a surprisingly strong word in my mind. It flies around and takes many shapes until it lands softly on my breath. I can hardly breath. I understand that like you understand you are asleep. You don't actually know it but when its done you recognize it. I am not focused, I can start feeling the complex systems of my body working themselves out. Then a weird moment comes. I open my eyes.
SMOKE
It is all I see, smoke and ash, I do not know why, neither my mind or my memory are yet to be in focus. I look around me. Nothing but ash and smoke. My muscles stretch. My limbs go into action. I stand up. Barely. I find an in-appropriate object beneath my body. A gun. A gk-65... how do I know that name? How do I know what it is? Where am I? How did I get here then mind kicks in, a billion strings of thought rush through, an overly sophisticated web is constructed, emotions, logic, memories... then the vocal organs work. They move and construct a piece of art: a scream, I fill my now-fully working lungs with the rough, smoky air and let the vocal organs and mouth do the rest "They are all dead!! Why am I not dead!?"
The rotors of the helicopter created a sharp piercing sort of scream that was almost un-heard after being blocked by the hard materials of the military helmet. The scenery was wonderful though, a mountain range full of high peaks and stone carved mountains that seemed to stand out from the endless desert beneath them. "Well ain't this lovely?" the chuckling voice of private Johnson roughly heard through my helmet. "Sure is, kinda sets your mind off from the op" I say, turning around to meet the the lightning gaze well matched with the relieving grin of Private's face. "Don't tell me your worried serge, you've done this a thousand times, you come to some facility, you kill some insurgents, you kill some wanted civilians, the government denies it ever happened and v'wala, you saved uncle Sam once again!" private says flailing about his rifle at different directions. "I know... the thing that scares me is the fact they are not even telling us what we are doing this time, no super tactical briefing, no un-necessary preparations, doesn't seem like the normal operation to me" I say tapping lightly on my GK assault rifle, I always do that, might be some kind of obsessive-compulsive thing you get when the only thing you really own is your rifle... "Its called Operation: the less you know the less nightmares you'll have" shouts major Coleman from the other side of the helicopter. The rest goes by in silence. We land two miles from some kind of secret facility in the middle of a valley not far away from the mountains. The second we land Captain starts shouting orders "Stevenson, go ahead to recon, Coleman go with him, Johnson start preparing the explosives and ammo, lets get moving team, as far as we know this is going to be a very long day"
. . . I start getting more and more focused. My memories now organized, My muscles calm. I start walking, dragging the fire-arm slightly with my left hand which makes a tapping sound on the ground. Tapping, how does that seem so familiar? I see nothing, smoke and ash and blood. My wounds are un-treated but I still go on. Then the fog starts clearing. In the distance huge structures appear. Destroyed, overlapping each other. Then the smoke on the ground clears. I fall to my knees gazing upon the mess. Lay on the ground a thousand dead bodies. A destroyed tank and the remains of a helicopter. I start running. My feet pounding harshly on the ground at every step.I reach a small cliff almost hanging over a huge crater. How long have I ran? I ask myself my hand over my chest checking my heart rate. I then understand what is the crater. I understand what made it and when. "How in the world have I survived a nuclear bomb!?" I shout laughing manically.
