He sits at his desk, tapping his pen fervently as fireworks explode in the distance. He wishes to be gone, to not remember, but he blinks and guns explode in front of his eyes. 

Echoes of a time long past but still fresh in his mind make his head and long-closed wounds hurt. He lays his head down and tries to think rationally, to remember that these are just fireworks, but he can still hear the pained cries of his friends mixed with the scent of iron and gunpowder that poison the warm jungle air. He clutches his chest and tries to calm down, but every breath hurts, hurts, hurts, and he gasps loudly as he folds in on himself.

He wakes up in his room. He doesn’t remember how he got there.

He hears his alarm beep through a heavy memory of blue skies and red blood. He reaches up to turn the alarm off, but his head is struck with the merciless fist of a migraine and he groans in pain.

Was it worth it? Were the weeks, months, and years of agony, sorrow and pain and heartbreak worth the meaningless titles and medals that sit untouched in his closet? Was it worth losing everything?

He asks himself these questions everyday, but an answer never seems to come. Today is no different, and frustration hammers into his chest so hard that his breath is taken away He gulps in gallons of gallons of air, but every breath amounts to nothing until he spirals into the infinite darkness.