A/N: I own nothing! I hope you enjoy!

This is Prompt No. 17-Enemies

My story is different because I cannot blame anyone but myself for the situation I have found myself in. Three hours ago, I had thought that I might actually make it through this cursed war, but now, I have no hope. The fear of battle is the worst stench a human being can smell, and the air is fouled with it. Muskets fire over and over again, stopping only long enough to reload.

A cannon ball shatters the ground a little ways from me, and I cover my head, turning away so that the shower of metal, dirt, and blood rain down on my back. I look over at the few remains of the man that had been standing there and my heart is numb, which scares me more than this whole war.

How can I be so calm as I watch my fellow human beings being torn to shreds over a matter that could simply be discussed over a period of a few hours? How can I, after only two and a half months of this, be so detached from the pain and suffering of human life? The answer is simple: I was ordered to do so.

During my meager training for this post, there had been one rule reiterated over and over again until I grew sick of it: You pause, you die. It was as simple as that. The very act of pausing in the fighting, grieving for someone that has been shot down next to you, is forbidden, for if you do so, you just might lose your own life. You don't even look around anymore. You just keep shooting.

As I reload my rifle clumsily, having the use of only one arm since the other one has a fresh bullet in it, I wonder if that is why I am in the predicament I am in now. I cared too much for people. I refused to just close off my mind without trying to help them. And now, for this man, the one that had just been killed, I had risked my life. I had run from my position of relative safety to his side, an area of high risk, just to help him. Mentally, I berate myself, for I am not even fighting on the right side.

Yes, it is true. I am fighting for a side I do not believe in, because I am taking my brother's place. You may wonder if he is dead, for that could be the only reason that I would willingly walk into this living hell. Well, you are wrong. My brother is very much alive, and he and his wife are probably safely in the North, lying low for a while. I took his place because he is my twin brother, and he means everything in the world to me. We were born only twenty-two minutes apart, Mitchell and Michelle Torres. Most of my friends call me Mitchie to keep from confusing us.

I took Mitchell's place because he refused to fight, and I was afraid that my father might do something terrible to him sooner or later, so I convinced him through many arguments that he and Anna, my maidservant and his beau, should escape to the North, and I would take his place for a while until I could go home. We both believe in equality for humans, no matter what their skin color, and that is a hated opinion in Virginia, and in our very home, but neither of us care.

Yet now, with the danger tensing my every muscle, I begin to regret offering myself up to this "cause." I am fighting for a side I don't even believe in, and I'm about to be killed by the side I want to be on. Life is ironic, isn't it? I hear a sharp whistle, and I try to duck, but I am too late. The bullet hits me again in the shoulder and I fall backwards, my gun tumbling out of my hands from the force of the blow. My vision swims and I close my eyes to the haze of the smoke covered world for a moment, and when I open them again, someone has taken my gun, thinking that I was dead.

I gaze around and realize that my army has fled, retreating to safety and leaving me defenseless. Great. Through the smoky curtain of the battlefield, I make out a small group of the opposite side, walking toward me. With a groan that shows how much pain I'm in, I unpin my badge and toss it onto a dead man next to me. Mitchell Torres is dead.

I fully expect the lieutenant in front to shoot me with the gun he holds in his bloody, dirt-streaked hands that are much like mine, but he doesn't. When he is close enough for me to see his face, I gasp. "You!" I croak, for his face is familiar to me, and rather welcome, but I am still shocked to see him in uniform. I am not given the chance to dwell on his reason for appearing, though, because the pain from my wounds overtakes me, and I faint, my mind spiraling back to three months ago when I had first met the lieutenant, Shane Grey.