Hello there, you bonkers little human. I see that you have reached the end of your voyage. Please confirm the pass code before continuing to the land of magic and mystery.
What?! You don't remember it?! How can someone forget something so predictabl...
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Summer camps are fun. Who would know better than me?
I sit on coarse mud, cloaked by a grey tent. The minty scent of dew-drenched grass tickles my nose. And I smile. Pretending as if my throat isn't being burned by the thick smoke and dust that swirls around me.
I savor the moment – rarely do I get to be one with nature. False. There is nothing between me and nature but a thinning thread now.
Outside, a soft fire glows, flickering with lulling rhythm. Its heat blankets me, and I feel warmth on my toes and fingertips – the kind of security that not even love can make me feel. Again, lies. All lies – carefully weaved to form a fabricated world.
I pretend. Every day, every hour, every breath, all I do is pretend. Sometimes I think that I could have been an Oscar winning actor. But I know that will never happen.
I will be stuck in this corner – with the suffocating stench of detonated bombs and blasted bodies, with the crippling crawl of spiders on my dehydrated skin, with coldness so bitter that not even the soaring fires of destruction can nullify it.
This tent is my home; this tent is my cage. This war is my life and this war my death.
I have come to a summer camp with my friends, and now, all my friends are dead.
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About 32% of soldiers return with PTSD. Just because we don't see the monsters crawling in their heads doesn't mean there aren't any.
