War

In the middle of an all-out war between the humans and a new species, two soldiers from opposite sides meet.

The forest was too silent. Not one dry leaf trembled, not one bare tree bough wavered. I braced myself, because this was the calm before the storm. I knew that at any moment, the Ghouls would attack. I tensely awaited their emergence.
Suddenly, I heard a cry. I shivered with fear, but this was not the awful battle cry of the Ghouls; no, this was a cry of pain, of anguish. This cry was human. I felt a sense of panic rising within me; which of my friends had been brutally killed by a Ghoul? I didn't want to think about it, but I had to know. I felt myself rise and begin to walk, but it was as if I was not controlling my own movements.
The scene was more horrible than I could have ever imagined. One of my companions was lying down; his blood was everywhere and his body was spread on the ground like some grotesque piece of abstract art. My heart stopped beating for half a second; my brain failed me. I had no thoughts, no words. This was my friend, a man with whom I had fought for my life, stripped of his own. But this was just further proof of what I already knew; there is no justice in this life. What kind of world do we live in, where the good perish bathed in their own blood in the shadow of their enemies?
The Ghoul was standing before him, the smoke still coming out of its crude weapon that looked more like a cannon than a gun. We looked at each other, it and I; both knew that the first to shoot would survive. It was a battle of reflexes. But suddenly I saw its eyes, and I understood.
This ghoul was no more a monster than I; no, I could see in its eyes the same fear and pain that I knew were visible in mine. Was it possible? Dared I believe that all this time, we were not really enemies? I thought of the beginning of the war. We humans had immediately thought that the Ghouls were evil. Of course we had; they came from elsewhere, they had scales and talons; things that haunt our worst nightmares. Was it possible that after all this time, we'd been wrong to make this assumption?
It looked at me, and when it saw the look in my eyes, I knew it had understood. It lowered its weapon. I felt a peace that I had not felt since the beginning of the war. This creature would not hurt me.

This made it even easier to shoot the bullet that would pierce its heart.

"All is fair in love and war."
-John Lyly