I wake up. I hear the birds singing outside. My head is foggy, my lips dry, my throat aches. I sit up in my bed and look to my left out my window. The sun happily shines past the white fluffy clouds and blue sky into my large window. My room is illuminated. I feel like drowning in nostalgia.

I get to my feet, not believing what I am seeing. I catch a whiff of something. Sausage. I take four steps, bringing my out of my room into the upstairs hallway. My parents' door is opened as well, light filtering through their three windows and giving the room a golden glow. Something like in the movies that you don't think is actually possible. I hear the creaking of my sister moving around in her room. I turn around to face her room, waiting for her to appear.

"Breakfast!" I hear from downstairs. My head pounds. Perhaps a dream? I'm sick? I have a cold. That's it, I feel my brain grasping for reason. I look down the stairs, sunlight filtering through the small half circle window over the door. My mom stands there, alit beautfully as she gives a motherly smile and waves me down. "Get down here, now!" She calls with slight annoyance, not at all matching her facial experssion. My heart aches in confusion. I feel my sister hug me from behind. My head spins. That's it, I'm just sick. I had nightmares last night. Everything I felt was because I was fevering, delirious...

"Good morning brother, love you," My sister says standing on her toes and kissing me on the cheek before punching me in the gut and sprinting down the stairs. My abdomen braces for the impact but only feels a memory of a hit against my gut. It's not real. I shake my head, everything hurts. I look to my leg where I was bleeding. No, I was bleeding in my dream. I see a bruise. No, not a bruise. An old cut? No, it is a bruise. It is real, she just didn't hit me hard today. Dread builds in my chest as hope builds in my brain. "I love you too," She's too far to hear but it makes me feel better.

I clomp down the stairs, my aching leg slowing me down. I finally touch the cool tile at the bottom.

"You're taking forever bob," My mom calls, "Hurry up." I sit down in my favorite chair, a chair that was once my dad's but I eventually stole. Breakfast sitting in my lap, the news playing on the living room TV. We all sit around watching it, discussing our day. That's not right, I think, We normally do this for dinner... Change in schedule?

"...was your day?" I look at my dad, he's holding an empty plate of steak. I imagine emailing Daniel about the plane.

"Good, a plane flew overhead today," I tell him looking at my own plate of steak, potatoes, and asparagus. My headache still there, I want water. I suddenly stand, my leg on fire.

"That's cool, you should go play soccer with Daniel," My dad tells me. I swat at my leg in panic, I begin sweating. My throat closes on me. I can't breath. Soccer. I feel an ache grow up my shin, past my thigh and into my hip.

"He has a fever," My mom says with a frown. I fall to the ground, a sharp pain shooting through the back of my head. I can feel the sweat drip down my spine and my hands are sweaty. The pain right behind my eyes...

"Yes but he needs to play soccer with Daniel so he can close the door." My father responds.

"We need medicine," My mother says, smiling even though her voice is panicked. "His leg is infected."

"But what about Will?" My father asks without moving his mouth, watching the news.

"Rippy," My mom begins. But I'm too caught up with my dad's questions. Will. What about Will? The boy I left. The boy I didn't save. The one whos pulse was never checked. My shin explodes as if hit. I jerk it toward me and I roll, falling off the floor for millenia before suddenly being in a dark, stale, freezing room.

I open my eyes, Mrs. Bain leans over me. Mr. Bain and Victoria hold down my body. Mrs. Bain looks at me softly, concern creased in her brow, "You'll be okay honey..." I feel myself drifting away again. Past the sweat, past the freezing, past the fever, aches, and pains. Back to the morning with sausages and birds. And little sisters kissing you goodmorning.

You know that feeling when you know that that guy with bonoculars; the one wearing a green camo hat and a loose blue t-shirt that has a glasses-wearing, taquila-drinking dinosour on it; that's standing underneath the third pine tree to the right from the hill 42 feet and 2 inches away from where you're standing is watching you through the window even though the blinds are closed?

The

It is the most used word in English.

No one realizes they're using it.

Till now, anyway.

I'm conscious of it

You're conscious of it

And I haven't even used it since the intro.

Well, there goes that streak. Defying the use of the most common word the.

Dang. I had to use it twice just for explanation.

Imaging trying to use word the throughout any of sentences you decide you want to write.

Don't worry, this word is so common your awareness will dim of its use by the end of the hour. But maybe the end of the hour will stay on your mind...

Writing that I was so busy coming up with a time limit I forgot I was talking about the topic the.

This is, perhaps, the most underappreciated word in the English language.

Then again, there's methinks, which is in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Like gullible. I assure you, that's no trick.

But I must admit, I was going to put the the word count at the bottom for any readers, but I figure someone out there already kept track. Please, do let me know. I haven't counted as I am relying on your response. It'll be the response of the ages, methinks.

Perhaps this is a statement to my recovery;

My lack of poetry.

For those that have seen my first four parts will see this.

They may not have been good (I do not pride myself as a poet) but at the time they seemed capable of showing the pains and aches I felt.

I've gone back and read them, for the first time in months.

There's a certain guilt I feel, forgetting the feelings I lived with for months that others certainly still struggle to grapple with, yet I move on and forget where I have come from.

But reading through them I hurt again, they cut through my heart like a dagger. As I remember the hopelessness I felt, the days I spent crying in the kitchen...

I've since come to realize, it was not about the running, but just about the general crap of life and my running was my stress reliever, my escape.

It kept me sane, sanity I needed when everything else in life seemed to fall apart all at once.

I will always appreciate those that were there for me, my parents especially, because all through that hopelessness and pain never once did I ever feel alone. I know I am blessed to have never felt the hand of lonliness in my life, just hurt, hurt and loss.

But now, I've made recovery, I've run again, I'm working out again, reinserting myself into society.

It feels like the inverse of Neil Armstrong: One small step for mankind, one great leap for a man. Though that feels both like an up-play and down-play of that accomplishment. Up because in the grand scheme of things (mankind kind of scheme) what role did that play?

Down because an accomplishment is an accomplishment, a leap is a leap, no matter how small and who it effects.

And though I still feel the jump I felt when my heart skipped a beat, rereading my pain from the year past, I know I am new and refreshed, stronger and tougher than before.

I suppose this is a final testimony to my personal struggles, that series of pain I wrote. My final de adiu, letting anyone who'll listen know that I'm okay. Hence my opening, I can apparently make lines when I'm hurting, making it at least look like a poem. But now I'm fine, and back comes my bumbling, over-explained, over-complicated, explanation of my feelings. This stupid thing is barely about running.

'Magine dat.

“A book is a dream that you hold in your hand.” ― Neil Gaiman

“My Alma mater was books, a good library… I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.” ― Malcolm X

“Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.” ― P.J. O’Rourke

“So many books, so little time.” ― Frank Zappa

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”― C.S. Lewis

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” ― Haruki Murakami

“Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading (to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs) is good for him.” ― Maya Angelou

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.” ― Ernest Hemingway

“A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.” ― Franz Kafka

“… a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.” ― George R.R. Martin

“Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.” ― Francis Bacon

“When I was about eight, I decided that the most wonderful thing, next to a human being, was a book.” ― Margaret Walker

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” ― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.” ― Mark Twain

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” ― Stephen King

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” ― Groucho Marx

“A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it or offer your own version in return.” ― Salman Rushdie

“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.” ― Oscar Wilde

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.” ― J.D. Salinger

“The book you don’t read won’t help.” ― Jim Rohn

“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.” ― William Styron

“Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.” ― Gustave Flaubert

“I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited.” ― Sylvia Plath

“When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes.” ― Desiderius Erasmus

“Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.” ― George Bernard Shaw

“Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?” ― Henry Ward Beecher

“I cannot live without books.” ― Thomas Jefferson

“Good books don’t give up all their secrets at once.” ― Stephen King

“Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.” ― Jane Smiley

“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.” ― Joseph Brodsky

“Books are my friends, my companions. They make me laugh and cry and find meaning in life.” ― Christopher Paolini

“It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.” ― James Baldwin

“Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.” ― Anna Quindlen

“It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.” ― Arthur Conan Doyle

“Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.” ― Franz Kafka

“Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn’t ask ourselves what it says but what it means…” ― Umberto Eco

“A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition.” ― Henry Miller

“I love books, by the way, way more than movies. Movies tell you what to think. A good book lets you choose a few thoughts for yourself.” ― Karen Marie Moning

“The library is inhabited by spirits that come out of the pages at night.” ― Isabel Allende

“I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.” ― Neil Gaiman

“I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson

“I think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to make sense.” ― Harold Kushner

“There are many little ways to enlarge your child’s world. Love of books is the best of all.” ― Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

“A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.” ― Gilbert K. Chesterton

“The best books… are those that tell you what you know already.” ― George Orwell

“There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favorite book.” ― Marcel Proust

“I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“A book is a device to ignite the imagination.” ― Alan Bennett

“Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new after all.” ― Abraham Lincoln

“The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.” ― W. Somerset Maugham

“A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it.” ― Edward P. Morgan

“Keep reading books, but remember that a book is only a book, and you should learn to think for yourself.” ― Maxim Gorky

somewhere deep within this mass of skin & bones

perhaps in some unconscious part of my brain,

[beyond gray matter & synapses & neurons & all thought]

part of me is begging you:

touch your hands to the [dead] skin cells on my face,

press your mouth to mine

[against all scientific reason, I believe that this alone

will teach my lungs to take in air]

I FEEL THE GHOST OF EVERY HAND THAT WAS EVER SWATTED AWAY.

I FEEL EVERY FINGER

THAT CRAWLED INSIDE ME

FEIGNING MISUNDERSTANDING.

I FEEL MYSELF FULL WITH WHAT I DID NOT ASK FOR.

FULL WITH DISAGREEMENT,

POURING OUT MY BLOODIED, RAW THROAT.

FULL WITH THE WORDS PINNING ME DOWN.

AND FULL WITH FIRE AT THE REALIZATION THAT THERE WAS TRUTH NAUGHT BEHIND THE WORDS.

FULL WITH FIRE, BRIMMING OVER.

FULL WITH FIRE, POOLING BETWEEN MY LEGS.

FLAMES LICKING MY THIGHS.

LASHING IN HOT BREATHS

AT EACH HAND THAT DARES

AFTER BEING SWATTED.

WHIPPING AND SCORCHING

THE CREEPING FINGER TIPS.

ENVELOPING ME FULL.

AND BURNING THE WORDS AWAY INTO CHARRED RUINS.

AND THE GHOSTS DO NOT LEAVE.

I CARRY THEM WITH ME.

BUT I NO LONGER CARRY THE BLAME.

THAT

BELONGS TO YOU.

AND YOU SPARKED AN INFERNO WHEN YOU TRIED TO PLACE IT INSIDE OF ME.

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE BONFIRE.

TONIGHT

FOR ONCE,

WE WILL BURN

you

AT THE STAKE.

I’m not just not talking to you

I’m not talking to you

Or you

Or you

Or you either

I’m mostly just talking to me

Because you

And you

And you

And you too

Don’t deserve to have to carry my weight

Because neither you

Nor you

Nor you

Nor even you

Know how heavy an empty frame weighs

I stand with my mother and sister. I hold my little sister, the poor girl shaking with fear and sadness. Her shoulders wracking as she cries against my shoulder. I can feel my mom's left hand resting on my left shoulder, her body to my right. I know she's silently crying as well. Her white dress with black flowers give her a tall elegance. My sister also wears a black and white striped dress. I'm the only one not dressed up; a suit didn't feel right for the occasion and khakis felt awkward. I ended up in jeans and a T-shirt, my Braves ball-cap tucked in my back pocket. I'm also the only one not crying. Frankly I wish I would, I wish I could let my fear and sadness be seen. If not for myself then for my father, so that all know that I love him as much as they do. Yet, regardless of my desire and attempts to cry, nothing comes. I just watch with stony silence as my dad stands tall and walks with his team to the plane. His duffels in either hand and another bag lazily strewn over his shoulder. Two of which are army green, a faded cheap mossy-color. The other a deep blue Patagonia I got for him three years ago. He wears his green beret awkwardly, it can barely fit over his non-regulation hair. It is probably the only time he'll wear a beret for the next nine months. No reason to wear a beret in combat.

As he drops his bags with the others' he turns toward us. I will myself to shed a tear; to no avail. He raises his hand and gives us a large smile, a reassuring smile that only a father can give. Sure, a mother can give a motherly smile that makes you think of nothing else except that life will keep moving and all will be okay, but he gives a smile that says "Now is not a time to mourn, but be happy". He smiles like an innocent man. Something that I wonder at sometimes.

He's been deployed six times as a green beret. He's been on the teams as SF for longer than anyone else in the force. And yet, still, he comes home more stable than most men do just seeing pictures of Afghanistan. He still smiles and laughs like his life has only ever been jolly. Sometimes when we're playing video-games I watch him and wonder if they bring anything back, if he ever remembers anything. Where his PTSD is. How could he have ever only shown one moment of any form of PTSD since his first deployment? Once, in Disneyland, we were walking and along comes this Muslim man. Full dress. My dad stops dead in his tracks and tenses, tenses hard. My mom is almost thrown to the ground with his sudden stop and defensive stature. A second passes and he's relaxed again. He keeps walking as if nothing happened. Just the smallest thing, something only a family member would notice.

I remember all this and more as I wave back, giving him full smile; like I'm having the time of my life. That's what I want him to remember. My strength and security. I want him to know that we'll be okay. My sister and mother wave. He turns and boards the plane. For the next ten minutes it is quiet. Few people talk. All inside a large military warehouse and everyone just watches as their husbands, sons, and fathers board for what may be their last deployment.

Ten more minutes go by, the plane hasn't moved. I still wish for the tears even as I grow restless. The guilt crawls up my gut to my chest as I wish I could cry, wish I could have the patience to respect the fact that this is my father leaving to a warzone. Yet still, I feel the need to move. Leave. No reason for me to still be here, he's already on the plane. Good as gone till he gets back in nine months. I shake with guilt and clench my left fist into a ball, digging my nails in. I rub my sister's back. Poor thing has finally stopped crying but I can feel her fragility at the moment.

"Do you want to leave?" My mom asks twenty minutes later. The plane still hasn't moved. I want to scream yes but the guilt stops me. It feels like a disrespect to leave. Knowing my father he would have told us to go so we wouldn't be standing out in the heat of the day, yet I don't want to leave.

"Yeah, kinda." I say looking longingly at the plane. After six deployments it almost feels normal. His absence almost feels like an average occurrence. And that scares me. It's why I want to cry so bad. To show that I still care that he's leaving again. That it isn't just another annual event. That it matters.

"Alright, let's go."

To my amazement, dismay, confusion, and just about every other emotion you can think of, on the way back my mom and I started telling jokes about things. Laughing about stuff. Again the guilt bites at me as I wonder if this is all some kind of disrespect to my father who might not come home. But in the moments that it grows quiet we all know the rest are thinking about him. I think about him in the uniform. He's in his ACUs, faded camo. Looking out of place with his overgrown hair and large bushy beard that comes down to his chest -things that are out of regulation for the average soldier-. A slightly red tinted beard. At least, that's what my mom says. I think it's brown like his hair, but, mom knows best.

My mom tries to keep those silent moments short, tries to keep someone talking. The whole drive home I hold my sisters' hand as she occasionally breaks out in fits of tears. I reach to the backseat and hold her little soft hand and wish our father could be sitting in the seat I am now. I just sit there and rub her hand, thinking, talking, and reassuring.

That night I sleep with the knife my dad got me for my tenth birthday.

6 Months Later

"Has dad called?" I ask popping my head into my parent's room. My mom shakes her head. "Alright, call me if he does," I say and go back downstairs to keep playing Call of Duty. I need to be better than him when he gets back. That'll mean he'll have to play more with me so he can get better.

That night I fell asleep without a call. My fist wrapped around the sheath of the knife, held tight and familiarly. This is not the first time it's happened, yet each time I can't help but feel a slight ache when I go to sleep and sick when I wake up.

2 Weeks Later

"So, I have good news," my dad says giving us a weak smile. Something in his voice doesn't let me get excited. I want to be happy because his words are going to mean something, he clearly isn't in the mood for wasting time. Yet, it's that mood that scares me. A scare that makes me shake, a scare that flips my dinner over in my stomach.

"What is it?" My sister asks sitting next to me, bouncing on the bed the way happy children do.

His beard has been trimmed and he wears a blue T-shirt with his camo ACU pants. An OU, college football, cap on. All this I see through FaceTime. He gives another weak smile, strained.

"I'm coming home." My heart skips a beat. I'm too full of doubt to get excited. I don't let myself get excited anymore. The disappointment of something not happening after getting excited isn't worth the pain if I was just skeptical the whole time.

"What?" My mom asks sharply.

"You are?" My sister asks simultaneously.

"Three days, fastest flight home. I'm packing now, I'll leave tonight, I'll be there in three days." We sit silently in shock. His sad smile holds. I want to ask why he seems so strained. I suppose it's possible something happened to his team. Or him. That would explain why he's coming home. Perhaps his PTSD finally kicked in? Or his team is gone...

"Yes! Dad! You're coming home!" My sister gets up screaming. "He's coming home!" She jumps up and down on the bed with excitement. I can't help but smile, I look at the camera to make sure he sees. And my mom? To explain the joy she portrayed at the idea of her husband, the love of her life, coming home safely two and a half months sooner than expected cannot be put into words. This is only something that can be experienced.

After the call I head back to my room to clean it (I'd be lying if I said it were my idea, mom knows best). Instead I grab my phone and text my girlfriend.

My dad's coming home in 3 dasy!!!!?

Days**

!!!!!!!!***

I had to rewrite that stupid text four times I was so excited (and I still had mistakes), the full effect finally crashing in on me. To finally put it into concrete words with someone other than family seems to finalize it. Seems to ensure my father's safe travels. Seems to ensure that the rest of the day will guide him safely to the airport and home. To the great United States of America!

I thought he wasnt coming back for another 2 months She responds several minutes later.

Yeh

Early return. Not sur ewhy, didn't say. I don't even bother with mistakes.

That's great, I'm sure you can't wait I know she understands, her dad is military as well. I feel my phone vibrate in my hands as she continues texting me but I just toss my phone on my bed and lay down and pray, pray that he comes home safely, I pray and try to ignore the little sliver of fear crushing my gut.

3 Days Later

My mom picked my sister and I up early from school and we went to the airport.

When he walked up to us the hugs and kisses and conversations were plentiful and always cut short before they were finished. My sister always cutting into what my mother and I were saying to share her own stories with our dad. We talk all the way home and over dinner as we go to different fast food restaurants all over town because we're American and we can (something my dad decided to do on his last deployment, claiming one Sunday afternoon after church: "Know what? Let's all eat somewhere different, because we're American and we can do that."). My dad and I get stacked Five Guys burgers ("You eat like you were in Afghanistan for six months" my dad commented when I finished my burger before him), my sister Taco Bell, and my mom Panera Bread.

When we get home it’s late from all the driving. My sister and I are sent to bed as our parents head to their room. Imagine that?

And all throughout the day no one asked why he came home early. And he never mentioned it. We all just ignored the elephant in the room.

2 Days Later

"Well, I have news. Good or bad depending on perspective," my dad says when we're all sitting around the dinner table. He has the sad tired look in his eyes again. I set down my steak as a sliver of fear runs up my gut into my chest and to the back of my throat.

"We're moving." I feel like I've been slapped. My thoughts go to my friends at school, my girlfriend, the close proximity of our grandparents, and my standing in school. Perhaps not in that order. I stay silent and pick my fork up to start eating my corn. Weighing my words carefully.

"What?" My sister asks.

"We have to move." My dad says slowly as if he's not sure if he's annoyed or sorry.

"Have to?" He grimaces.

"We're moving." This is softer, definitely apologetic.

"Why?" My sister asks in a small voice. She's undoubtedly thinking the same thoughts I am. She's younger and more attached to her friends than I am. I'm well acquainted to the idea of 'friends' turning their backs and leaving in an instant, friends moving, and having no one to call a friend at all. Luckily in my life we've only moved twice; so lived in three places. Thanks to Fort Bragg being SF command. My sister, however, has lived in this house since she could walk. Everyone (more or less) she knows lives here.

"You know what I do, right?" He asks after a moment. Top secret stuff we can't know about, so... No.

"Yes," My sister responds. Perhaps she thinks she does, or she knows she won't get a proper answer. No one ever does.

"So, as a soldier, it's my job to move where the army takes me. It's the price to coming back early." My mom sits quietly to the side, they've clearly discussed this and I have a feeling she knows more than he's telling us. But as much as I want to know all the backgrounds the keywords are "Top secret". We're not getting anymore than he wants us to know. That's his job, afterall.

"Where?" I ask, sticking with safe questions.

"Virginia," He says.

"Virginia?" My sister squeals. I can hear the panic in her voice. Then comes the worst question of the night.

"When?" He looks at my sister with sorrow. I can see the pain and turmoil in his eyes.

"Three weeks." I feel like I've been hit, twice and hard. I stop eating corn and stare out the window behind his head.

"Three weeks." I state hollowly.

"Three weeks." He confirms. My sister gets to her feet and runs over and hugs him, burying her face in his chest. An act I've never quite understood. I don't like to draw attention to myself so I don't like having to go out of my way for a hug. Even if it's just my family around me.

"It'll be okay," My mom tells her rubbing her hair.

"Why?" My sister asks again. No one responds and instead we all silently head upstairs and sit in my parents' room and watch Netflix.

1 Day Later

We begin packing as soon as I get home. I still sleep with my knife. It takes 66 days for something to become a habit. I have 6 months worth of time behind the knife. I still haven't told my girlfriend we’re leaving.

I didn't sleep well last night and I doubt I will sleep well tonight. But, like all things I don't want to do, I'll do it first thing in the morning. Tell my girlfriend I mean. I suppose I'll sleep then too.

I wake to a loud slamming. It comes from downstairs.

I pop up in my bed, sweat dripping down my body from my nightmare. I try to calm myself down and tell myself it was only a dream. I'm not in school, there isn't any shooter. I take a breath and stand up next to my bed, my knife still in my hand. I turn on my desk-lamp and unsheath it, inspecting the engraving in its side. One side holds the Special Forces insignia, 'De Oppresso Liber' along a banner with crossing arrows behind a Yarborough combat knife. But just as I flip it over to inspect my dad's team insignia I hear some stomping and creaking on the stairs. Loud, fast stomping. Boot stomping. Fear strikes through me as I think back to the loud bursting that may have awaken me. I reach to my side and fiddle with the light switch, finally turning it off. I hold the blade out in front of me as I rush to my door frame just as I hear a stomp on the second to last step. Fear and adrenaline wakes me up completely as I lean against the door, flipping the knife over in my hands so the blade points down. I hold my right fist (with the knife) up to my chest, my left hand palm-flat against the wall. As seen in the movies when a man is waiting for another to pass through a doorway (because they're reliable sources). I wait three heartbeats before I see the barrel of a gun appear; quickly followed by a forearm and a magazine. I look no further as I lunge out and stab out above the weapon where the man's upper chest and throat should be. I feel an impact and a hear a yelp as the man takes several steps back. I have no choice but to follow him, pushing forward. He runs into the opposite wall against the stairs. I grab the rifle the way I grabbed Nerf guns from friends when we played, and I twist it out of his hands. He lets go as both hands shoot up to his neck. I realize three shots had been fired. Maybe more, doubtedly less.

"Dad! Shorty!" I scream as I turn to run away. The fear crawling from my chest and clogging my throat. I can barely breathe and my head pounds. I don’t even think about the man I may have just killed and instead focus on the thing that brings me peace. I think of my sister. My Sister. I tense to turn to get my sister but am interrupted by figures rushing up the stairs. I’m moving before I can comprehend the weight of the actions that will so impact my life. I flip the gun around in my arms so that the butt is against my right shoulder and my hand wraps around the handle. My finger searches for the trigger-

I feel myself hit the ground, my finger squeezing the trigger. The butt digs into my shoulder as I continue to hold onto the trigger, the rounds biting into the roof. I feel the panic and adrenaline pumping through my veins as my finger maintains a death clamp on the trigger. The gun runs dry in my arms. I throw it aside and sit up, shooting exploding around me. A foreign language fills my ears through a mixture of screams of my dad and my mom and sister. I reach over to the body to my right, a man lying facedown on the carpet. Panic swells in my chest, confusion and the cloud of incomprehension takes over my head. The darkness consumes my eyes and brain. Yet, yet past all that, I can hear my sister's screams. I focus on that. I focus on my need to protect her.

I reach down with my right hand and draw the pistol at his hip. Memories of the range kick in. My father’s voice rings through my head as he taught me how to hold a pistol. As I raise my left hand to hold it properly a pain shoots up the left side of my body and I scream. I look down and see blood pouring from a hole in my shoulder, and a puddle along my gut where I suddenly (and painfully) become aware of at least one more wound through my abdomen. I stare at it for a second, the cloud of incomprehension taking over again. But then it all registers with the aftershock of pain. Tears blur my vision as I try not to pass out at the sudden pain threatening to overcome me.

My sisters' scream knocks me out of it.

I raise my right hand with the gun and see a figure holding a rifle, pointing down the stairs shooting. I let out a blood curdling scream and fire six rounds into his back, then turn and empty the magazine into another man who took that moment to step out of my bedroom. He falls back against the doorframe and slides down.

I don't think about the killing or the pain but about my little sister. My poor innocent sister who catches little bugs. She is what is important.

A single man stands up over me and pulls the trigger. The gun clicks empty. My life flashes before my eyes in a jumble, thoughts and feelings and memories overtaking my every brain cell as I laugh at the stupidity of the whole situation.

I have stopped crying, my eyes have mostly cleared and have adjusted to the darkness. Before my brain catches up with the serious sickness of the situation and that it is not a laughing matter I catch something out of the corner of my eye. One of the lying figures, the one I shot in the back, sits up against the wall and lifts a pistol. It's over, I think, I'm sorry Constance. Tears coming out and pouring to the ground. I hear the discharge of the gun. Multiple discharges, then some clicks. The man standing over me falls, landing beside me. I sit in stunned silence, shock taking over all emotion.

I look to the shooter, the crumpled form of a man who has dropped his gun. I recognize the muscled shoulders and the tousled beard. I recognize the form and figure. I recognize the man who raised me. And I recognize his slackness as death.

I stare at the ceiling. No tears come. I'm too empty to feel guilt. To feel anger or sadness. My indifference to life consumes me. That feeling of anxiety building in the chest as life passes on without you. It passes without a care for you or the pain you feel. The pain in your gut that works its way to your chest, making it hard to breathe, making you shake, you want to scream, want to ask for help, to do something. You stand still in the middle of a field as people walk around you, laughing, crying, hating, loving. But you feel nothing. Nothing but an anxiety building up in your chest begging to laugh, wishing that you were able. Wishing for the pain in your throat to push the tears out.

Yet I just stare at the ceiling and wonder why it's purple. And why it looks like a school ceiling. No, an airplane ceiling. Am I skydiving? No, I'm hiking. I'm looking at trees. I just tripped and fell. That's why my side aches. I must've pulled a muscle, that's why I can't move my arm. Maybe it's broken. There's my dad, he's right there.

"Dad!" I yell to him. My love and relief flooding through my body, but the underlying guilt and fear laces my chest with every breath. But he turns his back to me. He's fully dressed in ACUs, smile on his face, beard large and unkempt. A look I'm unaccustomed too since he's always clean shaven. But he stops and I hear shooting. Small red holes appear along his back and left shoulder. He turns back around to face me and keeps smiling. He falls back against the nearest tree and smiles at me with empty eyes. I look at my hands and see I'm holding the gun. "We're moving" he says. But he's dead. And I killed him.

I wake up and stare at the ceiling. I know I'm not but I have to ask anyway.

"Am I dead?" My head hurts. A sure sign that I'm not dead. Granted, if I went to hell (which killing three men, one of which was my father, certain would entail) then it would explain a hurting head. However, it looks more like a hospital than hell. Maybe hell has a hospital too? For the too torn up souls? The torn up, guilty, angry-

"Ryan!" I hear a familiar voice and see a familiar face over me. But there's a fog over it. Over everything. The events of last night seem all to clear and yet so chaotic and hectic they're impossible. Couldn’t’ve happened to me. No sir, no way.

"Ryan!" my right arm is shaken. It all comes over me. And finally I cry. I cry for the leaving of my dad, I cry for the joy of him being back. I cry for us leaving. I cry for my sister and her soon to be loss of friends. I cry for myself, my own pity and weaknesses. I cry for my mom and the strength she has to show for us, I cry at the cruelty of the world, I cry for the sacrifices my dad had to give up. I cry for my sins and I cry for my mistakes. I cry and cry like there's no tomorrow. I cry for yesterday and the time I've missed. I cy and my own stupidity and I cry for my self pity. I cry that I killed my dad. Then I fall back to sleep, my head pounding.

I wake again to find my mom and sister next to me, I later found out that they never left my side. Always there for me. My mom told me I was shot five times. Once through the left bicep, once through the left shoulder, two times through the gut, and once in the lower chest. All along my left side. The 'chest' wound skimmed and broke a rib but otherwise harmed little. The other two were the ones that almost killed me. The gut wounds. Loss of blood.

My mom told me that my father was killed in the fight. The three of us were the only survivors. And the way she tells me that the government didn't know who the shooters were tells me that she doesn't believe it. Maybe she doesn't know either, but either way, she doesn't tell me the truth. And I don't ask. They're all dead. The freaking Russians. Because that's the language I heard. That is the freaking language I heard.

3 months later

It's here, at the funeral, that my mother tells me what happened. When my sister goes off with our grandparents and my mom and I stay and stare at grave does she tell me.

"He was shot six times by a pistol. In the back.”

My mouth is dry but I manage to grunt out something. Something unintelligible. Something only a mother would understand.

"Yes," She says. I had asked her if it was me, because it could have only been me.

"You were the one holding the pistol, yes." I nod slowly.

"You knew that though, didn't you?" I nod hollowly.

"These past three months I've learned to live with it. There's been nothing else to do lying in that freaking bed.” There’s silence for a moment, I wish I could show some weakness and stutter or something, to show the pain I feel. Because that was a lie. It still hurts, like someone ripped a hole through my left breast. And my heart reminds me with every aching pump of blood. It reminds me with every memory. With every object and lesson I’ve ever learned. I can’t live with crap. “If he were here right now he'd punch me in the shoulder and give me a dead arm and tell me ‘don't team kill next time’".

My mom gets up and slaps me.

I stare at the ground as she walks away. Who knows what I'm talking about anyway? I wonder, looking to the sky. I don't know what I'm talking about, I'm only freaking 16. And, afterall, mom knows best. I stand and stretch my legs. I ignore the pound of my heart, I ignore the blood that feels to be spurting from my chest. I ignore the anxiety eating out my torso. And I ignore the lump in my throat.

I look over at the remaining car, a truck owned by a friend of the family. My sister's best friend. My mother and the car she drove here are nowhere in sight. I didn't even hear her leave. I pull out my phone and open my contacts to my girlfriend. I scroll through the eighty-three messages she left. Most of which are 'goodmornings' and 'goodnights'. I open up the keyboard and hover over the keys. Minutes go by as I stare blankly at the screen. Minutes of pounding and memories of the weight of the trigger. Every beat of the heart is a pull of the trigger. It gets heavier and heavier as my finger gets tireder and tireder. I scream at myself to stop, that it’s my dad I’m shooting, to let my finger rest. But it endlessly shoots and shoots and shoots.

It's over

I don't know on what level I mean. Heck, I doubt I'm talking to her.

I pull the knife from my pocket, it gleams in the sunlight. Someone cleaned it of the blood I spilled upon it.

It's over.

I roll up the sleeve of my suit and mark an 'x' halfway down my forearm. Then I mark a line through the center of it. One for each life I took. And finally one diagonally through it, creating an asterisk. The final for the life that took them. I take a moment to watch the blood flow down my arm to my elbows, staining the white suit-shirt and jacket. I watch it with wonder. I watch as each new blood pump and each new trigger pulled sends blood spurting. Each time my finger lets another bullet fly another life is taken. Such a heavy trigger and yet…

My father once told me he had nightmares that he was in combat and his trigger was too heavy. But every night for the past three months I’ve had nightmares because the trigger was too light.

I wish for the regret and guilt to leave but to never forget. Then I walk to the grave and bury the knife with him. I bury the hatchet and wish for tears. It's over.

I wake. My head still hurts, my body still aches. It’s stiff and sore.

I hear pounding on the roof. My heart skips a beat as my mind races to all of the possibilities before calming again as I realize it’s just rain.

I attempt to sit up but feel a weight on me. Two weights. At my left, between me and the wall, lies my sister, tightly gripping my arm. At my right, leaning close against me, is Grace. I have a flashback to her lying on the ground. Back at school. The tears rolling down her face. Pushing past the ash and dirt. As they rolled out her beautiful brown eyes down her soft cheeks-

I pull back slightly, but only slightly. I can’t wake my sister. I can’t crush my sister. My poor sister.

Past Grace, I see the room. Well, more or less see it. A room perhaps eight feet by twelve feet. Very small. Too small for the amount of bodies crushed up inside of it. The darkness makes it harder to judge.

The soft pounding of the rain is lulling, the warmth of the bodies begging me back to sleep. My aching head and sore body welcoming the rest.

“What’s that?” My eyes pop back open. A silhouette sits several feet to my right, ear against the wall.

“Shhh,” Comes a deeper response. Presumably Mr. Bain. I listen.

Several seconds go by before I hear a loud crash coming from downstairs. There’s a yell. Another. Someone gives orders. My heart races as I hear the pounding of footsteps up the stairs. I sit up just as one of our members lets out a whimper. My hand falls to my waist and I draw my pistol, pointing it at the entrance to the room. The little nine square foot door.

We listen for what feels like hours to the crashing and thundering footsteps as the other room is searched. Another hour before they go back downstairs. Yet another as I point at the door, ignoring my screaming shoulders of the pain. Ignoring my mind telling me to relax, that they’re gone. What keeps this door from being seen is unknown to me but I can only thank God that it was there.

God. I’ve never had a doubt of his existence, I think as I lower my gun. Yet, now is seems like such a strange concept. Granted, I suppose I still believe there is a God. But The God? Is He what I thought? Is this fair of me to question? I’m far from perfect, falling to the wrong all the time. Yet, still, to allow for the attacks and murder of so many children in this great nation?

I’m not sure which is scarier, a higher power with a plan that has accepted this or humans alone in the universe left to their own devices.

“Looters?” Someone asks.

“Looters?” Someone else asks.

“What?” I wonder, my thoughts of God and his plan at the complete forefront of my thoughts.

“Looters, were they looters?” A second ticks by. I remember the people searching the Bain’s house. Right. No one responds.

“Get some rest,” Mr. Bain tells us. My sister is sitting up next to me, still holding my arm. Or holding my arm again? Surely I pulled out of her grasp at some point? Grace still leans against my other side. I feel hot and sticky. So hot. Uncomfortable. I need to get out. I must. Must.

I lean forward, my sister whimpers something and I feel her pull me back to her. Grace sits up. I face away from them, my hands reaching for the door. It’s so hot. Sweaty. We’re so close. Close. So many of us. Sitting ducks. Hot.

“Let go!” I snap at my sister. She holds on, hard. I grab her little wrist and twist, she lets go with a yelp and I rush for the door. I feel hands claw out at me as I grab the door and fumble with the doorknob. It jiggles in my hand. The impossible contraption unopenable to the mere mortal. The door flings open. Perhaps I am more than a mere mortal?

I hop out of the door, a hand holding tight to the back of my shirt. I feel it hard against my throat before it loses grip and I land on my hands and knees against the carpet. I take deep breaths. Deep breaths. One. Two. Three…

“Kevin!” One. Two. Three…

“Get back in here!” One. Two, Three… I feel hands on my shoulders after hearing the thud of shoes on the ground. One, two, three… My heartbeat steadies. Calms. I cool off. I’m thrust back into the room and the door closes. It’s still hot. I look to my sister and look into her hurt, tear-streaked face. I open my mouth-

I am spun around to look into Mr. Bain’s face. The darkness cannot mask the fire I see in his eyes.

Pop. That’s all I hear as I hit the ground, my face stinging. My cheek burns. He slapped me. A slap is a strange sensation, it doesn’t hurt. Perhaps not yet anyway. But the fact that he slapped me rather than punched me is strange as well. Though, what is normal anymore? No further words are needed nor any said. I crawl back to my spot next to my sister and hold her tightly against my chest. I just kiss her on the top of her head, rocking back and forth. I can’t begin to tell her how sorry I am. So I just kiss her on the top of her head. Over and over and over and over and over and…