All he knew was to run. Run away from the sound of machine guns and the cries of the wounded and dying. He ran, ignoring the palm fronds that cut his arms up like razor blades. He tripped over something. He looked; it was a corpse. He picked himself up and continued running. The only thing on his mind; get home to them. To the house with the white picket fence and the poplar tree in the backyard. To the wife he married fresh out of high school and was carrying his baby....she found out just weeks before he left home. To the little sister....but now she wasn't so little....not going to need his protection from the big scary world that he knew she often tried to shut out. The world that he was fighting this war in. The war that had stolen his soul, because his innocence was gone a long time ago. He had protected his sister's innocence, at the sacrifice of his own.
Running was second nature to him; it kept him safe from the beatings (most of the time) as a young boy and had so far kept him alive when fighting broke out; when he wasn't holed up in a trench with his gun that is. He had learned to shoot without thinking and how not to throw up when he found a body. Now he was running like a coward.
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Shelter in the Jungle (COMPLETED)
Historical FictionAmy and Mike have always been inseparable siblings. But after Mike got drafted to fight in Vietnam, it's not only Amy who acutely feels his absence - his pregnant wife, Laura, also misses him dearly. Amy copes by writing and burying herself in her s...
