***This book series will be boring Nicholas Sparks chick novels, only with loads of awesome blood and guts so you don't drown in your own puke. A good way to get through the books.***
Chapter One: Miracles
The sun has come up and I am sitting by a window that is foggy with the breath of a life gone by. I’m a sight this morning: two shirts, heavy pants, a scarf wrapped twice around my neck and tucked into a thick sweater knitted by my daughter thirty birthdays ago, which has suffered some blood staining but is still warm and comforting. The thermostat in my room is set as high as it will go, and a smaller space heater sits directly behind me. It clicks and groans and spews hot airlike a fairy-tale dragon, not unlike the one that brutally murdered several of my comerades and brothers-in-arms, and still my body shivers with a cold that will never go away, a cold that has been eighty years in the making. Eighty years. I wonder if this is how it is for everyone who has survived the war.
My life? It isn’t easy to explain. It has not been the mush and gush love story I fancied it would be, but neither have I quite kept up with the best of the demon hunters. I suppose it has most resembled a butcher house: fairly bloody, little emotion, and gradually growing rank with the smell of death. I’ve learned that not everyone can say this about his life. But do not be misled. I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts, and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I’ve fought with every bit of courage and brutality I possess, and to me this has always been enough. The weak stomached would call this a sick and violent story: the gamers would call it a cool spin on a crappy love story. In my mind it’s a little bit of both, and no matter how you choose to view it in the end, it does not change the fact that it involves a great deal of my life. I have no complaints about the path I’ve chosen to follow and the places it has taken me—the path has always been the right one (or at least the most super cool bloody and awesome.) I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Time, unfortunately doesn’t make it easy to stay on course. The path is straight as ever, but now it is strewn with the rocks, gravel, and unavoidable human skeletons that accumulate over a lifetime. Until three years ago it would have been easy to ignore, but it’s impossible now. There is a sickness rolling through my body; I’m neither strong nor healthy, and my days are spent like an old romantic: listless, spongy and growing softer over time however impossible this seems. I cough, and through squinted eyes I check my watch. I realize it is time for my shift. I stand and shuffle across the room; stopping at the desk to pick up the manual I have read a hundred times. I slip it beneath my arm and continue on my way to the place I must go. I walk on tiled floors, white speckled with blood. Like my hair and the hair of most people here, though I’m the only one in the hallway this morning. They are possibly dead, possibly MIA, alone except for their enemies, but they, like me, are used to it. A person can get used to anything, given enough time. I hear the muffled sounds of crying in the distance and know who is making them. The colonel see me and I salute and greeting her. I am sure she wonders about me and my increasing senility every day. I listen as she begin to whisper among to her colleagues when I pass.“There he goes again.” I hear. “I hope he doesn't go soft.” But they say nothing directly to me about it. A minute later, I reach the room. The door has been propped open for me, as it usually is. There are two refugees in the room, and as I enter they say “Good morning” with empty, hollow voices, and I take a moment to ask about their kids' funerals and the schools' recent nationwide shutdown and whether it would ever be possible to vacation again. We talk above the crying for a minute or so. They do not seem to notice: they have become numb to it, but then again, so have I. Afterwards I sit in the chair that has come to be shaped like me. They are finishing up now; her straitjacket is on, but she is still crying. It will become quieter after they leave. I know. The excitement of the morning always upsets her, and today is no exception. Finally the refugees walk out. Both of them suck all pretenses of happiness from the air as they walk by. I sit for just a second and stare at her, but she doesn’t return the look. I understand, for she doesn’t know who I am. I’m a stranger to her. Then, turning away, I how my head and pray silently for the strength I know I will need. Ready now. On go the glasses, out of my pocket comes a revolver. I put it on the table for a moment while I open the manual. It takes two licks on my gnarled finger to get the well-worn cover open to the first page. There is always a moment right before I begin to read the story when my mind churns, and I wonder, will I be able to go through with this today? I don’t know, for I never know beforehand and deep down it really doesn’t matter. It’s the possibility of myself one day seeing peace that keeps me going. And though you may call me a dreamer or a fool. I believe that anything is possible. I realize that the odds, and the law, are against me. But military is not the total answer. This I know, this I have learned in my lifetime. And that leaves me with the belief that peace, no matter how inexplicable or unbelievable, are real and can occur without regard to the natural order of things. So once again, just as I do every day, I begin to read the manual aloud, so that she can hear it, in the hope that the miracle that has come to dominate my life will once again prevail. And maybe, just maybe, it will.
