Pilgrim

They tell you war ends all at once. A detonation, red-hot glory; a bruised victor emerging, all the stronger for it. 

But the truth is that war ends slow. 

It ends in scorched metal, stamped with the name of a country nobody forgets beside the number of a soldier nobody remembers. It ends when the radio dies and you’re still moving, just you and a half-dead mech dragging its stump across a country that was claimed twice now, and will be claimed again. The truth is that war ends in rust.

I can see a shape ahead. At first, it’s a white speck, then a tattered sail, and, finally, the remnants of a weathered shrine. Too many gods were born in the last war. Now they lie discarded, scraps of steel and coils, waiting to be sold or stolen. Waiting to be reborn.

We were only kids when it all went to shit. They built monsters to fight monsters and put us in the driver’s seat. The first thing they taught us was how to hold a gun. The second was to never look back. We never learned empathy or mercy—just coordinates, codes, and the weight of a dead boy behind you.

The shrine had been repurposed at some point. I pass the scavenger pit at a healthy distance. An old woman crouches on a pile of discarded roamers, a vulture through and through. She eyes the mech limping behind me, follows the cable that tethers it to my waist, but her eyes never reach mine. She offers me water in a voice dripping with mockery. 

I don’t stop walking.

Somewhere along the cracked red expanse, the mech stumbles. 

It happens with a stutter. The cable jolts taut across my waist, almost pulls me off my feet. Something in my shoulder tears just a little more. 

I can hear it give in: one metallic knee hits the red dust, then the whole damned thing. Parts snap, something hisses, something leaks. 

The cockpit is still sealed. The paint’s long since scorched off. I can’t see the emergency panel through the layers of soot. A crow is already perched on a joint, pecking at what was once a flag dangling from its flank. 

I don’t know how long I stand there.

Eventually, I move. I drop the tether and walk up beside it, press my hand to the hull. Still hot, still humming, somewhere deep inside.

My voice cracks, even though I haven’t said a word. 

And then, stupidly, I knock—just once, like I used to when we were kids in the hangars, before slipping into the cockpit. Two knocks meant it was clear. One meant wait for me.

I don’t wait for an answer.

I drag it across red stone for days, until we finally reach a disposal field.

The yard looks like nothing. No gates, no flags, no finish line. Just a scattered mess of open chests and broken limbs. Mechs slump in the distance like cattle, stripped for parts and left for dead. A scorched wind pulls through their empty joints, making something that could have been music.

A pair of figures approach from between the wrecks—clipboards in hand, chewing something like gum, as if they’ve seen it all before. 

They ask for the model, the designation.

Pilgrim-four-cee. Dual cockpit. It comes out unbidden, a lifetime of practice. 

They circle it, poking at the plating, tugging at exposed wires. They stop when they reach the cockpit, scorched shut. They’re not chewing anymore.

They ask the primary pilot. I give my name, my class. 

And the second?

My voice is steady, but within, something breaks: Still inside.

Their pens scratch the clipboards. Someone comes from out back, tools clattering in hand. An acetylene torch spits to life.

I don’t stay to watch. We were taught to never look back.

© 2026 Jason Schembri

Jason Schembri (he/him) is a queer Maltese-Australian writer. Born in Malta and raised in Western Sydney, he now calls Melbourne home. His work has appeared in Cordite Poetry Review, Stirring Literary, and various anthologies, including AUSTRAL and CRUX. His bio haunts him to this day.