A...Dream?

He opened his eyes to a place he was all too familiar with. The smell of poisoned air reminded him of this place he so often visited in his nightmares.

This place... it was his home, or what it used to be before the civil war. This place... was in the Ivory Coast, a place he and his mother fled when he was 2. His father? Well, he was an Englishman.

The memories of this desolate place were faint within him. But the few memories that remained were not pleasant at the least.

Hiding in the closets and his mother eventually stuffing him in a bag and fleeing west until the sights of vans with rebels on them with various weaponry were gone.

She had run with her child so far that she had even reached Libya by some miracle, that was where she boarded a boat and went on to Syria in a calm city.

But of course, that calm city became an even larger mess than he saw at his home. At the humble age of 11, he had done the stupidest thing and spray-painted with his few friends the seven words that would make his life hell.

"The people want the Regime to change!"

That single sentence sparked another civil war but in this one, he couldn't escape. The corrupt officers had caught him and his friends, but when the conflicts escalated and the police released his friends. He stayed simply because he was a foreigner.

Day after day, the cracking of a whip after another, the thud he would hear when the prisoners around him were executed for the most random things. He had given up on life when he saw a bomb being dropped on his mother's home through the window that was only slightly barred.

Eventually, though they released him. Not without due reason, of course, it was because the rebels had demanded the release of all prisoners that had been imprisoned without too much reason. The friends he had before the prison had died for the most part. All but one friend who was the one who proposed such an idea in the first place.

Suddenly his life started to flash past his eyes. He saw everything he could remember, from his first steps to his hangover in the old and gray yet colorful city.

He saw his first journey to Europe, he had loved swimming on the beaches of Cyprus and hiking in the Alps.

He saw him meeting his father for the first time, the man was truly great although a tad bit of an alcoholic who never knew the meaning of staying in one place.

He saw his first day at school as a child. The theater kid in front of him was a stark contrast to what he was after the prison, he had become quiet. The pain had become nothing but a simple sensation, not something that would concern you.

He saw his first time meeting his friend again, how he still managed to tackle hug his friend whilst being malnourished was still unknown to him.

He remembered the last time he saw his mother and...

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"*Gasp*, what just happened. Did I have another nightmare?"-Albert

He placed his hands on his face.

"Tears? But why?"-Albert

Suddenly he felt a small warm ruffling on his side as he turned and saw nugget snuggled up next to him on the bed. He pets the little guy with one hand as the other hand wanders to his chest where a large scar from the electrical wires was left. It had looked a lot like a tree as his friend liked to call it though, "The tree of the forbidden fruit".

What a silly name.

But it was a name he treasured.

And it was a name that mattered.

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He stared at the ceiling as he felt the rough scars on his body. They say that scars forge the soul and shape the character, whether it is physical or psychological. A scar is a scar and it was a sign that he was stronger than what tried to harm him.

To let go or to hold on is a decision he must make, but that decision was decided the moment he came into this new world, those same scars that haunted him in his youth now decorate him as a man.

What is a man but the product of his mistakes?

Man is defined by his failures to strive for success, for victory.

But it is also man's downfall because, in the strife for victory, its rewards are left behind.

A soldier may lose his life on the battlefield but not in the joyful memories with his family. Because in the heart a man is immortal.

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Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, I found some free time and I made this chapter.