"Private Cameron, Private Michael, Private Adam, Private Matthew, Private Alex. You five have been chosen for the most important and dangerous mission since the... "

As I was standing in formation with the rest of the squad, hearing our commanders orders for the mission to come, I couldn't help but reconsider if this is really what I wanted out of my life. 

I didn't need to be here, I could have gone literally anywhere else. 

I could have gone to university. I could have chosen to be a scientist or an engineer or a doctor, I didn't quite have the grades for it, but I could have studied more.

Even if I hadn't studied enough, if I failed the first time, it wouldn't have mattered. I was young. 

I could have tried again next year, my parents weren't millionaires but they were well enough off to easily cover for me. They loved me and would have been happy to have me stay.

No, I choose to be here.

I didn't want to be a doctor, or an engineer or whatever.

Just like I didn't want to get in shape.

Or didn't want to get my drivers licence or a girlfriend.

I mean, if I really wanted to, I would have right? 

If I really wanted to, I could have spent the entire year studying until I was whatever I wanted to be. 

Or I could have closed my fucking mouth and actually went to the gym until I could grate cheese with my abs, I was young and healthy, nothing was stopping me. 

Or go to the driving lessons instead of lazing around reading or playing video games.

I would just have to do it and if I really wanted to, if I wanted it from the bottom of my heart, I would have bared a bit of discomfort and done it.

... But no, I didn't do that. So I guess I never really did want it after all. 

I still didn't have to be here though, I could have been working at some McDonalds or something. I would have been satisfied with that, I would have been satisfied with practically anything.

But I didn't want to be satisfied. I've been satisfied my whole life, I wanted more.

I wanted to be happy. 

But I couldn't make it happen.

Earlier, I lied. I did want to be a doctor, I did want to get in shape, I did want to get a girlfriend. 

From the very bottom of my heart, so much it hurts, I wanted to be better, to study or have better calligraphy or to learn to draw. 

Everything, anything that would improve me.

But I didn't do it. 

I thought about it so often it kept me up at night.

What does that mean? Did I simply not want it hard enough?

What does that make of me? If I'm not capable of putting the bare minimum amount of effort for anything, even if I want it so, so much?

In truth, I was sick of myself.

But like everything else, I can only do half measures. 

I signed up for the military. A big war was just starting and if the worse came to pass, well, it would. And if it didn't then I'd still get in shape and get a career. 

My family tried their best to prevent me from going, they knew the war was inevitable and wanted me to live. 

I'd like to say they were a big part of why I didn't simply kill myself, but knowing me? I wouldn't have done it regardless. Too much effort. 

I waved them off, told them of all the benefits the military was going to give me, tried to convince them a war might not even start. 

Gave them a hundred reasons to why this was a good idea, but they weren't convinced.

It was very touching honestly, to be shown how much they loved me, but at the end of the day, it didn't change my decision.

The training was hard, probably the hardest thing I had done until then, but I didn't deserve the credit. If I wasn't being told what to do, if I wasn't being supervised, I wouldn't have done it.

It took six months and by the end, the war had started in all but name.

Soldiers were being deployed, missiles and drones were being launched, it was all happening.

It was really happening. 

Us recruits were divided and sent to relatively "safe" zones, or as safe as anything can be in war. We'd be sent somewhere else soon enough, but for now, we could learn the ropes and hopefully do a good job where it was actually needed.

I was one of the "unlucky ones", got stationed in a base relatively close to an enemy base. It wasn't a frontline in the sense that there were no trenches with fighting 24/7, but aside from that, we were a frontline in as much as one could be. 

It was there I got my first kill. Some armoured vehicles would pass by the base and take pot shots at us every so often. In one of those battles I managed to shot one of them, got them right in the head. A lucky shot.

I didn't really feel anything about it. I guess I paused for a second when I noticed I actually hit someone, but besides that I just kept shotting. I kept expecting for feelings or a breakdown to come to me eventually but nothing did. Not that night, not that week, not ever. So I just moved on.

I imagine I wasn't the best of the recruits. I didn't practice enough to be the most accurate and even if my body was now in shape from the training they made me do, some recruits were better than I am now even before entering the military.

I wasn't actively trying to get killed, but there was still an advantage in not fearing death. I didn't hit every shot, but I put myself in positions where I could hit the most enemies. I wasn't the strongest but I took risks others weren't able to.

I know I got lucky, I knew better soldiers than me died. Soldiers that did put in the effort, that were more accurate and stronger. 

I was the first of my generation of recruits to be sent somewhere else. This time I really was in a frontline, one with trenches and everything. 

I spent longer here. Almost a year fighting, sleeping with one eye open. 

I took a my first fatal wound on the third day, a shot to the gut. 

It came out of nowhere, the fighting was slow and I must have been more visible than I should. I lowered my guard. That could have very well been the end of me.

It could have hit a vital organ.

I could have bled out.

The wound could have gotten infected.

But I got lucky again. I survived.

And again, I didn't feel much of anything. I really wanted to this time, maybe regret that I didn't do more? Or relief that I was getting what I wanted? I wanted to feel something, anything at all.

But I got nothing.

That got to me. The fact I couldn't feel anything, even while bleeding out on the ground as the war moved on?

If not even dying could get something out of me, how could living do more? 

But the war didn't stop, so neither could I.

Not two weeks after getting shot I was back to my feet.

Back to the trenches. 

I learnt from that mistake, I still took risks no one could, but I was smarter about it. The proof is that it took me over month to get another potentially fatal wound. 

We were on an enemy trench, clearing it out. I wasn't paying enough attention and didn't see one of the bodies moving on the ground. Before I knew it, I had three stab wounds on my leg and a man trying to cut my throat.

I was falling as he came for my neck. I wasn't really thinking as my hands caught his wrist. He was on top of me, his entire weight seemed to rest on the knife but somehow I kept it from moving.

I blame adrenaline, it's a hell of a drug and it made me do more than a few miracles during the war. 

I held on for long enough for an ally to shoot him. 

Again, I was lucky. All clean cuts, one of them was so close to the femoral artery it practically grazed it.

Got sewn up and was back in a week. 

As the fighting went on I got better and more bold. I did things I absolutely should not have gotten away from, survived wounds I had no business even getting. 

I must have gotten wounded so much I spent as long on the hospital as on the field, but I survived. I got lucky.

There weren't many news around the battlefield, or maybe there were and I just never locked for them. After I was sent home for a couple weeks before my new deployment I found out about what was going on on the rest of the world. 

The war was official now, World War three. Has a nice ring to it, rolls of the tongue better than the last two if you ask me.

My family was fine, the whole country was largely intact actually. That was a bit of a shock considering how not intact the border was.

After my little vacation was over, I was promoted and sent back in. I tried to argue that I didn't deserve the promotion, that in truth I just got lucky. 

That anyone could have done what I had if they had gotten as lucky as I did.

It didn't matter, I did a good job and so I got the rewards. I was given the choice of another position, either leading or in the backlines pushing papers but I refused. 

Throughout my time at war, through all my near death encounters and all the people I killed, I realized something. 

I will never be happy in the way I want. 

I was simply not made for it.

I have feelings, I feel pain when I'm hurt. I laugh when I find something funny and cry when I'm sad.

I have all that, but something is missing. They don't feel real, they don't fill me up. 

They just drain me in a way I don't understand. 

And I am tired. 

Of feeling. 

Of being myself. 

Of existing.

And I wanted rest.

So I continued fighting. Went from one battlefield to another and despite getting increasingly reckless in my actions, I kept surviving.  

I should have died more times than I can count, I probably had more scars than skin but somehow, I never got hurt in any permanent way. 

I'm pretty sure god has a pretty dark sense of humour to have me live where thousands of others that prayed to him didn't.

So here I am. After five years of fighting, I was put in a very special group of very capable people, hearing a very special commander tell us the details to the very special mission we'll be doing for the last time.

I don't usually reflect on my life like this, perhaps I just got bored of hearing the commander talk and this just happened to come up in my mind. 

But I don't think that's it.

I have a feeling that today is very special too, something important will happen today, I just don't think it will be important to anyone but me.

"That is all Privates! If you succeed, we'll win the war. Do your country proud." The commander shouted, finally bringing me back to earth. 

It was not the first time we'd heard this speech, I heard it so much I had dreams about it. We were going to infiltrate the enemy capital and assassinate their leader.

It was going to be dangerous and we were probably going to fail.

But if we somehow did it? 

The war would be brought to a close years before it was bound to, preventing potential millions of deaths. 

And I can't bring myself to give a shit. 

As far as I'm concerned, this is like any battle before. 

I'll go in, maybe I'll kill them or maybe they'll kill me. Either way, the world moves on. 

We were loaded up into a van that drove us for a couple hours to the border, there, we found the resistance fighter that would smuggle us inside the city.

She gave as a serious look and signalled towards the back of the pickup truck she was leaning on. 

"I'm Catia," She said as we got in the back. "We'll drive for at least three hours before we enter the city but from there it shouldn't take long before you have him on your sights."

After we were all inside she unrolled a plastic cover and gave one last look. "Don't miss."

The plan was for her to drive us as close to the enemy leader as she could and we'd go on foot from there. If everything went according to plan, the leader would be dead by midnight.

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So of course, it didn't. Everything was going well and we even got inside the city but the truck was stopped for an random inspection kilometres before where we were supposed to. 

That was very bad. Very, very bad. We were not going to be able to hide through it and would have to fight the rest of the way through.

The squad knew what to do though, we were the best of the best and even if we hadn't worked together before, we moved in sync when the right moment showed itself.

Each of us was armed and tense on the back of the truck as we waited for the plastic cover to be lifted and as soon as it did, we acted. 

Me, Adam, Alex and Mike jumped out of the truck, trusting Matt to kill the one lifting the tarp before he screamed.

Even though we couldn't see them before getting out of the truck, I knew I heard at least three out there, probably more.

And probably more it was, there were eight not counting the guy beside us. Not perfect but doable, two for each of us. As we heard the sound of a silenced rifle taking out the guy holding the tarp we started shotting.

I chose the two furthest away, they were leaning on a wall smocking cigarettes. Distracted. Sloppy.

I shot one four times in the chest and without taking my finger of the trigger, aimed at the other guy and unloaded five more. 

I stopped for a moment, waiting for a scream or alarm to sound, but there was none. My allies had done their job well. 

Just like that, nine people died. It didn't even take three seconds from the moment the first guy lifted the tarp to the moment the last guy fell.

It went has well as we could hope for but that still left us in a bad position. We were deep in enemy territory and it was only a matter of time until they noticed what we had done.

We were on a time limit now and we didn't know how long it was. 

I was about to say something when Matt, still in the truck, started speaking.

"Shit, get back in. We need to retreat."

That was the smart move. Live to see and kill another day, we wouldn't even need to get out of the city, we could simply hide in one of the resistance bases until things calmed down.

That plan still had a problem though.

"We can't," I said," if we don't do it now, they'll raise security so much we'll never get this close again."

At that the entire group frowned. I'm sure they knew it too, but hearing it must not have felt good. They knew what was at stake and did care about succeeding, at the same time, they probably had loved ones waiting for them back home. 

I let a few seconds pass to see if they had anything to say but seeing that no one spoke I urged them on.

"We're on a timer here, I don't give a shit what you guys want to do but you have to chose now."

That said I went to the passage seat of the truck to talk with Catia. 

"Change of plans," I said as I sat down. "We'll either need to hide for a while or charge in and pray we get lucky. That said, how much do you value your life?"

Catia was taken aback by what I said but after processing it, she responded without hesitation. 

"I've been risking my life since the moment I signed up for this fight, if you think there is a chance to make our country free again, my life will be a small price to pay."

About what I expected to be honest, resistance fighters were right at the centre of enemy power, everything until now isn't too different from what they do on a day to day basis.

Sure, the risk of dying went way up from here but she also had much more to win if we did succeed.

It's not quite as personal when your home and loved ones live so far away from the war they only notice it's existence when the groceries get more expensive.

I nodded at her and reloaded my magazine with loose ammo while I waited for the rest of the squad to tell me what they had decided.

I finished reloading it just as Adam and Matt entered the truck, with Alex and Mike staying on the back. They had determined looks on their eyes. 

"The war ends today. We're ready to pay the ultimate price if it's what's necessary. What about you? We didn't get to hear your opinion?", Adam said gravely.

I couldn't help but show an amused smile as I answered. "I was ready for that the moment I enlisted." 

And it is true, though probably not in the way they expect. I turned to Catia.

"It's happening, pedal to the metal my man!"

As soon as I said it, we started moving. In seconds we were above the speed limits and rapidly approaching our target.

The base was a few minutes away at the rate we were moving but we were bound to face resistance on the way there.

There were two inspection blocks before the base and even then, we'd have to fight through one of the most well protected places in the world.

Not quite the stealth mission we were expecting.

I could see the next post already, they were making signs for us to slow down. Good, that meant we hadn't been caught yet.

"Get ready!" I shouted as I readied my aim and prepared for us to break through the barricade.

They probably wouldn't have shot us, but if they lived they would report us to everybody who would listen. 

We probably wouldn't get all of them, as good a shot as I became over the years, shotting moving targets from a car going as fast as it can is still a hell of a feat. 

But if nothing else, the chaos could delay them just the little bit we might need. 

There were less of them than at the last stop, only six. Still one two many, I think I could hit one of them but was much less sure about two. Here's hoping someone else was a better shot.

They were screaming for us to slow down but started getting out of our way when they finally understood than wasn't going to happen.

 The squad opened fire at almost the same time, each of us with a different target despite no one having called them. 

I managed to get mine, a spray of shots at chest level as we passed by him. Three bullets to centre mass, not my best but good enough.

No sooner had I processed the kill, we hit the barricade. I surged forward as the truck demolished it and my head struck the dashboard with enough strength to leave me dazed.

I quickly righted myself but my vision was still blurred and I could feel a headache starting.

Not paying it any mind I screamed. "Did anyone get the last guy?"

For a beat no one said anything and I was already starting to fear the worst when Alex screamed back.

"I got him on the leg!"

That... that was ok? Probably? The best case scenario would have been for him to have died but a shot to the leg would keep him from doing anything for a while.

In theory he could still report us, it's not like his mouth doesn't work, but I speak from experience when I say his mouth will be busy screaming in pain for the next few minutes. Or hours, but assume the worse.

Barely a minute had passed when we saw the next and last post and this one was way more protected. At least 12 guys and probably more I couldn't see inside a shack that was beside it.

No matter what, they'd know about us after getting through this.

Still, it was worth it to shot at them. Anything to gain as much time as we could.

We were getting closer but they were acting like the last guys, we were readying our aim when someone got out of the shack and shouted something.

I couldn't hear them, they were too far away, but it didn't matter.

It was clear exactly what he was shouting when half of them turned to us and started shooting. 

My mind went a mile a minute thinking about what had gone wrong, did the leg shot guy manage to alert them? Did someone find the dead guys at the first post? Did they...

I snaped out of it as I heard the ding of a bullet hitting the truck. 

"Get down!" I shouted as I grabbed Catia's head with one hand and pulled it down while my other hand blindly sprayed my gun where the wind shield used to be.

For the few seconds it took for us to break through this post all I could hear was the incessant noise of the bullets striking metal. 

Down as I was I took the collision much better than first time and immediately stuck myself through the window to provide cover fire. 

"Is everyone good!" I screamed over the sound of my shots. 

The answers all came in before I ran out of bullets and had to come back in and reload. God, it's good to work with capable people. 

"I'm good!" Screamed Adam

"Me too!" Screamed Matt.

"Mike got shot!" I heard Alex shout from further away.

Shit! 

"Shit! How bad is it?" I asked.

"I'm good." Mike said, " Just a scratch. Can't use my left arm though, they shot me in the shoulder."

I looked back at him and he was already bandaging the wound even if he had a nasty look on his face. 

Yeah, shoulder shots do that to you. 

He was good for a while, won't be as good with a rifle but we were through the 'shooting from afar' part of the mission. Won't really matter how precise you are when you are so close to an enemy you can tell the colour of their eyes.   

We're were less than a minute from the base. Honestly, that was very much not perfect.

Could be worse though, a minute is enough for them to get ready for us but they won't have enough time to get more people there.

We'll only need to deal with as many soldiers as the most important enemy military base has.

...

Could be worse?

The base was where this country's congress used to make it's laws, can't remember it's name but I'm sure it was real pretty cause they definitely didn't chose it because of it's security. 

It was a public building so it's blueprint was on the internet. It was basically a straight line from the outer gate to the entrance hall and just behind that not load-bearing wall was the parliament hall.

Their leader and practically all of his big generals were on that big wide hall. They were supposed to be in a meeting right now and while they would take more than a minute to get out of there, it wouldn't take that much more.

I looked at the truck. It didn't look very good, it was old and hadn't been getting the best maintenance by the looks of it. I was surprised it was even running with the combination of how hard we were pulling it, the two high speed collisions it had been on and the many, many bullet holes on it.

Hell of a truck, strong stuff...

"... Guys, I have an idea." I said smiling wide.

I'm pretty sure I saw a movie where they did this, might have even been a war movie. Wouldn't that be funny?

"I want to run into the building, through the inside wall and out the parliament hall."

I expected to hear protest or even surprise to this admittedly batshit insane "plan" but no, they barely had a reaction beyond pausing for a second and smiling as wide as me and nodding their heads.

JESUS CHRIST, what I wouldn't give to work with these people forever.

Shame we're probably gonna die. 

Catia was not as into the plan as the rest of us.

"Are you fucking crazy??? We'll die!"

Much more in line with what I expected.

"We don't have the time." I explained, " If we take too long they'll all get out of there and we'll never see them again."

Despite my very wise and reasonable point she didn't seem super relieved. That said she didn't say anything else so I assumed she was in. 

The next curve showed the building and damm, I kind of get it. 

I probably would have chosen it too if I was a tyrannical warlord. I really like the round roof thing.

It was much less pretty surrounded as it was by armed men trying to kill us. 

"Max speed, fuck shit up man!" I hear Mike scream.

I lowed my head as they pointed their weapons at us and we fucking floored it. 

They were shotting at us, at least 20 guys all with full-auto rifles but I couldn't hear any of them hitting the truck. All that filled my ears was the sound of the trucks engine roaring like nothing I'd ever seen.

In what felt like in an instant we were through them and the barricade they had set up. It didn't slow us down much but I felt that one of front tires was bust. 

Didn't matter now, we wouldn't need them for long anyway.

We had a straight away ahead of us with the entrance right at the end, like a target in a shotting range. Somehow, the truck got even louder. It was practically flying down the pavement and I felt the world slow down as we got near the entrance.

There were a few soldiers inside and they did not look ready for us. They weren't even shooting, but jumping out of our way, a couple of them I could see wouldn't make it in time. 

As I watched the wall we were about to go through get closer, I couldn't help but think that this might not have been a perfect plan. I know the blueprint said it wasn't load-bearing but looking at it right now? Man, it looks like a fucking wall I wouldn't want to run into.

Then the world was moving again and I passed out.

----------------------------------------

I woke up to an impossibly loud ringing noise and a much worsened headache. I couldn't see anything through the massive dust cloud that surrounded me and was probably concussed as fuck.

I crawled out of the now sideways car and finally noticed my right leg was broken. I tested it on the ground and concluded there was no way I was walking with it.

I couldn't feel the pain yet, but I knew that was just a matter of time.

Looking around the hall I saw a bunch of old people clustering near a closed door, fearfully looking at the truck.

At that I couldn't help but smile. We were fast enough and my plan worked flawlessly.

... Except for the leg thing.

Not wasting any time I shot in their general direction and absolutely mowed them down. I was out of ammo just as the ringing got quiet enough for me to finally hear the screams of soldiers through the hole we had just made.

I was about to find cover when my squad got out of the the truck.

They did not look good. They were bloodied from the many wounds the crash gave them and Adam wasn't there with them.

"Adam and Catia?" I asked. They didn't even answer, just gave me a soft head shake. 

Shame, we could really use their help if we wanted to get out of here alive. Looking back at the door I found it open and empty of people. 

However many I got, it wasn't all of them and I didn't know if I got the big bad.

I was smiling now. I always was a lucky bastard wasn't I? Today will be special all right.

"I can't walk, my leg is broken" I told them. I could see their eyes harden with determination and Alex immediately moved to carry me.

"No." I said before he reached me. "You don't have time, complete the mission and I'll slow them down as much as I can."

They all froze for a second. No one said anything but their eyes held admiration and gratitude as they wordlessly moved past me. 

I didn't look back at as I crawled closer to the truck to have some cover. I reloaded my rifle as fast as I could and peaked at the hole for a second.

I looked at it right as a couple soldiers were jumping through. They hadn't spotted me yet so they were defenceless when I accurately shot each of them on the head. They fell to the ground silently and the rest of the soldiers in the entrance ran out of my sights.

I could hear screaming intensify behind the wall. I didn't understand the language, but I could guess what they were saying. 'Something, something go out there and kill the bastard. Hail the supreme leader' or something. Bad guys aren't very original. 

I kept my sights on the hole, occasionally shooting through it to scare them off but instead of someone coming through, I saw a grenade being tossed in my direction. It would land somewhere on the other side of the truck and seeing as I couldn't exactly run for better cover, I took two of the six grenades I had on me, pulled the pin and threw them at the hole.

I barely had time to hide back behind the truck before the enemy grenade exploded. It was probably further away from the truck than I thought because it didn't move it much, unfortunately, it wasn't far enough away for the truck to stop the shrapnel.

Six small metal pieces pierced through the truck and got lodged inside me. One on the bad leg, two on the right arm and the remaining three on the torso. The ringing I had just gotten rid of also came back, this time twice as strong.

Thinking themselves safe while I was dealing with the grenade, some soldiers jumped in, can't say how many because I couldn't see them, but I must have gotten a ton of them judging by the strength of the explosion. 

I didn't so much hear it, as I felt it through the ground and saw the debris it flung far enough for me to see despite how far away I was. 

I was bleeding a lot from the shrapnel, couldn't hear, couldn't walk and had lost my dominant arm. I was not in my best shape. 

I could shot with my left arm. Technically. I probably wouldn't actually hit anyone unless the barrel was touching them, but I could try.

I could feel soldiers filling the hall. There were dozens of them at least, much more than I could deal with if I was in perfect condition. 

I was going to die today. 

Honestly, I kind of knew that the moment I woke up. 

'It was going to be special', I had thought, and indeed it was. 

It was a long time coming to be honest and I couldn't really say I was super upset about it.

I was tired.   

I have been tired for a long, long time. 

And this seems like just the perfect moment to go to sleep.

I was smiling wide now, so much so that if someone saw me, they'd probably be disturbed. 

That said, I haven't been put to bed since I was a child and I sure as fuck won't right now. 

Adam's body was inside the truck with his own grenades and I wanted to go out with a bang.

I pulled the pin on the grenades I had left and giddily waited for the peaceful void of death.

I saw one of the soldiers running by the truck. He quicky turned to aim at me, but instead of shooting his eyes grew wide at the look on my face. 

That was the last thing I saw before everything went black.