The Last One Breathing

One chair. One glass. Another job that did not bring them back. I tell it like a victory: the ambush, smoke, the screaming steel, how every bastard lost his nerve, how I alone walked from the field. They laugh when I describe the fire, the lucky shot, the closing door - but every tale gets one thing wrong: I hear the ones who breathe no more. I call it skill. I call it fate. I never call it what it takes. I am the last one breathing, the name the body count forgot. Every scar says I defeated what buried everyone I brought. Raise a glass to my survival, make a legend of the pain - but the dead keep asking softly why I came back home again. The Blue Suns stole the life I built, Vido left me burned and blind. I fed revenge for twenty years and called the hunger peace of mind. Then came a hundred nameless crews, good soldiers paid to trust my lead. Their final words became my stories; their silence bought the life I keep. I know the route. I know the cost. I count the living, not the lost. I am the last one breathing, the name the body count forgot. Every scar says I defeated what buried everyone I brought. Raise a glass to my survival, make a legend of the pain - but the dead keep asking softly why I came back home again. Maybe luck is just a bullet choosing someone else to claim. Maybe all my famous stories are headstones wearing different names. I can face a loaded gunship. I can walk through burning rain. But I cannot tell the ghosts that I would choose it all again. I am the last one breathing, and at last I know the price: every time the dark released me, someone else paid with their life. Do not praise me as a hero. Do not carve me out of flame. I survived enough for all of us - and none of us came home the same. One chair. One glass. One old man outliving his past.