The soldiers file into the mess hall, squeezing onto benches and finding open places away from the canvas walls to sit. Outside, the wind shrieks, whipping and beating tarps throughout the whole encampment, in some places tearing them from their posts. Calling it a mess hall is an overstatement, since it’s all just one big tent. There are windows near the top, flexible sheets of plastic framed in velcro and wire to hold it in place. The hall is propped up on portable wooden beams, built to keep the waves of sand and mud out of the cook pots. But it fails even at that. The soldiers in the mess hall are a mixture of men and women, dark skin and fair, short, tall, brawny and lean. There are even children. Somewhere. They’re the families of soldiers who couldn’t find anywhere to put them while they were away. Their murmurs and cries are barely audible over the scrape and clatter of meal time in the mess hall, though today the mood is unusually subdued. A single thought occupies every conversation, every thought, every dream. What comes next? A ribbon of fresh, cool air cuts through the muggy atmosphere, turning the soldiers' heads. Captain Eighteen has returned, holding the battle plans high above her head, while her sharp eyes sweep over the room. Captains Sixteen and Forty are just behind her, similar plans in their hands. “Command sent instructions.” They don’t say more. They don’t need to. The rustle of papers now joins the depressed mutterings, the sheets making their way around the room. The Captains never bother announcing anything anymore. Those who care will find the information, and those who don’t likely won't survive the war. We’ll all die anyway. It’s treason to say so, but no one follows the laws anymore. There’s no one left to enforce them. Soldier sits tucked in a corner, out of sight, out of mind. He stays huddled behind the tallest of his comrades, keeping to himself and listening to the conversation of soldiers nearby. They refer to each other as Two hundred six, Eight-oh-ninety, and so on. Soldier had had a number once. A name, even, but that was before. Numbers had replaced names when names had become too common. The deaths, too common. There had been an agreement, once the death rate topped the birth rate worldwide. When one isn’t likely to remember every soldier that dies in battle, what right does one have to demand that they themselves be remembered? That was one of the only ideas that every side of the war agreed on. Numbers are still common among friends and relatives, but not for strangers and average cannon fodder. And so the soldiers referred to each other as Soldier, and the children as Child, and the parents as Father, Mother or Guardian. There had been a time once when the world had cared if you considered yourself attracted to the same gender. When the world cared if you disagreed with your genetic identity. When the world cared if skin was light or dark. When the world cared about money......