Earth Under Siege: Humanity Fights Back-Chapter 35: Don’t forget them.

The city didn’t react to yesterday.

Maybe not today but future who knows.

That was the first thing Aiden noticed.

No memorial markers.

No black ribbons on barricades.

No change in patrol density.

The ration queues moved at the same pace, civilians stood in the same lines, drones flew the same loops.

New York absorbed violence the way it absorbed everything else by flattening it into routine.

Fire Team Delta-Seven stepped out of the operations hub just after dawn.

The light was gray and artificial, filtered through smoke and layered shielding.

The sky no longer belonged to weather.

It belonged to logistics.

No one spoke.

They didn’t need to.

Rook’s shoulders were tight, hunched as if bracing for impact that hadn’t come yet.

Vasquez kept rubbing at her glove seam, again and again, like she was trying to erase something only she could feel.

Malik’s jaw worked constantly, teeth grinding, eyes darting to every shadow.

Chen walked mechanically, eyes locked to his HUD, trusting data more than instinct.

Aiden felt hollow.

Not shaken. Not panicked.

Just... scraped out.

Command had given them the same route.

That wasn’t punishment.

That was policy.

You didn’t yank units around after incidents.

That created patterns.

Patterns got people killed.

They passed the plaza.

If Aiden hadn’t been there yesterday, he would’ve never known.

The concrete was clean.

The barricades were straightened.

Fresh distribution markings glowed faintly on the pavement.

A woman laughed somewhere in the crowd.

The sound made Aiden flinch before he could stop himself.

He hated that.

"Route unchanged," Chen said quietly, as if saying it too loudly might make it false.

Aiden nodded. "We walk it."

They walked.

Twenty-three minutes in, Malik slowed.

"Sir," he said, barely above a whisper. "I hear something."

Aiden raised his fist.

Silence snapped into place around them.

At first, Aiden heard nothing.

Then muttering.

Low. Rapid. Broken.

It echoed strangely through the elevated walkway ahead, bouncing off metal and concrete.

The words didn’t quite form sentences.

They collided with each other, repeating, overlapping.

"...don’t move don’t move don’t move—"

Aiden swallowed.

"Delta-Seven," he said softly. "This is not a hostile contact. Spread. Weapons down. Eyes open."

They advanced slowly.

The man stood alone in the middle of the walkway, pacing in a tight, erratic loop.

His helmet hung from one hand, fingers clenched so tight they’d gone white.

His rifle was slung but unsecured, bouncing against his hip with every step.

His uniform was wrong.

Older pattern. Heavily patched.

Burn marks on the plating. Someone who’d been in this since the first days, when doctrine was still catching up to reality.

He stopped suddenly and stared at the ground.

"No," he said sharply. "No, you were supposed to stay back."

He kicked at nothing, boot scraping against concrete. "I said wait. I said wait."

PTSD wasn’t screaming all the time.

Sometimes it was reliving decisions you never got to correct.

Aiden stepped forward slowly, hands open, rifle hanging loose.

"Hey," he said, keeping his voice low. "You’re safe. We’re not here to take you anywhere."

The man spun, weapon halfway up before his brain caught up to his body.

"Don’t!" he yelled. "Don’t come closer!"

Aiden froze instantly.

"Copy," he said calmly. "We’ll stay right here."

The man’s breathing was fast and shallow, chest hitching like it couldn’t decide whether to inhale or scream.

"You hear that?" the man demanded, eyes darting around wildly. "You hear the whine?"

Aiden listened.

Nothing.

"I hear you," Aiden said instead.

The man laughed a sharp, ugly sound that scraped the air. "No, you don’t. You never hear it until it’s too late."

He crouched suddenly, hands clamped over his ears.

"They cut the power," he whispered. "They always cut the power first."

Malik quietly opened the medical channel. "Combat stress case. Severe dissociation. Veteran. Armed but non-hostile."

Acknowledgment came back immediately.

The man rocked back and forth.

"I told command the cells were low," he muttered. "I told them. They said hold."

Aiden felt the words hit something raw.

Hold.

Always hold.

The man looked up suddenly, eyes locking onto Aiden with terrifying clarity.

"Do you know what it’s like," he said, voice shaking, "to watch your people die because a delivery didn’t show up?"

Aiden didn’t answer right away.

He knew.

"Six minutes," the man continued, words tumbling faster now. "We needed six minutes of drone cover. Six. But the feed never came back up."

His hands trembled violently.

"They were screaming for med," he whispered. "And I kept telling them it was on the way. I lied. I didn’t know I was lying."

Aiden took a slow breath and did something that went against instinct.

He lowered himself to the ground.

"I’m sitting," he said aloud. "You don’t have to do anything."

The man stared at him like he couldn’t process the image.

"You... you can’t sit," he said weakly. "You’re supposed to.."

"I know what I’m supposed to do," Aiden replied. "Right now, I’m doing this."

The man’s knees buckled and he collapsed backward against the railing, sliding down until he was sitting too.

His rifle slipped from his shoulder and clattered onto the ground.

No one moved.

Not Aiden. Not the team.

The man pressed his palms into his eyes like he was trying to push something out of his skull.

"It doesn’t stop," he said. "The sound. The smell. The way the air shakes when they come through."

His voice broke completely.

"I can still feel their hands on my armor," he whispered. "They were trying to pull me back when the corridor went."

Vasquez turned her face away.

Rook’s hands were shaking.

Aiden stayed still.

"You’re not there," he said gently. "You’re here. You’re alive."

The man laughed weakly. "That’s worse."

Medical drones arrived first, projecting calming frequencies into the air.

The man flinched at the sound, then slowly relaxed as the pattern settled.

Two medics approached carefully, voices low, movements deliberate.

"We’re here to help," one of them said. "We’re going to help you breathe."

The man nodded.

"I didn’t mean to leave my post," he said suddenly, panic rising again. "I didn’t abandon them. I just—my head—"

"You didn’t abandon anyone," Aiden said firmly. "You stayed longer than anyone should have."

The man looked at him, eyes searching desperately for confirmation.

"You promise?" he asked.

Aiden didn’t hesitate. "I promise."

The medics gently secured the man’s weapon and guided him onto a stretcher.

As they lifted him, he grabbed Aiden’s sleeve with surprising strength.

"Don’t forget them," he pleaded. "Please."

Aiden swallowed hard. "I won’t."

They took him away.

The walkway felt unbearably quiet afterward.

Rook wiped his face roughly. "How many like him are still out there?"

"Too many," Malik said quietly.

Chen stared at the ground. "Command says rotation schedules are holding."

Vasquez let out a harsh laugh. "Command doesn’t hear the screaming."

Aiden didn’t correct her.

They resumed the patrol, but something fundamental had shifted.

Every soldier they passed looked older now.

Every pause felt heavier.

As they moved through the grid, Aiden realized the truth that no briefing ever said out loud.

The invasion didn’t just take cities.

It hollowed people out from the inside, one memory at a time.

And the worst part?

The city kept moving anyway.