The Isbjørn

Thirty-seven

The world was aquiver. Shaking. Burning at the edges. The world was on fire.

It was one of those moments of pure panic that would last a lifetime.

Gunshots exploded, robbing him of all sense of direction. John only found his head when he heard a round whiz past his right ear. He cringed at the wet crunch that sounded as the shot hit Davíd in the face.

Just a minute ago he had just muttered something about skipping breakfast.

Davíd was 21 years old, the same as John at the time, and was born in Saeva, just outside the active war-zone. He had joined the army because he wanted to protect his family while saving up to afford visas and passports for his sisters and mother to Occidens Terram. The guy was sharp. His Terim was great, John had been taking lessons from him in the barracks. And he was a hell of a soldier. He had dreams of going to college and getting into law school, he wanted to "be part of the better world". He had this little catchphrase: 'live great, die better'.

All that potential. All that promise. Gone in a sickening wet crunch. That beautiful soul wiped away in a split second. And John watched it happen. After the dust settled he made my way back to him to collect his tags.

This was the first time he had ever lost a friend. He had a few men in his unit get hit before, but up until that point he had never seen a comrade laying in the dirt. It was a haunting feeling. Just a few seconds ago, they were talking about breakfast, dicking around and making jokes about damn Regiment Army.

And then he was gone. Reduced to a corpse lying in the dirt with his once beautiful mind beginning to clump in the bloodsoaked mud.

It was hard to tell if he was breathing. A claustrophobic, blinding light ensnared his universe as he looked at the gore that was once a face. He choke as he was pulled apart, as he in turn slowly exploded from the inside out. The pain was unbearable. A scream was torn from his chest.

His worst dreams were about that day.

When a dream struck, John was it's prisoner, helpless in the cage of his mind until he opened his eyes.

Waking, he was blinded with flashing colorful spots and craved darkness, quiet and stillness, the lingering memory floated mingling with the nausea that came with a hangover. Pain throbned so violently around his body that he wondered why it never just ended him.

John wrapped himself in the duvet, waves of a flirting headache adding to his misery. He had raised his heavy eyelids half way only for them to fall shut. He raised them again and swung his bare feet onto the wood floor- someone had removed his shoes in the night. He sank back into the couch; too many jobs to do, too much on his mind.

"John are you awake?" The amusement playing on the back of her voice told she had been watching him wake, progressing from his shelter only to retract back into the blankets.

"John is not awake," came his muffled voice.

She advanced on him with a glass of water, reaching around the arm of the couch and setting it on the low table. "Why are you speaking in third person?"

"I don't want to be me right now." John leaned forward, the blanket working as a thick cloak, as he pulled the duvet over his head like a protective hood against the world. He took a slow sip of the water, tasting the sandy flavor only offered by Saeva and setting it down. His mouth still felt dry. "Where's Daire?"

She rounded the couch and plopped down next to him. "Getting breakfast."

John winced. "Okay, don't yell at me."

Sri tugged at the blanket, drawing his attention. "Who's Davíd?"

His eyes narrowed to light brown slits.