Pacific Nightmare

I woke up drenched in sweat. It was another nightmare about the war. The same scene kept playing in my mind. When I was 15, a large land mass appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The world's nations flocked to the new land that was full of untouched resources. Soon, war broke out. The United States once adopted the draft system, and when I turned 18, I was drafted. By the time I was 2o, I was fighting on the island itself.

The reoccurring nightmare was a covert operation into a Japanese outpost. There were rumors that the Japanese were experimenting on captured American soldiers at the outpost. I was assigned to go into their living quarters and kill anyone in there. It was not a large outpost so the job was finished quickly. But that doesn't mean I quickly forgot about what I did. The last solider I stood over could've been no older than 18. As I drew my pistol up to his head, his eyes opened. He looked at me with sad and knowing eyes. I hesitated to pull the trigger. As a tear fell from his eye. He screamed, I shot.

I regrouped with the rest of my squad. There didn't seem to be anyone but the eight of us in the outpost. We split up again evenly. One group of four was tasked with gathering all the resources from the base. My group was assigned with finding the lab.

I doubted the experiments were true. There was no evidence to support such a thing. What would the Japanese be doing with American soldiers anyway? I came across a door in the basement of the outpost. We all lined up outside of it. I opened the door quickly and we went in to clear the room. The room was pitch black, but only for a brief second. Soon, a red light emitting from the ceiling scanned our bodies. We all looked at each other with puzzled looks. An alarm went off, and we found it in our best interest to run. As I got to the top of the steps, the outpost exploded. There was no time to react, everything went black.

This was the extent of my nightmare, every time the outpost blew up, I woke up. In reality, my memory is quite cloudy from remembering what happened after. All I remember afterwards is waking up in a hospital in Ohio. I had lived in Ohio my whole life before having to join the war. I was told I had been in a coma for three weeks. I was told that the war was apparently over. I didn't understand what was being said to me. I had just been fighting a war, and I was told it was over after I had just been in an explosion. But to me, there was nothing indicating that the war was coming near an end before my accident.

My parents soon came to get me from the hospital. I was still having trouble understanding everything. Aside from being in a coma, I had no serious injuries. Life seemed to be back to normal. People were walking around with smiles on their faces. The news was no longer filled with horrific stories. I was happy to see life going a more positive route, but did people forgot that a war had just been fought? What were the relations between America and Japan? How had conflict been so easily resolved in a matter of weeks?

I eventually stopped bringing up the war. People didn't want to talk about it. My parents told me that it was best if I just moved on. I decided I would get my college education. When I was younger, I had always considered going to Oberlin College. It was down the road from me and my high school teachers always said it would be a great place to further my education.

I was accepted into Oberlin and would major in History while minoring in English. The majority of my classes being History and English meant that I was writing paper after paper. I enjoyed the classes though. The coursework was difficult but I appreciated the challenge.

Aside from my usual nightmares, the war became a distant memory. My Junior year, I fell in love with a Callie, a girl from my hometown. Since I still lived close to home, we were able to visit each other when ever we were free. We split up our visits with her coming to spend time with me on campus and other times going to her house. It was always nice to go to her house and have a home cooked meal by her parents. One night before I left her house she stopped me at my car. She had me get out of the car so she could say, "John Smith, I love you!" It was something out of a cliche romantic movie, but I was more than happy to know she felt the way about me that I did about her. We would stay together throughout the rest of my time at Oberlin and after.

After Oberlin, I wanted to pursue the path of a teacher at the high school level. I was always interested in teaching history or any subject for that matter at the high school level. I specifically wanted to teach Juniors. I feel that is the stage in high school where you really have to start finalizing your path. Unfortunately, I could not get my teaching license through Oberlin. Many colleges had an education program where you could graduate with your license, but oddly enough, that wasn't offered at Oberlin. So after Oberlin I took a test to get my teaching license. Callie and I bought a nice little starter home to start our lives together.

I started teaching at a small school in the country. My biggest class consisted of 13 kids. That's how I wanted it to be, small enough so that I could really connect with all of my students. After a two years of teaching, I also took the job of head football coach, another passion of mine. Life was going the way I wanted it to. When I was 30, Callie and I decided to have a kid. We named him Caleb.

This brings me to where I am now, at the edge of the beds with my head in my hands. I'm still sweating from the nightmare. I'm 37 now and not much has changed in my life, but not in a bad way. I am quite satisfied with my life. It is the relaxing one I always dreamed of having.

Today is Caleb's first day of first grade. I didn't have to be at the high school until second period, so I could take Caleb to school with Callie. It took us awhile to get Caleb out of the house, he wasn't too pumped up about school starting. Caleb was a great kid, and listened well, but he was not in the mood.

We finally got him into the car and headed in the direction of the school. We weren't too far into the drive when the car started to shake. The road in front of me started to crack and split. I drove the car off the road and stopped. We were having an earthquake. Several other cars stopped. I got out of the car to look around. The morning day was filled with screams. Caleb started to cry. The earthquake wasn't the only event happening. I looked up to see the sun slowly become as black as Callie's dark hair. What was a warm August day became a cold breeze. The moon then dauntingly turned a blood red color. Caleb's crying intensified and Callie looked at me with worried eyes. I didn't know how to best calm them down. I looked all around and saw nothing but chaos. People did not how to react. The only sound was the screaming. But there was one scream that I heard distinctly. One scream that slowly got louder and louder. It was the sound of the young Japanese man I had shot. It sounded like he was screaming right in my ear. Everything went completely black.

When I opened my eyes, I was looking through a piece of glass. Men in lab coats walked past me. The only thing I could move was my eyes. I was submerged in some type of liquid. It felt like I had my eyes open in the pool. A man came over to me and bent down. I saw him call over more men. They all seemed to be surprised. I watched as they wrote on clipboards and talked to one another. I wanted to say something, but I couldn't open up my mouth. I wanted to move away from their stares. I couldn't turn, I couldn't move, I couldn't run. Where was Callie? Where was Caleb?

The war wasn't over. John's body was never recovered after the explosion. At least not recovered by the United States. There was no Callie and no Caleb. John Smith was nothing but a severed head in a container.