The stars glittered cold and bright above him, only obscured by the occasional cloud his breath created. He could feel the sting of winter in his lungs, yet he welcomed it compared to where he’d been just a few hours before. It was strange, the world seemed so quite now. But he knew if he stepped just over the hill, around the boulder they’d passed on the way in, he would see the after math from the bomb.

The ringing in his ears had stopped, but the world still rolled beneath him. When the bomb had landed it had trembled, he had trembled. His bones seemed to shake within his flesh and his brain felt as if it were bouncing around his skull. He’d been thrown forward with the aftershock. He was certain he’d vomited due to vertigo or shock. He remembered the intensity of the heat, the flames caressing his skin like a lover turned toxic.

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He’d seen so many of his comrades… his friends, fall. Some taken by the explosion within seconds, some left to bleed out as he stumbled away, too unsteady to support himself let alone another. Their voices haunted him in the dark as he stumbled back toward the makeshift camp the medics had made.

They would have noticed he’d wandered off by now.

-End Report