The pilot looks terrified and begins to reply, but Isaac puts his finger to his mouth and lets out a long slurred shh. “It’s okay, it’s okay, there’s other fish in the sea.”
“Stop,” he mutters under his tears. Isaac glances at me and I give him the look.
“Okay, okay. We’re all good now, here.” Isaac reveals his tin box of ancients.
“Wha—what?”
“Take one, it’ll calm you down.”
He grabs one, his shaking fingers barely holding it in place while Isaac lights it.
We leave as he stands behind with his ancient. He coughs as he inhales, and it turns into a violent fit. Other servicemen come up from behind to see if he’s okay. As we turn a corner I see the pilot point at our general direction.
“You think he’ll be okay?” I say.
“Yeah, he’ll find a good man one day.”
I punch him, but miss, and we enter a club, discovering some of our platoon there.
The loudness of the club and streaking strobe lights overlap my presence. I can’t think. I am part of the crowd. A bigger light show starts, and they are unnerving. The anxiety creeps back in. I close my eyes to a growing headache I am getting. I open them. They are no longer the club lights, but the plasma and laser streaks of the Herculeans.
Take cover Peter!
Kill. Kill. Kill.
In my fit I push aside dancers and knock over drinks to escape the club. The screams and explosions resonate in my eardrums. The feeling of being powerless, vulnerable, assaults my mind. My hands start twitching too. No, no, no! My mind contrives any possible scenario of dying and the flashbacks flood in. I try to fight the panic attack but I can’t. So I run as fast and as hard as I can, throwing up as I go.
I run down the streets back to where I best remember the hotel. Soon I am out of the well-lit areas and into a dark trashy neighborhood. The black shapes of the apartments loom over menacingly. I stop out of breath and lean against an alleyway wall.
Leave me alone! Let go of me!
Nothing.
Who am I even talking to?
Fear.
My sobriety instantly returns.
Who said that—but you’re not real. You’re a feeling.
Is that true? I am real Peter. You can feel me. In the darkness of your mind I prowl. Eating away on you.
No, stop!
I look into my sack. All I have left are some Buzz. Why would I even take those from the truck?
Take it.
But they’re what I have been trying to escape!
Take it.
I undo a syringe and suck the capsule of its drug. I go deeper into the alleyway and slouch against the cold brick wall while I shoot up.
The fear is gone. Peter is ready and eager for action. His head hurts. He falls to the side. Peter tries putting his hands before him to lift himself up, but a boot slams into his ribs and he falls again.
“What! You don’t have any left in here?” says a dirty man looking through Peter’s bag.
Fury takes over. He has targeted an enemy. The battle yearning anticipation inside of him transforms out to the man. Seriously, how dare he attack a Marine of the Coalition? “I’ll fucking kill you!” Peter charges and tackles the man. He tries to put his hands up but Peter’s blows come too fast. His basic melee training kicks in with the Buzz rage. No one can stop him. Peter punches and wails on him. Soon the man’s hands fall to the sides as he blubbers, crying in his own mucus and blood. His eyes and lips swollen and gashed open.
“Stop please! I’m sorry!”
Peter keeps punching.
“STOP! I’ll give you everything I have!”
Peter keeps punching.
The man can hardly talk through the strikes now. “I, ha-have a family. PLEASE!”
Peter keeps punching.
He stops talking. His face a fucked up and bruised crater of blood.
He’s ready for you.
Splendid! Damn, it feels good having another body again.
You did it Peter! You killed the worthless enemy!
Peter falls to the man’s side holding his hands away from him. They are covered in his blood. “What have I done!”
The man coughs horribly. He is still breathing after all.
Finish him.
I roll about in the trash of the alleyway, feeling a tingling sensation over my body. “Who are you!”
“Don’t you know? I’m your brother; the one God loves less, but uses most.”
“Get out of me!”
I roll over to the man and check his pulse. It’s beating. He should live.
I search him over. I feel his pockets where a bag is sticking out and grab it. It’s full of pills. I take them all to try and fight the voices in my head, and run as far as I can. The world becomes a strange place of colors and scary things. Every time I look around a corner, I swear I see a little kid staring at me from within the dark alleyway. It looks like he’s wearing pajamas. Sometimes I stop and he raises his arms out and tries to talk to me, but then I keep running. I don’t want to hear what he has to stay.
You had to Peter. He would have done it to you if you didn’t.
No. I never had to go that far. I almost killed him. What’s happened to me? I was a straight-A student, a pacifist.
That’s all useless. You’re a warrior Peter. A disciple of death!
“No, no, no. Please stop.”
Exhausted, I collapse into another alleyway and pass out.
The white void greets me. The green hill in the center, atop it the rampant weeds, but many of them have drooped to the side now. Some of the petals from the roses have fallen and dried up at its base too. The naked lady is on her knees near the mound, whispering into her wrists. The vines that penetrate her flesh are thin and some have withered away completely. Her hair still covers her face, and her body looks more alive and thicker than last time, but still overall skinny and pale.
“Can you believe this, Mind?”
“No I can’t, it’s rather sad. Like you said, I think it is time for us to go.”
“Please, please don’t go. I need you. I don’t know what to do.”
“Body, you are lost,” says Soul. “Now don’t take us into your downfall with you.”
“No please! Help me! I don’t want to be this.”
The morning light is so bright I have to close my eyes for a while.
“Hey, y’er awake,” says a scruffy voice.
I open my eyes to stare at him. “Don’t worry boy. Looks like you got en some tough shit. So I stays around when I find y’er passed out on ye ass to make sure no one else fucks with ye.”
I have a horrible headache that must have never left from last night. And the anxiety kicks in again. “I need, I need Cloud. I mean DT.”
“Straight to the point ar’ ye. Well I am a,” he pauses shuffling his fingers between his hands, “giver of goods ye see. And since ye foreign boys take a load of that stuff. I could get ye some. If you haves the money that is.”
Just my luck, a drug dealer to my aid. “Yeah, please.” The anxiety worsens and my twitch is back. I hide my hand inside my pocket. “I got money.”
“Well why don’t ye take a rest on t’at corner store and clean up while I get some goods.” He breaks out into an odd laugh and coughing fit as he waddles down the road.
I can’t believe I almost killed him. Another human being. I was almost a murderer.
You got to turn yourself in Peter. This is getting way out of hand.
No, I would get capital punishment for being a service member after last night. Never.
What has happened to you?
I repress the thoughts as much as I can as I wait at the corner store. I don’t know what I have become now. I hate myself for it and all I know is that Cloud keeps the pain away. I can pretend to be someone else. That the world is fine.