A Coward's Honour

• Jayden Eaton, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2015

The dying screams of my comrades haunts my soul. I cried rivers of tears as I hid my shaking body under a large log while the sounds of battle raged around me. Bullets flashed past my position like bolts of lightning, speeding towards their targets. Grenades exploded in a blast of searing fire and heat, shrapnel flying and slaughtering the people I called friends. The furious pounding sensation of my heart and the drenching sweat on my body served to reinforce my fear of the conflict occurring around me. I stayed huddled in a ball for hours, waiting out the fighting above me while fear engulfed my soul.
The fighting soon died down, not a sound could be heard on the battlefield. My body gradually stopped shaking from the fear that had paralysed me, I slowly moved inch by inch out from under the log and what awaited me made my heart stop. The people I knew, talked to, laughed with, ate with were now dead. Bodies littered the ground, their blood seeping into the earth. I collapsed to the ground, guilt hung over my head for not standing and fighting to my last breath like the others.
A gurgled cough captured my attention, coming from my captain. Rushing over to his form, I sat beside him as blood spewed from his mouth.
His eyes locked with mine.
‘You hid, Kioshi.’ His weak voice struck me at my core, his words holding disappointment and disgust.
‘I-I’m s-s-sorry, Captain Isamu.’ My voice cracked as I spoke.
‘Coward, you bring shame to your family and your country. You’ve shamed yourself, you have no honour.’ It felt like a burning hot knife was plunged deep in my heart, the words destroyed me. The one thing I didn’t want was to shame my family name.
Isamu went limp before me. I closed his eyes, preventing them from ever seeing the light again.
‘Coward… shame… no honour.’ Those words repeated continuously in my mind. The severity of my actions came crashing upon me.
Nothing in this universe could describe the guilt that weighed against my soul. I could never return to Japan. To confront the guilt, ridicule and humiliation without a shred of honour to my name was something I couldn’t live with. There was only one thing I could do to atone for my mistakes and at least die with what honour I had left, seppuku, ritual suicide.
Strengthening my resolve, I pulled out my tanto, aiming it at my stomach. My hands trembled, knowing that I would never see my family again.
‘Forgive me.’ The cold blade pierced through my abdomen as I cut into my flesh. I suppressed the urge to cry out in agonizing pain.
Blood poured onto the ground and was soaked up by the earth. I collapsed, my vision began to turn dark as death hovered over me. A small smile graced my lips, I could die knowing that I had kept what honour remained. I had redeemed myself.