1 Chapter One: The Same Dream

It's damp. I can feel my blood rushing up my lungs. My eyes are irritated, as if someone sprinkled chilis all over them. It's agonizing. And yet, I don't call out. I have already been forgotten and left for dead, so what's the point, they won't hear and even if they do, they wont come for me. They won't come for my platoon, errr what's left of it anyway. And with a flash of light and a loud jarring noise, I am suddenly not there.

That nightmare happened again. That same intense feeling of loss and pain. It has stuck with me. I don't even know what it's from. I haven't seen any war movies. There hasn't even been a war in centuries. So, what gives?

"What's the matter sweetheart?" My mother asks naggingly. I jolted up a little bit, still not completely aware of my normal surroundings.

"It was just a bad dream," I lied. "I'm fine."

"Well, you best be getting ready, you do have school today," she sounded concerned, but after the years, I suppose she's decided to leave me to myself.

"Ok, I'll hurry," I shook myself as I stood up and everything snapped back, my dad was a real estate agent, working long hours to provide for us in our inflated world, my mother was a caregiver and went out to work as an accountant when I left for school, I was the typical silent teen, unsure of this world, but not particularly articulate.

I look out onto the sun over my hill in my little slice of paradise. Everything is fine, there is no war here, and it doesn't look like there ever will be. There is far too much of a risk to war, or at least that's what I think, but what do I know? I'm just a high schooler.