Belleterre

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Felix and I had arrived just a few hours before sunset. I rested my rifle against the only window and sat for the first time that day. Shelling could still be heard in the distance, probably from Fugereville. I couldn't determine whether it was loyalists or our forces. The cabin was modest and dilapidated, populated only by a child's teddy bear - faced down in the corner.

"I'll take first watch, you rest. We rotate every 2 hours." I told Felix.

"Roger that" he said. "Do you have comms?"

"Yes but these woods are jamming the signal. We won't hear much beyond 10 kilometers" I said. "We just need to wait it out."

Felix sighed. We still didn't know how far the Tories were, but I thought it unlikely that any sizable force would follow us this deep into the forest. According to our map, the closest village was Belleterre, which was Francophone before the ethnic cleansing campaign by the Royal Front the previous year. Most of the Quebecois in the East had fled across the border to escape the war. This included my mother and sister Emma, who were placed in a refugee camp outside Buffalo, New York, according to their last letter.

Felix defected from the Royal 22nd Regiment 3 years ago, during the Saguenay Uprising, like many of my comrades. We had found each other during the Siege of La Tuque, when the Legion of Mauricie was formed among the survivors of that offensive. We had pushed westward throughout the spring and summer, but were cut off when the Canadian and British Army retook Trois-Rivieres. The western front, as the BBC named it, has dissolved into little more than a stalemate. The separatist forces still fighting here, that is elements of the Free Quebecois Army and Legion of Mauricie, has kept supply lines open in Waswanipi and one secret one in Ontario. A network of sympathetic Francophones has been built there, supplied directly by the French Army and intelligence services. Additionally, I estimate that around 600 of the men among us are foreign volunteers, primarily from France, Belgium and Switzerland. There is also 30 or so French Army officers, who were attached to our platoons shortly after France and Canada severed diplomatic ties.

I thought about all our fallen comrades over the last three years. Captain Arman in La Tuque, Thomas during our advance into Quebec City. My own brother, Jean-Philippe, during the combat jump onto Anticosti Island. I thought of them as I gazed out at the now pitch black forest. Artillery shells sang to me as flashes of light became visible from the sky.

A break in the brush made me immediately bring my rifle to my shoulder, I heard something run. I looked back at Felix, who was now out cold. I figured waking him up would only alarm him, and perhaps give away our position. I slowly climbed out the window, standing in a short 20 meter space between the cabin and the trees.

I again brought my rifle to my shoulder, scanning the tree line. I did this same motion with the flashlight. Nothing.

"Hello?" Only the distant shelling answered my call.

A rabbit ran near my legs and toward the forest, as if he was running away from something. I noticed, beside his footprints, a mild disturbance in the earth. The soil all around me was discolored from the rest, as if someone had dug it and buried it once more. My boots had slowly sank into it, which was fast turning into mud due to the cold.

I retrieved my shovel from the cabin, and broke ground once more. I dug quickly, knowing I was exposed. About half a meter in, I hit a few thousand maggots. I nearly fell back, they were mixed in with the dirt, feeding off something deeper in the earth. Their brighter color reflected off the moon. I kept digging.

The maggots were concentrated on a large mass, about the size of a basketball. It was covered by dirt, which I began to peal away with my gloved hands. In doing so, the object became apparent, it was a human skull.

I fell backward, landing in another cluster of maggots, who were also feeding on a rotting corpse. Only this one had clothes on, a pink dress.

I sat there for a moment, listening to the sound of my own breathing. Judging by the size of the mound, there were many more bodies beneath me. It began raining gently.

"Hugo!"

I sprung up and lifted my rifle once more, only to see Felix starring back at me, sharing my look of disbelief. He looked down at the two partially uncovered bodies beside us.

"What happened here?" he said.

"It wasn't an ethnic cleansing. It was a massacre" I told him.