 million dead souls howled and wandered on the Somme River, and the deafening gunfire echoed in his ears all the time.

It was also the first time in human history that tanks were used in battle.

Long after the war, Sebastian still remembered the first time he saw the monster.

There were severed limbs and corpses everywhere. The gunfire blasted the ground into pitch-black scorched earth, and the people around him kept falling. The huge monster crushed the dead people and dilapidated buildings like a monster that appeared from hell in the present world.Sebastian, who was only 13 years old, was terrified. He stood outside the trench, frozen in place, and almost forgot how to take forward and backward steps.

It was a pair of big hands that grabbed him back.

"Damn it, where did you come from, little bastard, is your hair all grown?!"

The cursing man dragged him back to the trench: "Is God crazy and let children go to the battlefield?"

His name was Victor, and he was the one who really taught Sebastian how to use a gun.

And Larry, Deckard, Marco, Johnny, Jeffrey, Crander, Bernie, Louis, Jacob, Carl.

There were twelve people in the team at that time.

Only Sebastian survived.

Each of them, each of the eleven, had defended Sebastian's body before they died, snatching him back from life and death, from the gunfire, and from the enemy's muzzle.

"Children cannot be sent to die."

Everyone said so to Sebastian.

"If one has to die, I'll die. Boy Moran, you have to live."

In 1917, at the age of 14, he was already a well-known sniper of the entire infantry division.

On the battlefield, the boundaries of life and death blend and converge.

Human nature becomes numb, morality gradually blurs, and all the education and guidance received in the real world become meaningless on this scorched earth.

Sebastian buried his comrades with his own hands, eleven times.

It only took Sebastian a year from the pain of burying his teammates at the beginning to becoming accustomed to it later.

It only took Sebastian three months to go from the fear and fright when killing the enemy at the beginning to the lack of hesitation later.

And from being in awe of life at the beginning, to not treating human beings as human beings.

It only took Sebastian a day.

He no longer has comrades in arms, because the sniper has to act alone, and it is because Sebastian no longer believes that the existence that can be killed is a human being.

In 1918, when he was 15, the war was over.

Sebastian returns to London.

Unlike other veterans who couldn't get out, he was very active in life and looking for work.Because Sebastian has eleven families to support besides himself.

The irony is that the cold family before he left has become extremely warm after his return.

His stepfather was proud of having a son of a war hero, enjoying the admiration of his neighbors and a thriving watch shop.

The improvement of family status has also made the mother more diligent and cautious. She seems to have finally discovered that it is not her husband but her son who can protect and support her.

His stepbrother, the narrow-minded elder brother, also chooses to treat him in an "adult way", being nice to his brothers, and pulling him out for drinking and socializing from time to time.

Sebatis accepted it all, he took it all.

He accepted the work arranged by his stepfather, the kindness of his mother and brother, and the envious eyes of others.

Even day and night, Sebatisian would wake up from nightmares, be shocked by loud noises, and silently collapse due to any sudden incident, and he didn't show it.

He has to live like a normal person, integrate into society, and work hard to make money.

Until the third month at home.

After two glasses of beer, his elder brother John said to him in an envious but contemptuous tone: "You should thank me, little bastard. If you hadn't replaced me back then, I should be the hero now."

These were the last words John said before he died.

Sebastian understood a little when his hands were stained with blood.

It turns out that even returning to the real world, killing a person's life is as easy as breathing.

The difference is that the stepbrother, stepfather, and mother who died under his hands will not fight as hard as the German soldiers.

His mother's cries and begging for mercy seemed to come from outer space, and Sebastian heard it, but didn't hear it at all.

"I am your mother, Sebastian!"

Her voice was so far away.

"How can you do this, how can you treat your mother like this!"

Sebastian blinked.

"But I'm not your son."

He heard himself say: "Your son will stay by the Somme forever."

What exactly came back?Sebastian didn't know either.

After that, he appeared in the newspaper and became the social news in London for three days, and then disappeared without a trace.

Sebastian pleaded guilty, the trial was over quickly, and his execution was imminent.

But he didn't wait for his own ending.

In 1919, on an ordinary day, a well-dressed and well-mannered old man came to his cell.

"Education expenses for four children, and food and clothing expenses for the entire life of eleven families."

He spoke softly to Sebastian. The old man spoke slowly and coherently, but there were faint traces of stuttering.

"I can take full responsibility. I won't give you an exact number, because inflation will soon come, and fixed money will become worthless. But I can assure you that eleven families will live a healthy and happy life." A prosperous life. Your comrade-in-arms’ family, children, and all expenses are supported by me.”

The old man suggested: "It is said that money cannot buy loyalty, but I think, I can."

Sebastian raised his eyes in the prison.

He looked into the benevolent eyes of the old man: "What do you need me to do?"

The old man smiled.

"I need you to be my Moran," Professor Moriarty said kindly.

…………

……

it's too cold.

Soon, Moran's body temperature was still passing, and his consciousness gradually dissipated, but he kept his eyes open and stared at the moon until a shadow covered his sight from top to bottom.

He squinted his eyes to see who was coming.

Professor James Moriarty stopped in front of Moran and sighed.

"I'm sorry, boy," he said mournfully. "I'm late."

"……promise."

Moran opened his mouth, and blood spurted from his mouth.

Moriarty crouches down.

Regardless of the blood staining his clothes, he gently touched Moran's heart with his own hand.

"I will keep my word."

The professor said softly, "Go with peace of mind."

When Sebastian Moran's body became stiff, the professor was always by his side.

The bright moon is gradually setting, and the sky is burning with light.

The Sun Also Rises.