Illphated

Now Red

The stars above San Antonio burned like dying embers, their cold light swallowed by the thick haze of smoke rising from the ruined battlements of the Alamo. The air reeked of blood, gunpowder, and fire, the echoes of cannon fire still trembling in the bones of those who remained standing.

Corporal Elias Cordell pressed a bloodied hand to his side, feeling the warmth of his own life seeping through his fingers. His rifle was empty, his saber dulled from the fight, but still, he stood atop the shattered wall, staring down at the advancing enemy. A thousand men, maybe more, marching in like the tide—unstoppable, indifferent.

Behind him, the chapel doors rattled, the last sanctuary of the wounded and the dying. The flag still hung above the mission, its single star faintly visible in the dim glow of torches and moonlight. The message stitched across it, defiant even now: COME AND TAKE IT.

Elias gritted his teeth. “They have.”

His friend, Thomas Greaves, slumped beside him, his breath ragged, his hands shaking as he reloaded one last shot. “Not yet,” he whispered.

The first rank of the enemy stormed through the gate. A young officer in a red sash led them, his saber flashing like fire in the torchlight. Elias raised his own blade.

And then the world turned red.

The final shot from the last cannon fired. It wasn’t enough. The mission, the walls, the men—they fell. But history would remember them. The dawn would rise over the Alamo, and though the colors of the flag might change, though time might wear away the stone, the memory of what happened here would never fade.

Now red, forever remembered.