A Boy in the Midst of Battle

An explosive shell detonated barely ten feet away from where the battered soldier lay. He felt a small shower of dirt rain over his back, and coughed from the thick cloud of smoke coming from the crater. And yet, he had to push on. This was his only hope of survival. The enemy had surrounded his squad, and he was running out of options. Three hours after they set out to take an enemy base, a surprise attack had left them cut off from the rest of the army, from the safety and shelter that that presence provided.
The ambush resulted the enemy blocking their retreat path, effectively leaving them stranded deep in dangerous territory. The enemy attacked from two directions, catching them in a pincer movement. It seemed hopeless. After all, they simply did not have the firepower or the manpower to break through, and they were cut off too far from other friendly forces that might provide assistance.

But the young soldier knew he had to take action. He wanted to make at least an attempt at survival. If I've gotta die in the end anyways, I'd rather die trying to survive, he thought. The enemy was slowly surrounding them from both in front and behind them, and had closed in on one of their side flanks as well. Knowing this, the soldier quickly realized to attempt a mad dash for the relatively unsupported remaining flank. With a loud, rallying cry, he surged forward and his companions followed...


...and they did it! They broke through the opponent's defense, and with a long pass from the quarterback, ran the football all the way to the end. Touchdown! Afterwards that play was celebrated as the defining play of the game, and the quarterback, among many of the other players who were very popular amongst the students of this high school, were picked up and paraded around.
Not him, though. He was always much of a loner, spending his days at school like everyone else, yet away from the crowd. His nights were spent reading and browsing the Internet, bouncing between his parents' houses like a tennis ball caught up in a particularly intense rally. He had no idea how his parents had settled the issues of custody. But he didn't care... or rather, couldn't care. Feelings didn't come to him in the same way they did to everyone else at school, at least not anymore. Sometimes, he thought back and decided that when he was much younger, and much more naïve, he'd been normal like everyone else.
Then something happened. Maybe it was the alcoholism of his father, maybe it was the divorce that followed, maybe it was the fact that his friends had all somehow moved away or just become less friendly. It was probably a lack of proximity that started as a small swirl in the sea, and grew to become the turbulent maelstrom that now constituted his existence. In short, it seemed no one knew him anymore, that he was alone in the world to deal with his troubles...


...and so the soldier thought back to his best friend in the army. Together, they had been deployed on a separate mission a few months ago. The helicopter they were in was taking heavy fire, and had been shot down. With no communications in an unknown and unforgiving territory, they set up a small camp temporarily while figuring out their next course of action.
The next morning, when the soldier awakened, his best friend was nowhere to be seen. Other members of the squad told him his friend had left to forage for food and never come back. Shortly after they began searching for him, an enemy regiment in the area attacked, forcing their evacuation. His friend was listed as missing in action and presumed to be dead.
Since then, he had very few people to talk to. No one seemed to understand him anymore. He descended into isolation and was imprisoned among the confines of his new mentality of solitude. But he knew that this was important. If he wanted any chance at living a normal life, at recovering the peace and quiet that was the time before everything devolved into chaos. The demons of the enemy threatened his home and everything he had known, so he must push on. He must continue to fight. A lethargic calmness flooded his body, and he closed his eyes only for a moment, but drifted off into sleep anyways...


...to wake up in a cold sweat. He'd had a dream that he was walking down a road, but the road had an abrupt end at the edge of a cliff in front of him. The closer he was to the precipice, the fast he walked, until walking became jogging and jogging became running. Soon, he was at a full sprint, running to the precipice as fast as he could, but fearing the precipice, dashing towards certain doom, but unable to stop, feeling that any moment now the ground would give way to empty air and he would fall, fall into the abyss, the dismal caverns, away from everything familiar. And as he fell, he felt a strong pushing force, pushing him from all directions, squeezing him until he could not breathe, applying pressure until he felt he must explode-
And then it jolted him from his sleep. For a moment, he was in a state of limbo, not sure of his surroundings. Then waves of certainty and calmness that only reality can provide washed over him; and it was as if he had awakened a second time. Back in the real world, he felt safer. He had control. Turning over and looking at his alarm, he'd seen he was late for school. But what was the point? Why go to school only to be met by the poisonous tongues of a hundred blank faces, taunting and jesting and making merry with themselves, at his expense? Because he had no friends, no allies in this fight, the solitude at home amounted to torture at school. An overwhelming sense of hopelessness turned to lethargy, and he didn't want to get up.
And so it seemed that his only reason for continuing to go to school, to continue his daily routines was really just to continue for the sake of continuing. Some indescribable urge was still compelling him, and finally, he got up and prepared for school, with some bare semblance of hurriedness...

...The soldier was now all alone. They had broke through the unsupported flank, only to find the enemy a hundredfold reinforced by the sudden swarming of troops. He had been separated in the shootout, and caught alone. Enemy artillery has shredded most of his allies to pieces. And though he was, at least for the moment, safe, he knew it was very quickly about to be over. Give up. It's useless. You'll never make it out, a voice in his head was saying. And for a moment, he almost dropped his gun and succumbed to the numbness of hunger and weariness that were crushing him. But he still had one last purpose. He wanted to escape. This was his last chance. Mustering his last reserves of brainpower and cunningness, he devised a plan.
He would find a nice cluster of bushes and shrubbery with which to hide in, and wait for the enemy to close in on the area. Once the enemy passed him in their searches for any survivors, he would jump out and dash to safety. It was a good idea, and he was fortunate to have found the perfect space for doing so moments later. He quickly jumped into a small recess in the ground, covered by the undergrowths of the jungle, and decided to wait it out...

...after the grueling hours spent at school, the boy returned home, dropped his backpack, and ran over to his table to just start drawing.  He had been told he had talent, that he was able to draw very well, that every image was almost lifelike. And so, he took solace in drawing, hoping that one day his drawings would carry him away to the utopia where they came from.
But, ever since the divorce he and his mother had been hard-pressed for money. His mother was also subject to bouts of anger, and when she wasn't yelling at him she was staring at the television with a blank, expressionless face. This particular day, his mother had walked into his room and saw him completely lost in his drawings. After all, art had almost become a second reality for him. But his mother flew into a fit a rage again. She yelled about the uselessness of art, about how art would not make anyone any money, and about how he was useless.
In that moment, he couldn't explain it. But something was falling from him. Something that he never knew was a part of him. And it was gone, quickly. It all happened too quickly. Everything was becoming a blur...

...a blur of green and brown was all he saw. He'd dodged the enemy and was making the mad dash to the allied forces he knew must be around here somewhere. And then, he saw it. A clearing in the thick jungle. He had no idea how far he'd ran to get here. He continued to run towards the clearing, and saw the uniforms of a thousand friendly forces, almost welcoming him back.

But he had not stopped to consider how he appeared to these forces. Covered in mud, flaying his arms out, and catching the allies by surprise.

The commanders were in shock for only a moment. And then they gave the order to fire.
               
Bullets ripped through his body. The soldier looked on at his comrades, all of whom had blank faces. He was falling, just like in his dream. He couldn't breathe. The air itself was crushing him. And the enemy, following his path, emerged out of the forest and attacked. Casualties were high that day, and both sides of the conflict were forced to retreat.
               
No one went back for the soldier's body. Betrayed by his own allied forces, he collapsed in the thicket and watched as everything became a haze. The enemy would eventually overrun allied forces in the region, and force their withdrawal. It was over...

...And so, he'd lost the battle. He was caving, and felt the weight of the world collapse his shoulders. He wanted to give up. It wasn't hard. He had the means to finish right here, in his home. And like a soldier who had been betrayed by his own allies, he was a boy betrayed by his own mind.
Give up...