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Tims life had never been easy. He grew up poor; his parents hadn’t actually wanted a child because they simply didn’t have enough money. He was an accident, he knew that, but his parents never made him feel it. They loved him and tried to give him everything they could, which wasn’t a lot but that was okay.
What they did give him was music. When he was a little child his parents would sing for him every evening, his mother would play the violin and his father the guitar. Those times were some of his happiest memories.
Later his parents both taught him their instruments and they would play and sing together as a family. Music would always be an anchor for Tim and he was forever thankful to his parents for giving him this gift.
School was rough. His parents couldn’t afford a private school and the public schools in his area weren’t exactly the most beautiful or peaceful places on earth. It was pretty dirty there and fights were happening on a daily basis. Fights he was not too rarely involved in.
His only friend was Bertie. Bertie was a sweet boy, not build for the area they lived in. He was an easy target for bullies. Tim had at some point stopped counting the times he had saved Bertie from the fists of other boys. The only thing that actually connected Tim and Bertie was music. Together they would sit and sing and write songs for hours.
Then the first bad thing of many, many more that were yet to come, happened. His mother got sick, his father was now barely ever at home because he had to cover for his mother’s income as well, because she was not able to work anymore. The only time Tim would see both of his parents then was in the hospital. Him and his father sitting on the uncomfortable plastic chairs and his mother lying in the hospital bed, connected to a bunch of machines.
And then she died.
They got the call in the morning, just as Tim was about to leave for school. A machine had stopped working during the night and apparently no one had noticed until the morning. By then it had been too late, the sickness had taken over her body.
The following weeks everything went to hell. His father now had to work even more and they could barely even afford a funeral for his mother. Her grave did not even have a gravestone. When his dad was home he would usually be drunk. He wouldn’t get violent but sad and that was somehow even worse. Tim would have to give his best trying to cheer him up at least a little and preventing him trying to follow his wife.
Until one day his father did not come home from work. And when the day after he still wasn’t home Tim called at his work. There he was told that his dad had had an accident which had cost him his life. He asked why no one had called him and they told him they hadn’t know that his father had a son.
That night was the first time he drank alcohol. He got drunk for the first time at 13 years old from his dead father’s alcohol. That was how Bertie found him later. Tim can’t really remember the week after that. Bertie was there for him, held him when he cried, sang for him to calm him down, let him live in his room, when he got kicked out by the landlord.
By then Tim had long since realised that what he felt for Bertie was more than friendship and those feelings only grew with the time. Bertie was his only joy in life. Bertie and music.
He needed money. He couldn’t let Bertie keep paying for everything because Bertie did not have a lot of money either. So, he took his fathers guitar and started singing on the streets. What he got wasn’t much, but it was enough for him to pay for his own food. Soon enough Bertie joined him and they would sing the songs they wrote. Over the time they became some what of local celebrities. They lived as street musicians for quite some time, but money was always tight. What they didn’t use for food they used for alcohol and cigarettes.
Their live was decent for that time. They had dropped out of school a long time ago and they lived at Berties flat, his parents were barely ever home anyway.
And they had gotten together; Tim had asked Bertie to be his boyfriend when they had been 15.
Now they were 17 and though life wasn’t great they made the best of it. Until one day they got a letter from the landlord, saying they had to leave the flat. Apparently Berties parents had stopped paying rent. Why? Probably because they either needed the money for drugs or they had died. Bertie sad he didn’t care, but Tim knew he did. He tried his best to give Bertie some extra affection throughout the next few months. had to leave the flat. Apparently Berties parents had stopped paying the rent. Why? Probably because they either needed the money for drugs or they had died. Bertie said he didn’t care, but Tim knew he did. He tried to give Bertie some extra affection over the next few months.
Either way they now were homeless and the money they made with singing on the streets was barely enough for basic human needs. On good days they could maybe afford a room in some ceap hostel, on other days they had to sleep on the street.
And then the moon war began and they enlisted because they needed the money and they had nothing to lose but each other.
And one day Tim lost everything he had.
After Berties death everything was a blur of blood, muzzled flashes and corpses. Then the moon kaiser, Jonny’s head, Toy Soldier, the canon and then… nothing, just pain.
He awoke; he was alive.
He was and Bertie wasn’t.