Taint

Chapter Two - Numb Speculation (RE-EDITED)

"Trouble with you Americans, you always want a tragedy with a happy ending." - Surviving Desire

Kale stared out the airline's window as the sun touched the horizon, painting the sky morbidly red. He'd been away so incredibly long, the thought of coming home was almost ludicrous.

Home. It was so strange to him, home had become his bunker, in fact his entire past from before he had embarked this fucking journey to the other side of the world seemed like a distant memory, a dream even.

Kale had changed so much since then, he wasn't sure if it was for the better or worse, but he was no longer that brash, weak and lazy boy he had been before his tour.

He'd grown strong, he'd had to. It had been either endure or die. So he had. Through the boredom when he waited for any bit of reprieve and the dread and anxiety when he'd gotten what he'd wanted.

Yet even though at times it had been hell Kale had felt he'd finally found his calling. He'd had a purpose, and for a short time he'd thought he was helping make the world a better place, he'd felt almost heroic; he'd been an idiot.

The disillusionment had come quickly and then all that had kept him there was the fact that he had nowhere else to go, and then because he could do little more than kill with deadly precision. And in the military that had given him rank.

Things had eventually come crashing down though, but not before taking seven years of his life.

So he was going back, his uniform, a single carry-on bag and an achy shoulder all he carried with him.

To what he was coming back to he didn't know. Kale couldn't comprehend how after what he'd gone through, what he'd done, what he knew, he could be expected to go back and act like everyone else, so he didn't even try to.

He was twenty-five years old and felt like he was four times that and a fourth of it at the same time. Frail, dog-tired and confused, yep sirree that was him, and no amount of weights lifted, or miles run, would wash away the feeling of debility.

He was old but unwise, uncomprehending of simple concepts like a toddler but destitute of the innocence. The feelings contradicted and attested to each other all at once.

Kale sensed with a calm clarity that his life would be a constant struggle to attain even the slightest bit of mediocrity.

But even these abysmal thoughts didn't really faze him. They were just verifiable truths. Kale felt almost as if it were someone else's life he was mulling over.

But even in his numb state they were wearying, and he was already so very tired. So he closed his eyes took a moment to attempt to relax his ever-tense muscles and fell into the dark abyss that was now his dreams.

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success! i muddled through another chapter!

I know it was short but it's all I could write without giving too much away, for now i think it best to remain vague on details, i know I'm a sadist. lmao vote/comment/fan if you want or don't

Since you took the time to read this far of me trying weakly at getting you to boost my story's popularity I'll tell you that the quote at the beginning in no way reflects how I am going to end this story, (I'm an American at heart, well at least the top layer is American my inner layer is Cuban and...lol you get the picture) it was just a quote that I thought was amazingly accurate and reflected almost all Romance novels and other fiction. Ok ima stop myself now before I start babbling on about stupid theories about human nature and such Jesus no one probably even read this far if they're reading this at all so I'm going to stop writing...right...NOW!