The Walking Wounded

Chapters

To the Breaking Point
The Survivor
Ghosts never die
Falling Skies

To the Breaking Point

Preface: this is a work of fiction. I am not claiming to have lived through these events, nor am I claiming them to be factual. Also, for clarity's sake, the parts in italics are the flashbacks, the shadows of the past bleeding through. I hope you enjoy this tale, and I hope that I have brought a little awareness to a very real problem.

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The walking wounded

If you are reading this, then I am dead or dying. Don't be mad or sad or angry, this was my choice, my life to take. Wouldn't be the first by my hooves... Ever since I came back, ponies have treated me differently. To my parents, I want to give a big fuck you for throwing me out like that. I needed you, and you weren't there. Well, look where we are now. I hope it was worth it to you. Every time I close my eyes, I can see the dead and dying. I can't even go to the fucking market without seeing this shit. Nopony understands, nopony cares. They all look at me like I'm a bug, an insect... I see them talking about shoes, or fucking clothes, and I just want to shake them and scream. How can they worry about trivial shit like that when there are colts like Twitch gettin' killed out there? But I'm the fuckin' weird one. Every night since I've been back, I've had to drink myself into oblivion just to sleep, to sleep through the nightmares. On the good nights, I drink until I can't even dream, and I finally feel at rest. So you know what? Fuck the world that made me like this. Fuck the ponies who made others fight and die for their selfish purposes, who tore apart families and threw away lives. Fuck you mom, and fuck you dad, for not helping me when I needed you. Its too late for that now, you made your choice and so have I. Half a bottle of pain pills and a bottle of Applejack Daniel's, and I'm going to ride this screaming nightmare straight into the ground. Maybe I'll find Sarge or Twitch over there. All I know is that I can't take these nightmares anymore.

Goodbye, and fuck you.

-Blaze

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There was darkness all around, a feeling of absolute nothingness so overwhelming that it left no doubts. I was dead. Finally, blessedly dead. There were no screams here, no images of death all around. Ahead, there was a light, closing at a high rate of speed. For the first time in years, I wasn't afraid of it, that it might be a carriage-borne improvised explosive device, or CBIED. I'd seen what one of those could do, and I knew why they were called the haymaker. They deserved every ounce of fear they got. And yet, here I was; at ease. When the light swallowed me up, I felt what might have been happiness, the first time in years. Blinded by the glare for a moment, I found myself standing in an elevator. I had no sooner figured it out than the elevator screeched to a lurching halt, throwing me against the side. I barely had time to scramble to my hooves before the elevator lurched and sunk, again slamming me to the floor. There was a loud and drawn out scream, the sound of tortured metal. A loud pop and a clang, and the lift lurched downward a meter or two, coming to a jarring stop. With a sound like an explosion, the floor dropped out from under me as the darkness closed in once more.

Chaos reigned. There was a light, as bright as the sun, beaming at my eyes. All around me there was the sound of alarms going off, shrill noises blending together. Everywhere I looked there was movement, numerous voices shouting over one another as they scurried to and fro. Light blues and whites all around me, blurring together as they moved. And then the pain hit me. I was burning alive from within, the worst pain I'd ever felt tearing at my gut. I realized that I was screaming in pain, though I didn't feel the sounds coming from my throat. All there was, all that I was, was pain. I thrashed in agony, desperate to throw off the creatures that were attacking me. Wires and tubes snaked from all parts of me, whipping around like snakes as I writhed. I caught one of the shapes with a solid punch, sending it crashing unconscious to the ground without so much as a whimper. Next thing I knew, the shapes were on top of me, trying to pin my arms and legs down. I struggled with all my might, feeling for a moment as if I might be triumphant, before reinforcements arrived. A clamor had gone up, and scores of colorful shapes swarmed me and pinned me down. I thrashed and roared in pain and anger, but I was held fast by the masses. Another blinding pain bloomed in my neck, and blackness spread from it, sending me once more down into a dreamless sleep. The last thing I heard as I faded out was somepony calling for a nurse. And with that, I was gone.

I came back to the light like I was surfacing from the bottom of the ocean. I could hear muddled sounds and see the faint glow of something far overhead, but that was all. Gradually, the details came back to me. I heard a female's voice clearly, though I couldn't put the words together in a way that made sense. I was in a hospital, staring up at the light overhead. To my left, there was a rhythmic beeping. The pain in my gut had lessened significantly, but it was still there and far from pleasant. I was alive, and it pissed me off.

I'd failed the one, simple task I'd given myself, and I was furious. More than that, I was ashamed and disappointed in myself. For the months that I'd been back, I'd been building up my courage to do this, trying to convince myself that this was the way to go. This was all I had to do, and I'd be free of the pain and the nightmares. And I'd failed. Next time, it would be nothing but me, a bottle of Daniel's, and a shotgun. I'd tried to go another route, to spare some poor bastard the trouble of cleaning it up, but fuck it. I wasn't going to fuck it up a second time. As soon as I got home, I was going to do it right. I tried to get up, intent on seizing my motivation to march home and finish the job, only to find myself strapped down. I began to thrash against the straps, grunting in frustration. The beeping began to pick up its pace as I struggled, and in a moment, a nurse arrived. I asked her to unstrap me, to which she simply smiled. I was about to start yelling at her in a most profane way when she walked over to the beeping machine. She pressed a button and was answered by a beep, and I could feel the coolness begin to spread from my IV as my eyelids grew heavy. As she walked out, she turned to me with a sad smile.

"Sweet dreams."

And then, there was blackness. When I woke next, the feelings of self-loathing and rage that had been driving me, holding me up, had all vanished. I felt almost empty inside, and this emptiness didn't matter to me at all. I felt wrong inside, as if nothing mattered to me at all and it was okay for it not to. The hours slipped by with barely any notice from me, the only indicator of time's passage being the arrival of meals. Each meal came with a different nurse, one who smiled at me and made small talk about how I had an accident of some sort, telling me I was very lucky to have made it. I could remember that something big had happened recently, and that I was in the hospital because of it, but everything in my mind was an indistinct mass of swirling fog. Something about the word "accident" struck me as wrong, but I couldn't focus on what it was long enough to find out. It came to me a few days later, as I ate my meal and grudgingly indulged the nurse in small talk. I was being drugged, and it was this that had been fogging up my mind. They were sedating me, trying to keep me calm. I should have been furious, screaming and flipping tables, but I wasn't. I couldn't get angry over this violation, as much as I wanted to. That is, I couldn't get angry yet.

That day, I stopped taking my medication, hiding it under my napkin and throwing it away when the nurse left. Within a few hours, I could feel the fog lifting as my mind emerged from its sleep. The plan went well for the first four meals, until my plan hit a snag. A snag in the form of a nurse who refused to back down.

"Hello, Mister Blaze. How are you feeling today?" She would ask me, sporting an annoyingly chipper grin that I wanted nothing more than to wipe off her face. I knew that I never would, though; my mother had raised me better.

My response was always the same, always dripping with barely restrained contempt. "I'm still stuck here, nurse. How do you think I'm feeling?"

"You should be happy you're still here. You had a terrible accident" came her rote reply, concluding our ritual introduction and signalling her to start on about something else. Usually, this came in the form of "lovely weather we're having, isn't it?"

And so on and so forth, this inane crap would drag on for what seemed like hours as the nurse watched me eat. When I was finished eating, they'd take the tray and leave, plunging me once more into blissful silence. As maddening as the silence sometimes was, the nurses were generally worse. This nurse, nurse Candlelight, was the worst. Always going on with her questions about me and my family, even after I'd told her time and time again that I had no family. Unmarried, no kids, and had been kicked out by my parents, and yet she insisted on asking the same fucking questions over and over again. I shoveled food into my mouth as fast as I could, just to get away from her that much sooner. Today, however, was not my day. When nurse Candle-butt turned away, I quickly scooped the pills under my napkin, picking up my cup to act like I was swallowing them. As she turned around I was lifting my cup, and that was when it all fell apart. My napkin got stuck to the cup as a drop of water adhered the two, lifting it up just far enough to show off the pills stashed beneath.

Raising an eyebrow, she inquired. "Blaze, what's that? There, beneath your napkin."

"Nothing, nurse. Just the wrapper from my straw." I was lying through my teeth, and she knew it. Nurse Candle-ass flipped a switch and became nurse Hard-ass in a blink.

"Don't you lie to me, Blaze. You and I both know what's under the napkin. Why aren't you taking your pills?"

"Why? Because I don't want to be a Luna-damned zombie, that's why."

"We give you this medication for a reason, and you aren't qualified to say you don't need it. So, take your medicine." Her soft voice belied the edge of steel her words had taken on. I, however, refused to be cowed by words, and in my ire I overestimated my authority.

"What? No, fuck off. I'm not going to be a zombie just so you can feel better about my health. I am a grown stallion, a retired member of the Royal Guard, and I think I am capable of taking care of my own damned self, so-"

Nurse Candlelight cut me off with a cold stare. "Oh, really, Blaze? Taking care of yourself? Buck, that's how you got here in the first place. Obviously, you can't."

"What do you know? What do you know about pain, about loss? The shit I went through over there doesn't just go away, and there isn't any-fucking-pony in this town who knows what that's like."

"Timber Blaze, you are a selfish and inconsiderate ass. I may not have been to Saddle Arabia, but you aren't the only pony who has scars from the war. My brother fought the same fight that you did. Only, he didn't come back."

That was the first time I'd heard my first name being used in longer that I could recall, which threw off my guard. What she'd said next hit home like a sledgehammer to the chest, and served as a poignant reminder of the body count. Shocked and ashamed, I said nothing. For the last couple days, I had almost hated this mare for asking me questions I didn't want to answer. I still was not fond of her at all, but I had slightly more respect for her. Noting my lack of a response, she filled the silence.

"I thought as much. Now, are you going to take your medications or not?"

"Negative. I will not be a zombie." I refused to submit to this mare, to allow myself to become a zombie.

"Okay, Blaze. Look at it this way. You can take the medication on your own, or we can add it to your IV. Your choice." My overestimation of my authority was quickly overturned by the mare with a steel blue glare.

I could feel myself getting angry again at the stupidity of this exchange. "Nurse, this is ridiculous. Why should I take medicine that makes me feel like an empty shell?"

"The pink one is for anxiety, the white one is to help repair your liver, which is somehow still functional, and the purple one is an antidepressant, but it sort of numbs everything. The only one I won't stand here and watch you take is the purple one, but I will not let you skip the others. You can either take the two on your own, or I can get the whole bouquet put into your IV. Your call."

This mare was right back to pissing me off, and it was made worse by the fact that there was nothing I could do about it. I might not have been strapped down to the bed anymore, but the door locked from the other side and my window didn't open. I was stuck here until they decided I was fit to be released. Vowing to do whatever necessary to get the hell out of this asylum, I grudgingly nodded. In one fell swoop, I took up and swallowed down the two pills, leaving the purple one untouched. Covering it back with my napkin, I looked at nurse Candlelight expectantly. She simply smiled at me and took the plate, walking away. In a moment, I was alone once more.

The next week passed in the same manner, with nurse Candlelight appearing more and more frequently as the days went on. She'd always ask about my family, about my past, and about my life in general, but stayed away from anything during my deployments. And each time she asked, I would tell her the same thing. My dad owned several lumber mills, my mom was heir to a large carriage company, and I had no siblings to speak of. I was seeing somepony when I enlisted, but she was nothing but a memory now. Considering that I was only twenty three, there wasn't much to say about my life. As a matter of fact, that was it; that was the summary of my entire life story. Yet every day that she came by, she would ask those same questions. Some days, heavily muscled aides would take me out of my room and escort me down a hall and around a few corners. After passing through a few security doors, they would have me sit down with a therapist, who tried in vain again and again to get to the bottom of my depression. Try as they might, I wouldn't say what was on my mind; I couldn't.

How was I supposed to tell somepony what I saw in my mind's eye? That whenever I was around a group of ponies, I imagined their body parts scattered across the pavement? Or that I avoided carriages like the plague, fearful of a haymaker? How about the way that the shadows always seemed to move, making me jump at nothing, others looking at me like I'm diseased? There was no way to explain this to anypony who had never been there. This stalemate went on for several days before the shrink dropped the ultimatum. I wouldn't be released until the shrink was sure that I wouldn't just go home and end myself as soon as I was set loose. Faced with no other alternative, I grudgingly accepted that I had to tell the doctor something to get her off my case. Once I started, I couldn't stop, and I found myself revealing to her things I never thought I would tell anybody. In the end, I wound up telling her about the visions, the ghosts of memory that refused to die and eventually pushed me over the edge.

The worst days were when the past bled through, lending the present a darker hue. My breaking point had come as one of these suffusions, as the shadows of the past fell upon the present, casting a nightmare tint over the world. I was beginning to discern the differences now, able to recognize the way the shadows were a little off from the rest of the world.

I'd been walking through the market on a warm spring day, one of the few times that I'd felt something even close to happiness in the months I'd been in this town. Merchants haggled with customers, the clouds floated carelessly across the sky, and there was laughter coming from across the square. The breeze carried the scent of trash...the scent of baked goods, not trash. I could feel the panic in me begin to rise as the memories threatened to break through. I looked for a way out of the market, a way to escape before the panic took hold. The streets were packed with ponies, their colorful shemahgs darting this way and that. The market stalls crowded the sides of the street, creating narrow passages and choke points. I began to push my way through the crowd, earning several angry grunts in marabic. The mud brick walls seemed to be closing in, funneling me. My heart beat began to spike as the yelling in marabic intensified. A nearby mosque began to toll its bells. The blazing desert sun beat down upon me, the dusty breeze carrying the scent of trash to my nostrils.

The ponies dropped to their knees as they turned to the mosque. Nearby, the sound of a wagon traversing the cobblestone echoed like the staccato bark of gunfire splitting the air. Ponies began to drop in spurts of blood and dust as the rounds tore at flesh and stone alike. As the screams rose from the injured and dying, I dove behind the nearest cover, a fruit stand. Less cover than concealment, it should at least catch the ricochets as I planned my escape. I located an alley across the street, one that would provide better cover and possible exfiltration routes. Why had I not scouted this out and made a plan before now? Where the hell was my weapon, my armor? Or, for that matter, my squad? The chatter of the machine gun died as they reloaded, and I sprinted across the open ground of the kill zone, shoulder checking anypony in my way. I heard the snap of rounds chewing at the ground behind me, and I leaped into the alley and rolled to a stop. Angry voices rose from behind me, the murderers refusing to let a survivor escape. I heard hooves closing in, and I turned and sprinted away.

I leaped over trashcans, barrelling around corners blindly as the voices echoed off of the walls around me. I turned another corner and spied the open air beyond, pouring on more speed as I tried to get out of the line of fire before my pursuers rounded the corner. A loud clatter arose from behind me, a mixture of a trashcan being kicked over and the chatter of an automatic weapon. Ahead of me, two bucks moved in to block my path, having heard the commotion coming from the alley. I hoped that the bullets flying past me would strike these two idiots before I did, saving me the precious seconds it would take to get around them. No such luck.

I tackled the smaller one at full speed, sending him sprawling into the street with a shocked look on his face. I was pretty sure I'd gotten a mild sprain in my shoulder from that, but I didn't feel it yet. I kicked blindly out at the pony behind me, feeling my buck connect solidly with the pony. I rolled to my hooves and began to sprint away as fast as I could, feeling my old shoulder injury begin to flare. I needed to escape fast, or I wouldn't be escaping at all. Ahead of me, a mare shrieked in fright.

The desert village disappeared in the blink of an eye, the small town of Fetlock taking its place as the flashback faded. All around me, I heard nervous whispering and a pitiful moan. My heart filled with dread as I turned to the ponies I'd just blitzed through. The one I'd tackled, a young buck with a deep blue coat, was lying on his side and cradling his shoulder. He was the one moaning in pain. Lying at the mouth of the alley where he'd fallen was the other buck, a slightly older pony with a light orange coat. He was not moving, lying in a puddle of his own blood that streamed from his shattered nose. Beside him, a mare stood in shock as she looked down at the unconscious form. Silence reigned in the street, broken only by the moan of the injured buck and a choking sound coming from the mare by the alley. Then the screaming started.

The Survivor

The days dragged on and on, and I counted a full week's passage since my arrival in the ward. Nurse Candlelight had become a frequent visitor, stopping in several times per day to chat and generally just see how I was doing. The annoyance I'd felt at her constant presence was beginning to fade, serving now more as a distraction than a bother. Having exhausted her questions about my life and its every detail, the questions invariably turned towards her. I found it simultaneously amusing and strange that this mare would ask a question to herself in the third pony, and then proceed to answer it. Strange as it was, it served its purpose. Her questions and answers were moderately interesting, and they prompted me to ask questions of my own, on occasion. Partially, this was because I was genuinely curious about some aspect of her life, but more importantly, it served to keep the boredom at bay.

Her father was a branch manager at a bank in Manehattan, and her mother was a district manager at a competing bank. The way that she'd told the story, you'd think it was some sort of romanticized cloak-and-dagger affair out of a cheesy romance novel, instead of a couple adults meeting for lunch. Overblown and overwrought, but I'll be damned if it wasn't interesting. She'd wanted to be a nurse since she was little, bandaging her stuffed animals and treating their "wounds". Through high school and then college, she had taken every bit of medical training she could get, becoming one of only a dozen or so ponies in her class to graduate as a fully certified nurse. She was the youngest of two, with her brother being about five years older than she. He had joined six years ago, eager to do great things for his country and his Princesses. Three years ago, when he was only a month away from the end of his deployment, his platoon was manning a COP in the mountains when it was overrun. They had fought tooth and nail to drive the invaders back, but their success came with a terrible cost. Nearly a quarter of the platoon had died, her brother among them.

I'd heard about this ambush in what came to be known as death valley. I'd read the articles in the papers, and I had the good fortune to meet one of the survivors. Every soldier had fought heroically, and those who had died had died as heroes. To nurse Candlelight, he'd always been a hero. She didn't need a newspaper or a medal to prove that to her. She had loved her brother immensely, and she carried a picture of him around her neck inside of a small golden locket. When she pulled it out and showed it to me, I felt strangely honored. This locket was her most prized possession, and I didn't need her to tell me to figure it out. On the one side of the locket was a photo of her brother in his dress uniform, looking sharp and every bit as professional as you would expect him to. On the other side of the locket, there was a small piece of paper, crumpled and tattered behind the glass. My curiosity getting the best of me, I couldn't help but ask what it was that was deemed worthy of sharing a locket with her brother.

"Nurse? What's that scrap of paper in there?"

She stiffened right up at that, and I sensed I might have hit a raw nerve. Taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly, she calmed herself before she answered.

"It's not a scrap, it is very important to me... It's the last letter he wrote to me before he died. He sent me a beautiful pair of jade earrings in a cardboard box he saved from his meal, with this inside of it. All it says is 'I thought you might like these. I love you, and I'll be home soon.' And he was, just like he said he would be. Only... he was in a box with a flag draped over it."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know..."

"I know you didn't, it's okay. It's a sensitive subject for me, and I tend to react strongly whenever it comes up. I think he would have liked you, you're every bit as stubborn as he was."

I met her with a deadpan expression. "I'm not stubborn, I just know when I'm right."

She grinned at me, a gesture I met with a frown. This mare frustrated me more than I cared to admit, and I still found her pretty annoying with her constant questions and stories and such... and yet, I almost felt sad whenever she left. It was probably due to the fact that, as much as I liked to be alone, I was getting sick and tired of being alone in here. Yeah, that was it. It had to be. The conversation was halting, advancing in short bursts as she told a story, though it invariably was met by silence. After Candlelight left that day, I found myself lost in memories that I usually kept locked up tight, afraid of where they might lead. I remembered the day I'd met the survivor of the death valley massacre, so vividly that I could feel the heat and smell the exhaust fumes...

I was only an hour into my shift in the strongpoint, monitoring comms as one of our patrols conducted dismounted operations in a nearby village. There was a burst of static on the net, followed by the unmistakable sound of gunfire.

"ANY STATION THIS NET, ANY STATION THIS NET, THIS IS COMANCHE TWO-CHARLIE AT COP THURGOOD! WE ARE TAKING HEAVY CONTACT FROM ALL SIDES, REQUEST IMMEDIATE AIR SUPPORT! I SAY AGAIN, WE ARE TAKING HEAVY CONTACT FROM ALL SIDES, REQUEST IMMEDIATE AIRSUPPORT! SEND IN AN AIR WEAPONS TEAM, WE'RE BEING OVERRUN!"

Another burst of static and the net went quiet. I sat in the sudden quiet for a second as the gravity of the situation sunk in. Our sister company Comanche was stationed at Thurgood, and they were being overrun. A second later I was on the net, calling up the command element to relay the message.

"Headhunter X-ray, this is Destroyer two-bravo! I have an urgent message, over!"

"Two-bravo, this is X-ray. Send it, over."

"X-ray, two-bravo. We have an urgent request for support from COP Thurgood, break. They're requesting an alpha-whiskey-tango, time now, break. Say they're being overrun. How copy? Over."

"Two-bravo, this is X-ray. Did you say being overrun? Over."

"X-ray, two-bravo. Roger, over."

"Two-bravo, roger, winding up the QRF time: now. Air support will be underway in ten mikes, estimated thirty mikes time on target. How copy? Over."

"X-ray, two-bravo. Good copy, I'll try and raise them on the net again, over."

"Two-bravo, roger, what freq did they hail on? Over."

"X-ray, two-bravo. Freq is seven niner fife, how copy? Over."

"Two-bravo, I copy seven niner fife, over."

"X-ray, two-bravo. Good copy, over."

"Roger two-bravo. Radio in any updates. X-ray out."

As soon as the command element terminated the call, I was right back on the net as I recalled the patrol to the strongpoint. The next fifteen minutes were passed in agonizing silence as I looked toward the general location of Thurgood. In twenty five minutes, those colts would have all of the firepower they needed. An air weapons team was a wing of heavily armed and armored pegasi, sporting mechanical augmentation that allowed them to fly faster and with more payload. Generally, this payload was about three thousand rounds of enchanted APIAP, or armor-piercing-incendiary-anti-pony rounds, as well as two dozen rockets. All they needed to do was hold on for twenty five minutes, and they would be able to turn the tide. Ten minutes into the silence, the radio chirped again; what came from the static made my blood run cold.

"NOVEMBER NOVEMBER NOVEMBER! WE ARE OVERRUN, I SAY AGAIN WE ARE OVERRUN! BREAKING CONTACT AND MOVING TO RALLYPOINT DELT--" The transmission was severed abruptly by a burst of static, and nothing but static laden silence answered my hail.

The air support arrived five minutes earlier than expected due to a tailwind, but they were still too late. They reported a large number of enemy soldiers moving across the mountainside, who were engaged and destroyed. Seeing no sign of the guards who'd been protecting the COP, the air weapons team returned to base to refuel and refit. The next hours passed in somber silence, each of us sending our prayers to the Princesses for those that died and praying that we'd not meet the same fate. The silence was broken again near the end of my shift, a static filled transmission piercing the air.

"Any station this net, any station this net: this is Comanche one-delta, please respond, over."

I snatched up the mike, my hooves shaking as I keyed up.

"Comanche one-delta, this is Destroyer two-bravo. Send it, over."

"Roger two-delta, I have a nine-line medivac request, over."

I scrambled for a scrap of paper and a pencil to copy with, hopping back on the net as soon as I did.

"Roger, send it."

The request was pretty standard for the first two lines, just location and call sign. The third line, while anticipated, still made me sick to hear.

"Line tree: fife bravo, one eight charlie, seven echo, break."

Line three was for the number of patients by category, with brevity codes for the severity. Translated, this meant five urgent surgical, eighteen priority, and seven convenience. Urgent surgical was loss of life, limb or eyesight within two hours, priority was within four hours, and convenience was basically saying "pick us up whenever possible". As the medevac request was concluded and I briefed back what I'd copied, I asked why there were seven echo priorities. The response was one I should have seen coming.

"They aren't getting any deader."

The next five hours were a blur of activity as choppers flew in and out of our COP as the dead and wounded were gathered, stabilized, and readied for transport. I spoke with Comanche one-delta, who was none other than Staff Sergeant Deadshot, one of our batallion's best shots. When I asked him about what had happened, he replied with a haunted look as he described the bedlam that had come down upon them. Mortars, rockets, grenades, sniper fire, and heavy crew-served weapons had been brought to bear in a highly coordinated complex attack against the COP. His guards had fought valiantly, repelling wave after wave of enemy forces. Despite being shot numerous times, peppered by shrapnel and concussed by the explosions, they fought bravely on. As the COP was being overrun, the enemy had tried to drag away some of the dead or wounded. One guard, Sergeant Candlelight, had charged the three enemy with nothing but a sidearm and a knife across ten meters of open ground. He killed the three enemies and then dragged their would-be trophy back across the kill zone, taking heavy fire as he did so. Mortally wounded, he still managed to return to cover with the dead guard before he succumbed to his own wounds.

Over the next week, more and more reports came through about the heroism of all involved in the attacks. One guard threw himself on top of a grenade, saving his entire team from the blast at the cost of his own life. Another had picked up a grenade and lobbed it back by hoof, losing most of his arm as the grenade exploded just after release. A guard had manned the heavy machine gun in the turret of his vehicle without regard for the hail of bullets cracking off the armor around him as he laid down withering suppressive fire. I remembered the reports of heroism and bravery under fire, and the way they inspired and humbled me. I remember wishing to the stars and then vowing to myself that if ever my mettle were tested in such a fashion, that I would respond with the same level of commitment to my brethren as those brave souls had.

It was as these memories played in my mind that I found sleep, mercifully devoid of dreams.

The morning came as peacefully as any I could remember, with not even a trace of a nightmare lingering in my mind. I had not been chased from the realms of slumber by vivid memories of death and dying, but rather by the click of the door latch as it opened, admitting nurse Candlelight and a tray of food.

"Good morning, Blaze. How did you sleep?"

Perhaps it was the fact that I'd slept better than I had in years, or maybe I was actually learning how to tolerate being around ponies again. Regardless of the cause, the effect was that I found myself actually smiling at the mare before I caught myself and scowled.

"Bah. I've had worse."

Any effect that my scowl might have had was thoroughly outmatched by my smile prior. Nurse Candle rump had seen a crack in my armor, and that was all she needed. She smiled at me with an almost predatory air as she tried to draw me out from behind my grumpy facade. In half an hour's time, she'd succeeded in not only making me smile, but in making me laugh as well. The feeling of laughter was an alien one to me, and it was cut off prematurely as the awkwardness stuck me. My reticence was short lived however, and Candlelight soon had me laughing again. A host of strange emotions were in turmoil within me. Aside from the odd feeling of my own laughter, there was another sensation that I could not quite place, one that grew stronger when I was near Candlelight.

The days wore on and on, and it was rapidly approaching a month since I'd been hospitalized. The combination of regular meals, medication, counseling, and friendly conversation was bringing about a strong change within me. More often than not, I would sleep peacefully throughout the night in a dreamless slumber. On a few occasions, I had even had pleasant dreams, something I'd thought I'd lost forever on a mountaintop half a world away. As my mind started to wander back to that nightmarish canyon of death and chaos, my pulse picked up and my breathing got shallow. I knew enough to know that there was a flashback coming on, and that it would be a bad one. I could almost feel the roar of the artillery as it tore through the skies, bearing down on me with the intent of reducing me to paste where I stood. The roar was growing louder in my mind, so loud that there was no way that I was the only one to hear it, the scream of the reaper as he bore down to collect the damned, to collect me...

I felt a gentle hoof come to rest on my right wrist, and my head swiveled with frightening speed to identify it as friend or foe. The pale hoof did not recoil in the slightest at my sudden movement, and I recognized it immediately. With that one touch, Nurse Candlelight set off a series of events within me. First and most importantly, she brought my mind back from that blasted hellscape it had wandered into. The rest of the events were subtler, but no less important. My pulse continued to pound as my breathing stayed rapid, but the dryness in my throat and the heat on my face was new. My mind was going a thousand clicks an hour and there was a feeling in my chest that was both intimately familiar and entirely alien at the same time. Panic had my heart in an icy grip, but I couldn't figure out why as my mind pulled itself in a hundred directions at once. Looking up from the hoof, I felt myself being pulled into a trap as my eyes made their way up the nurse's scrubs to meet Candlelight's own.

Our eyes met, and that was the end of it. An unseen but undeniable bolt of energy arced between us, short circuiting my brain and banishing all thought. In the space that was usually occupied by thoughts and calculations, there was a vacuum waiting to be filled. Impressions and half formed musings flowed in, filling the void with disjointed images and feelings. The void was dominated by the same golden orbs that created it, those magnificent eyes that sparkled with the light of the morning as is filtered past the curtains. I felt a warmth spreading throughout me, driving away a cold I hadn't known existed. Contented feelings welled up within me only to be smote by warring facets of hope and fear. Fear, my constant companion for many years, was under brutal assault from hope, a feeling that I had beat down whenever it dared to show its face. Hope had once been my armor against the world, allowing me to make it through the dark patches in my life. Now, it was nothing to me but a gateway to disappointment, whereas fear had kept me alert and alive.

A knock on the door drew away the golden gaze that had captivated me, and a flood of thought surged through my mind and carried away all of the feelings and impressions, save for two. The enchanting golden stare that had me spellbound and a feeling of confusion as to the meaning of the battle between hope and fear were all that remained. The door opened as the two large orderlies stepped through, ushering me to yet another meeting with the shrink. As we made our way through the halls, I was on autopilot while my mind focused on other things, things that happened to be radiant and golden. I was brought back to reality quite abruptly as I tried to make the turn to the shrink's office and was met by the shoulder of one of my escorts, redirecting me down an unfamiliar corridor. My questions were met with stony silence, further disconcerting me. Turning the corner, I caught a glimpse of a pale shade of a pony trailing us. Wherever we were headed, Candlelight was bringing up the rear; the caboose on this crazy train.

The next twenty minutes were a blur of papers and ponies, from which I gathered that I was being released back into the civilian population as I signed waiver after waiver. Two glass doors and a lobby later, and I was blinking in the sunlight and feeling the breeze tousle my mane. The openness of the street immediately hit me, reminding me that I was too far away from cover or concealment. As I began to back up to get closer to the building, I was interrupted by a body colliding with mine. Whirling about in shock, I was just in time to see Candlelight go sprawling to the cobblestones from the impact. Her expression clearly indicated that she hadn't expected my sudden reversal, and I was suddenly ashamed that I'd knocked her over. Extending a hoof to help her off the ground, I almost recoiled as her hoof brushed mine. That same unseen energy arced between us once more, fading just as quickly as it had come. The event was over in a split second, and she seemed not to notice the jolt as she grasped my hoof and allowed herself to be pulled upright. I marveled at how light she was and how soft her hooves were for the perhaps half a second that it took for her to regain her upright position.

She coughed a little awkwardly and brushed herself off before looking up at me and favoring me with a bashful smile. "Thanks for the hoof" was all she said.

Still feeling embarrassed for knocking her over, I mumbled an apology and rubbed my neck before being struck by a thought. "So, what are you doing out here? I figured you'd be working inside or something."

She smiled and nodded. "Nope, not today. I was filling in for a friend of mine for a couple hours, but she's here now so I'm available now."

Something about the way she said the word "available" struck me as strange, but I paid it no heed. Musing over what I was going to do on my first day of freedom, I mumbled a distracted "oh, that's cool."

Not one to be so easily put off, Candlelight asked a question eerily similar to the one I'd just asked myself. "So, Tim. What are our plans for today?"

Caught off guard as I was, I merely mumbled the first thing that came to my mind, which just happened to be the truth.

"Well, I'm going to need to buy food and alcohol."

Though she scowled somewhat at the alcohol bit, her eyes lit up with joy. "Oh, excellent! Mind if I join you? I need to stop at the market too, and maybe we can grab lunch together?"

Her inquisitive tone was masking something, and whatever it was took apparent delight skirting the edges of my comprehension. When I nodded, she clapped her hooves together with a decidedly feminine squeal, smiling broadly. As we set off to the market, she fell into place at my side and immediately launched into conversation. I was abruptly struck by exactly how much I had changed as I realized that I no longer found her constant chatter to be grating on my nerves as it once did. In fact, if I was entirely honest with myself, I somewhat enjoyed her banter. I smiled to myself as we strode into the market.

Two weeks. It had been two weeks since I'd left the Facility, and in that time a great many things had happened. Things were the same, but different. For one, Nurse Candlelight and I were spending a good amount of time together, just as we had towards the end of my stay in the Facility. What had changed about it was the way she now insisted I call her by her first name, Grace. She, in turn, addressed me as Timber, or more commonly, Tim. While I had to admit that I was somewhat pleased at this, it was still awkward at first as I tried to adjust to the new name. But, adjust I did, and soon her name felt more natural than my own first name. We began to spend a bit more time together, occasionally sharing meals at Grace's house or at a restaurant in the market.

To support the increased intake of food, we found ourselves making more frequent trips to the market. Being around high concentrations of ponies made the flashbacks worse, but with Grace by my side I was able to manage them. Whenever something would start to trigger one she would see the change in me, and with a gentle nudge or a whispered word, she would calm my fears. Everything went well, and I hadn't had an episode in the market since my release. I was actually beginning to remember what "normal" was, not that I was anywhere near what could be considered normal. But at least I had a point of reference now, which was more than I'd had in years.

Yeah, I guess you could say that things were finally starting to look up, taking a turn for the better. For the first two weeks, anyway.

Ghosts never die

That day started out the same as most since my release. Wake up, drink coffee, eat whatever is within reach, and wait. Checking the calendar that had shown up on my wall at some point, I noted that today was Saturday, and that I despised this calendar and every one of the sickeningly adorable kittens it contained. From the front of the house, there came the sound of a door opening, followed by dainty steps and an endearingly too-chipper voice.

"Good morning, Tim." Grace all but sang the greeting, earning a grumble from me as she made her way to the dining room. She could tell I was smiling even before she rounded the corner, and she met my grin with one of her own. While her smile could light up a room, it was her eyes that never failed to capture my attention, arresting me as the golden orbs sparked a twinge of fear in me. It had been two weeks since that first spark, and without fail, I felt that same twinge whenever our eyes met. I couldn't place it, didn't understand it, and was frustrated by it. Seeing the cloud passing across my expression, Grace momentarily looked concerned.

"Tim? Are you feeling well?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. I'm fine, just distracted is all." I punctuated my answer with a shrug for good measure. Apparently satisfied, Grace was once again nothing but smiles as she poked and prodded me to the door, eager to get the day started. Everything was almost normal, or at least what I would consider normal. We stepped out into the late morning sunlight, striking up an idle conversation as we made our way to the market. A month ago, it was rare for me to say more than ten words in a day. And here I was, chatting up a pretty mare as if it was natural. That thought stuck into my consciousness like a thorn the second it was formed. Pretty? When did I start to think Grace was pretty? I was unable to find an answer that satisfied me, but I couldn't deny that she was. You know, once you got used to the incessant chatter and entirely too-perky disposition, that is. At any rate, the last two weeks had been... nice. I had a friend now, one who helped keep the terror away and helped me feel... not crazy. It was a good feeling.

That day, despite its innocent beginnings, was about to become one of the worst I'd had since my return. It all started outside of the massage parlor, after Grace had finally concluded that I could not, in fact, be persuaded to indulge in any sort of spa treatment. It had taken ten minutes of stalwart refusal on my part, but my unwavering refusal finally sunk in as she went inside alone, leaving me a promise that she would meet me out front of the spa in half an hour. Having absolutely nothing better to do and not wanting to interact with anypony else, I sat down outside the spa to wait for her. Fetlock may technically have been part of Manehattan, but it was a world away from the hustle and bustle of the city proper. For many long minutes, I simply sat in the shade and watched life go on around me. Sky carriages passed overhead, destined for the central hub in the heart of the city.

At the sound of a carriage passing, its wooden wheels rattling loudly across the cobblestone street caused my heart rate to pick up. I found myself suddenly missing Grace and her soothing touch. There arose suddenly a clamor from down the street, culminating in a series of loud pops. My pulse skyrocketed as my blood ran cold, deeply buried memories fighting their way to the surface. Turning, I saw conflicting images. There had been a cart wreck at the intersection down the street, and the loud pops had been the snapping of spokes. The dusty wind swirled about me, and the cart wreck was replaced by a scene from my nightmares.

The cart had refused to stop at the checkpoint I was manning, even after I'd yelled and raised my weapon. Still they came, refusing to slow, so I fired at the stallion driving. I fired as quickly as I could while aiming, and I kept pulling the trigger until the cart came to a screeching halt. The driver was slumped at the reigns, a pool of blood spreading out from his still form.

From down the street there came the perfect echo of the past, in all of its terrible glory.

From the cart, there rose the sound of a foal crying.

No. No no no no. I have to leave, have to leave right now, before... No!

Before I knew it, I was on my hooves and careening through the crowd, brushing them aside and drawing a number of angry shouts in my wake. I just needed to get away, needed to outrun the ghosts of the past. A hoof grabbed me roughly by the shoulder and spun me around. An instant before I lashed out at my attacker, I was struck by a pair of golden eyes, my blow stayed by the sight. Those glorious eyes were brimming with tears of fear and concern, a sight that stirred a familiar protective urge along with the spark of fear. My body shook, my heart was racing, and I was sucking in air like it was going out of style. I stumbled into an alley and leaned against the wall before sinking into a sitting position. Staring at the ground and taking deep, steady breaths, I managed to bring my heart rate down to something less than a breakneck pace. A pale hoof found its way to my shoulder, gently stroking and offering comfort.

It was several long minutes of silence before I looked up from the floor of the alley, finding a familiar set of eyes looking at me with deep concern.

"Tim? Are you okay? What happened back there?" Her voice was as soft as her touch, and her concern was genuine. She was not asking me this as Nurse Candlelight, but as my friend Grace. I took a deep, shuddering breath before responding.

"I... I was having a flashback. Or, starting to have one. I tried to get away before it got bad... that was the worst."

"A flashback? What was the worst?"

"That memory... it's the worst one." My voice was low, my words were methodical.

Far off, somepony started screaming. I shook my head, clearing my head before retuning my gaze to Grace's. Her concerned stare hadn't faded, but it now bore elements of compassion.

"Would it help if you talked about it?"

I shook my head dismissively. "No, I wouldn't want to burden anypony else with it. It... it's terrible."

Grace just squeezed my shoulder reassuringly. "I'm stronger than I look. I'm willing to take some of the burden, if you're willing to let a friend help you."

Internally, I was conflicted. I wanted to get it off of my chest, to have one less thing eating me alive in the darkest hours of the night. At the same time, there was a reason I'd kept it to myself... this was no happy story, there was no faerie tale ending. After a moment of struggle, I came to a radical conclusion; I would trust Grace. If she thought she could handle it, I would share my burden of guilt.

"Okay Grace. I'll talk about it. I feel... I feel like maybe talking about it will help. Just be ready for it, it isn't a happy memory."

Her mouth was a thin line of grim determination, her entire demeanor lying somewhere between reverence and trepidation. She simply nodded to me, tracking a seat in the alley directly in front of me.

I took another deep breath to steel myself, beginning the story. "So there I was..."

Saddle Arabia, three years prior

I was sleeping up against the earthen wall that surrounded our compound, one of the few places you could find shade at high noon. While there were sandbag bunkers made specifically to be used as sleep areas, the lack of any airflow at all made them feel more like an oven than anything else, and it was usually cooler outside. Sleeping as well as one possibly could while wearing full combat load in the middle of the desert, I was awoken abruptly by somepony kicking my foot. Without bothering to crack an eye to investigate, I grumbled at whoever had kicked me.

"Twitch, so help me Luna, if you came over here to complain about how hot it is again, I will personally cram your ass into the one-five-five and send you to the moon."

A gruff voice, most certainly not belonging to Twitch, answered.

"Oh yeah? You can try, if you're feeling froggy."

My eyes snapped open as I hopped to parade rest, catching sight of the gleam in Sarge's eye. "My bad, Sarge. Thought you were Twitch."

He chuckled a bit as he told me to relax. "No shit. You've got ECP guard in ten mikes. Get moving."

Snagging my helmet from where I'd been using it as a pillow, I took off at a fast walk while fastening the chin strap. Of all the things I had to do on FOB Maple Leaf, entry control point guard was my least favorite, with the exception of shit detail. Burning turds was worse than being stuck in a smelly shack for four hours, but only just. I made it with only a few minutes to spare, relieving the current guard and taking my place in the hot box. The duty was neither complex nor labor intensive, but it carried a much more sinister threat. The gate was a common target for carriages laden with explosives as the enemy tried to breach the perimeter. There was nothing but one guard, a machine gun, and a hundred meters of open space between the actual gate and any would-be CBIEDs.

Carriage borne improvised explosive devices, CBIEDs (pronounced see-bids) were a rare but exceptionally powerful weapon that the enemy used from time to time. The amount of explosives they could pack into one of those things was more than enough to make my head spin, and I'd seen for myself what one could do. I was in a convoy that was hit by a small one, and even that had knocked out three of our vehicles and left a two meter deep crater in the street. And here I was, sitting in a plywood and sandbag shack that might as well have a bulls-eye on it. Starting to see why I hated it so much?

I'd made it through the first hour of my shift without incident, and I even had the luxury of a friendly pet scorpion to entertain me. I'm joking, he was a spiteful little bastard, but he was entertaining anyways. A dust trail coming from the road let me know that I had company inbound. I checked the schedule to see if we were expecting any deliveries and found none, though this didn't mean much. Those things were never right, and couldn't predict the way the locals would sometimes come up to the gate to sell food or bootleg movies. The carriage barreling towards me wasn't one of the local's, and it was going much faster than the posted speed limit. My pulse began to race as I took my place behind the ma deuce and gave the sign for stop.

The carriage didn't slow at all. I fired a warning shot into the dirt just in front of it, but again to no effect. The first whiff of cordite stung my nostrils as my heart beat against my breast. The acrid smell was the catalyst, the last bit of the puzzle that flipped a switch in my head. As the adrenaline poured into my blood, time slowed to a crawl. I aligned my sights and fired five rounds into the driver with a practiced, almost mechanical precision. I'd scored several hits, but he was still careening towards the gate. I needed to stop this thing before it got any closer to my family, my brothers in arms. I began to fire in bursts, stopping slowing my fire only long enough to make sure I was on target before reengaging. In my hooves, the weapon roared and kicked, spewing death. The cart suddenly swerved into the center divider, coming to a screeching halt only fifty meters away from me in a plume of dust. Even from that distance, I could see the blood beginning to spread. My rifle still drawn, I ignored the procedures and advanced on the vehicle. I was perhaps ten meters away when I first heard it.

From somewhere in the vehicle, a foal's cry rang out, full of pain and fear. The driver was undeniably dead, so I moved around to the side to check the passenger cabin. Looking in through a window that had been shattered by one of my rounds, I saw something I'll never forget. Buckets and buckets of homemade explosives were stacked there, all wired together with a large battery. Chained down on top of the buckets was a colt, not even old enough to have a mark, and a mare wearing a traditional veil. The colt was missing a chunk of his leg where one of my rounds had struck, and the mare had several ragged holes in her torso that leaked bright red blood. I took all of this in within a fraction of a second as my adrenaline kicked in and time slowed down. The mare coughed up blood, sending a spray out of her mouth and several of the holes in her chest. She leaned forward against her chains, reaching for a little black box resting against one of the buckets. The box had one button and a wire leading from it, and it didn't take a genius to divine its purpose.

"And then the colt cried out to me. He reached out to me, begging me to help him. But I didn't. I turned and ran for all I was worth. I jumped over the barrier and hit the dirt, crawling away. I don't remember the blast, I only remember hitting the ground and skipping like a rock. The father had been blackmailed into attacking our position, and he decided to take his wife and son with him. Earlier, in front of the spa, it all came back. The popping, the crash, and the cries... it all fit. It took my back to that instant."

Grace had been sitting in silence as I relived the traumatic memory, her shock and sadness becoming more prominent as the story wound on. As I finished, she sort of nodded before asking the question I had asked myself a million times since then.

"Is there anything you could have done differently?"

I merely shook my head, letting my gaze fall to the litter strewn alley. "Some days, I think that if I had to do it all again, I would have held his hoof. He wouldn't have gone alone."

Grace almost jumped at me as I spoke, a fierce look in her eyes as she stared into mine, looking through me. "Don't say that. If you did that, I never would have met you, and we never would have made each other smile like we do. I... I like you, and it hurts me when you talk about killing yourself or wishing you were dead."

"I don't really feel that way anymore, not for a while at least. You're my only friend, Grace." I sighed. "Before you, I had nothing. My family wants nothing to do with me, and I don't play nicely with others. Honestly, you're the best thing in my life right now."

The weight of my words was becoming apparent as I spoke, but I had to continue. Seeing the hope in her eyes just made me feel terrible, reminding me of why I hated that stupid feeling. I could never let myself get close to anypony, not after all I'd been through. I'd been hurt too many times, had built up too many walls to let anypony in anymore. If I was to let myself get close to somepony and lost another I cared about, that'd be the end of me.

"Grace, you're my best friend, and I wouldn't let anything come between what we have."

She initially looked a little confused and a bit hurt, but she very quickly hid these feelings under a smile. She leaned in for a hug, but I recoiled from it.

"Uh, yeah. I don't do the whole touchy-feely thing, Grace. Nothing against you, it's just not something I'm comfortable with."

The hurt and confusion returned, and this time they stayed. In an effort to find some sort of physical contact that I was comfortable with, she held out her hoof for a hoofbump. I tapped hers with mine, drawing a large smile from the light orange mare. Her perkiness restored to its former glory, she suggested that we go get lunch together, something that my stomach readily agreed to. I stood up, turning to offer her a helping hoof. She smiled wider, pulling herself up to her hooves and dusting herself off.

Later that night, long after Grace and I had parted ways, I was sitting in my dining room with a bottle of Applejack Daniel's and a lot on my mind. I was starting to like Grace, and that was bad. I didn't want to like Grace, because I was afraid of growing close to her and then losing her. On the flip side of the coin, I almost felt like I needed her. Since she'd come into my life, I couldn't deny that I'd been happier than ever before, finally able to feel normal again. I hated myself a bit for this. What the fuck was wrong with me that I needed somepony else just to get through the day? Why couldn't I just stallion the fuck up and move on? In the back of my mind, I heard the traitorous voice of hope whispering to me.

It's been so long since I've felt this happy. Maybe this is my chance to finally come home. I've got a cute mare who cares about me, who helps drive away the demons in the night. Maybe we could settle down, get married, have a family together. We could be happy.

Happy? Happy doesn't apply to me, not after what I've seen and done. I don't deserve a family, don't deserve love. Grace is nice, too nice for me. I'm nothing but a ball of nightmares and violence, I could never deserve her. She doesn't deserve somepony like me, she deserves so much better.

But I like her, and I'm pretty sure she likes me too. She seems willing to take me as I am, flaws and all. Luna knows how much I treasure the peace she brings me, and she's always smiling when she's around me. Why can't I just be happy?

Because I am damned for my sins. Happiness is not mine to have. The thought of caring about her, that she might matter to me... it scares me. I can't lose anypony else, I can't. I have almost nothing left, and if I were to lose her too, then I'd lose myself as well. I'm scared for myself, and I'm scared for her. She has no idea how deep this box of crazy goes. Not like it matters anyways, because I can't trust her, not in the way I should. I will always have doubts, and that's not fair to her or me.

And I won't even try? What the hell kind of excuse is that? I might be a box of crazy, but she cares, dammit. I want to like her, I want to be reminded how it feels to love, to be loved. I might be damned, but she could be the redemption I've sought. I need to try.

No. I won't drag her down with me, that's final. I need to drive her away from me before I can hurt her. I need her to hate me, to see what's best for her. I hate myself for having to do this, but it has to be this way.

I'm a monster.

Falling Skies

I woke up, severely hung over. There arose a terrible banging sound from somewhere in the house, followed by the crash of a door being kicked in. Still drunk from the night before, I couldn't make myself care that my home was being invaded. Instead, I grabbed the half-empty bottle of whiskey and cradled it. They could take anything they wanted, but the whiskey was mine. There arose some unholy shrieking from the hallway, followed by a terrible banging noise headed towards the kitchen. It sounded like the world was coming to an end in my dining room as the shriek sounded once more. It sounded vaguely familiar, but I wasn't able to pin it down. The banging noise began to head towards my bedroom, the shriek piercing the silence again. It almost sounded like my name... my door crashed inwards in slow motion as the orange demon made its entrance. Each hoof fall echoed like a gunshot in my head, the shrieking noise threatening to split my head like a melon. A blur of movement as the orange thing advanced on me with terrible speed, coming to rest just in front of me. Terrible golden lights bored into my skull through my eyes, sending a shock through my system.

Wait. Golden orbs. Orange demon. Calling my name. Grace?

Cracking open eyes which had crusted shut, I took a better look at the creature next to me. Yeah, it was Grace, but she looked funny. Why were there two of her? Oh, wait... never mind, I was still drunk. As my brain started to function again, my ears started to make sense of the shrieking noise. She was calling my name, asking if I was okay. I raised a hoof to shush her, allowing my precious bottle to clatter to the floor. She saw it, and then everything devolved into a blur of movement, noises, painful lights, water, and finally coffee. By the time everything stopped spinning, I had a pretty good idea what had happened. Seeing me in such a sorry drunken state, Grace had dragged me out of the bed and chucked me into a cold shower to sober me up. It had worked somewhat, and I was feeling only slightly buzzed as I downed my coffee. Sitting at the dining room table with the empty shot glasses scattered about, my resolution from the night before came ringing in my ears.

I felt nausea rising in me, not entirely the byproduct of my binge drinking. As I thought about what I was about to do, I felt emotionally sick. I loathed what I was preparing to say to Grace. She's a nice mare, and she didn't deserve what I was about to say to her, but it was the only way to drive her away. This would hurt less than a lifetime with me. It was for her own good. She was in the midst of a halfhearted lecture about alcohol abuse when I interrupted her. Her little half-smile that she'd worn as she lectured me was soon wiped away.

"Oh my Luna, do you ever shut up? Seems like all you ever do is yammer on about some idiotic thing or another. Is it too much to ask for some peace and fucking quiet?"

Dead silence was the only response. I grimaced, the way I'd just spoken to her had actually caused me a physical discomfort. Grace's smile became a mask of shock and then one of deep hurt, her lips drawn into a thin line as she fought tears. A moment later she spoke up, her voice cracked with emotion.

"Timber Blaze. You might be hungover, but that was very rude and hurtful, and I want an apology."

Dear Luna, please forgive me for what I am about to say.

"Apology? Fuck that. How about you apologize to me for raping my ears with your stupidity? I've been trying to get away from you ever since I met you, but here you are."

I wanted to die right then. I hated myself more than I thought possible for what I was doing to Grace, for making her cry. I felt my emotions writhing within me, threatening to spill over and wash away my resolve. Silently, I begged her to leave. Just leave before it gets worse, before my resolve fails me. Before I decide to ruin your life by becoming part of it.

Please, just leave.

Tears ran down her face and her voice cracked. I felt my anger building as I raged against myself. She spoke up very softly, though her tone was unwavering; her message was a bar of iron wrapped in silk.

"I don't know what's gotten into you today, but you are not the Tim that I know. The Tim I know could never be so cruel. He made me laugh, not cry. What happened to my Tim?"

This was it. I was breaking under the strain, tearing myself apart from the inside out at what I was doing. If I didn't end this now, I would crumble. Taking the self loathing and hatred from deep inside me, I vented it onto the pony who deserved it least.

Luna, please understand why I do this. I know I won't live through the night, so please enfold me into your bosom, have mercy upon my damned wretched soul.

"Don't you get it? I don't like you, I never fucking did! All I want is for you to get the fuck out of my home, out of my life, and out of my head! Fucking go! Leave me the fuck alone and find another pony to pity, I'm through with you, you bit... bitch."

The last word died on my tongue, and it was all I could do to force it out. When I'd told her to leave me alone, I'd punctuated my demand with a hoof slammed into the table. By the end, I was burying my face in my hooves trying to hide my tears. All of my anger had turned me inside out, leaving me twisted, contorted, and confused.

Please... just leave. I'm sorry, but it's better than wasting your life with me.

The dead silence was marred by the sound of a chair being withdrawn from the table as Grace took to her hooves. She walked away in silence. I wanted to smile, knowing that she would be better off without me, but I also wanted cry as I thought of how I'd hurt her and what I'd just let walk out of my life. I was spent emotionally and mentally, and I'd be riding the buckshot express into the next life by nightfall. I had lost my will to be, and I smirked at the irony. Part of the reason I'd done this was because if I'd grown attached to her and lost her, I would have been in exactly this state of mind. It would seem that I liked her more than I realized, and that driving her away like I did had sapped me of my last reserves. Too late now...

The sound of steps halted at the junction of the dining room and the hallway to the front door.

"Timber. I don't know what happened to you, why you're acting this way. If you meant what you said, and you really want me out of your life forever, just tell me and you'll never see me again. Otherwise, you have some explaining to do."

Please. You'll throw away you your whole life.

"Well Timber?"

Please.

She started to turn around, heading for the door.

"Please."

Grace stopped dead in her tracks, pivoting once again to face me. "What was that?"

"Please. I... I like you." My resolve had crumbled and fallen away, the voice of hope in my head breaking through the rubble to make itself known.

Her voice dripped with anger and hurt as she responded. "Oh, do you now? You have a really sick way of showing it. I don't know what you were thinking, but you have one minute to explain yourself."

I couldn't think, couldn't put the right words together in my head in a way that sounded right. So instead of thinking, I just spoke.

"I'm afraid. I'm afraid for you and of you. I like you. You make me happy, you keep away the nightmares, and I don't want to hurt you. But if you stay with me, I know that I will. I was trying to make you leave me before I hurt you. I'm a big bag of fucked up pony, and you deserve better than me. I don't trust myself and I don't want you to either. I'm afraid to care for you, because if I care about you and I lose you then I'll lose the last bit of myself too. I don't even think it matters anymore..."

I was staring at the floor as I spoke, tears falling from my face for the first time since Quill died. Silence, colder than an arctic night, was the only reply for a long moment.

"So you like me. And you didn't want to hurt me, so you said terrible, hurtful things to me? Trying to drive me away so you couldn't hurt me worse than that? You are a big, dumb ball of pony... but you have a good heart, even if you are horribly misguided."

I nodded at the floor. She'd never forgive me for this. As soon as she walked out, I would head to the bedroom, finish the bottle of whiskey, and suck-start my shotgun. My silence was met be her response, filling in the gap.

"You wanted to make me happy by trying to drive me away? Well, I hate to break it to you, pony. You failed,"

I knew it. Time to rinse my mouth with buckshot...

"You failed, because I'm not going anywhere. You know I don't give up that easily, especially not when it comes to you." Her steps began to draw nearer. "Now, what I want from you is an apology. Look me in the eye and apologize. And so help you, you'd better mean it."

She was standing directly in front of me now. Raising my head, I stared into her beautiful golden eyes. The spark was still there, perhaps even stronger than before, but the fear was gone. I felt hope and I felt shame, but I no longer feared those eyes. My redemption was nigh.

"Grace, I... I'm sorry. For everything. For what I said to you, and what I tried to do to... us. I'm truly sorry. I just... I was afraid. I still am, really. You make me feel things that I don't know how to deal with. All I do is cause pain wherever I go, and I didn't want to drag you into this with me. I'm sorry."

Her gaze softened a bit, though tears still threatened to spill. Then, she did the most wonderful thing possible; she smiled at me.

"Apology accepted. Now that that's out of the way, tell me I'm pretty." She smiled wider still, batting her eyelashes at me in jest.

I leveled a deadpan stare at her, something that was really easy to do in my current state of emotional whiplash. "Sorry, can't do that. I can't lie to you."

Her eyes went wide in shock.

"Grace, you aren't pretty. You are the single most beautiful mare I've ever seen." I held my blank stare for as long as I could, but I could feel the edges of my mouth beginning to curl in a smile.

Her shock was in the midst of giving way to anger before she melted back into a smile. Then, she did something that took me totally by surprise. She embraced me. After a moment of confusion, I returned the embrace. It felt strange at first, but also nice. It felt... right. This was something that I had never felt before, but I figured I could get used to it pretty quickly. Leaning into the embrace, I found myself nuzzling her neck, eliciting a giggle from the once-again perky mare. The warming feelings spreading throughout my chest were suddenly interrupted by a soft thump on the back of my head. I leaned back quizzically to figure out why I'd been struck. Rather, I tried to. The mare that had assaulted me whilst embracing me refused to let me go, maintaining her proximity to me as she whispered in my ear.

"That was for calling me names, you jerk. I forgive you, but it still hurt. I hurt you back, now we're even."

"Truce?" I hugged her a little tighter as I said it, still in disbelief that she hadn't left me. I squeezed her to make sure that she was really there, that this wasn't some horribly fucked up dream.

She squeezed me back, adding in an affectionate nuzzle for good measure. "Truce."

Two month's time had seen incredible changes take place in our lives, as Grace and I grew closer to one another. My nightmares had all but vanished, and the pleasant dreams were becoming more common. A month ago we'd become lovers, the result of a rather amusing series of events stemming from my obliviousness to her advances. Since that evening, I'd never spent a night alone, and the nightmares had fallen off to nothing. To celebrate our one month anniversary, we decided to attend the Summer Sun Celebration in Canterlot. The festivities there went on for a full week prior to the Solstice, with the raising of the sun kicking off a celebration that lasted throughout the night.

It had been a week of food, fun, and laughter, and not even the sight of my old barracks could bring back the flashbacks. The raising of the sun was met by a raucous cheer from the crowd as the capstone of jubilation kicked off. We'd plied the fairgrounds outside the city where a carnival had been set up, riding rides and eating funnel cakes until it was hard to walk straight. I'd even managed to win Grace a large stuffed banana, sporting maracas and a sombrero, from one of the booths. Every part of the day had been so incredible, filled with such laughter and happiness that the war seemed like a distant memory, a nearly forgotten remnant from another life. As the sun began to fall and night started to take its hold, I felt a strange anxiety building in my chest. Seeing ponies gathered by the dozens on the shore of the lake in the palace gardens, I felt sudden comprehension drop like a ball of ice into my stomach.

"Grace, we have to leave. Now." My voice was full of an anxiety that I'd thought I'd never feel again, and she responded with mild alarm.

"What? Why? We'll miss the fireworks if we leave now... are you feeling okay?"

I shook my head, feeling a panic rising in me. "No, we have to leave now. Please Grace, we need to go."

Seeing my distress, she simply nodded and followed my lead as I made a hasty exit. The sun was kissing the horizon as we took off, and all I knew was that I needed to be somewhere private when it sunk below the horizon. I needed to be inside before the fireworks started. I was almost running as we approached the hotel we were staying in, while Grace's shorter legs forced her to jog to keep up with me. Blitzing through the lobby without regard for anything the stuck up mare at the front desk hollered at me as I passed, I made my way to the stairs and took them two at a time. Behind me, Grace was breathing heavily as she tried to keep up. Arriving at the room we'd booked, I pulled out the room key and fumbled repeatedly as my shaking hooves tried to jam it into the door. I dropped it and growled in frustration as I bent to pick it up. An orange hoof beat me to it, and Grace unlocked the door in one swift motion. Pushing Grace before me as I made my way inside, I hung the "do not disturb" sign and locked the door. With a heavy sigh, I slumped against the door and slouched to the floor.

Grace knelt in front of me, eyes wide with concern as her chest heaved from the exertion of keeping up with me. "Tim, what's wrong? I haven't seen you this upset since the spa."

"Fireworks. I... the fireworks. I used to love them when I was little, but the war stole that from me. Ever since then, fireworks bring me back to a bad place. I found this out the hard way when somepony decided to have a field day with them near my old apartment. My neighbor kicked down my door, found me screaming under the kitchen table in the fetal position. Grace, I'm sorry for ruining the day, but I couldn't be out there, couldn't be that close. I'm scared right now, I don't know how bad this is going to be, Grace. Just... don't get too close."

She simply nodded, accepting this without question. From the waver in my voice and the strained feeling of my face, I knew I was wearing a grim expression. I stood on shaky hooves and walked over to the bed, pulling pillows from under the covers to cover my ears once the show started. As if on cue, the world shook as the first explosion detonated in the twilight sky.

It didn't matter that Grace was by my side, gently stroking my shoulder as the sky was torn by colorful bursts; the flashback hit hard and fast. This was the one flashback that I thought I could never fight, because it was made of something else. It was not just something horrible that I'd seen, something that came from revulsion and haunting memories. No, this was a psychological scar, borne of terror and rooted in the primal part of my mind. Each successive burst took me farther and farther back into that day of terror.

It had been a shitty day from the start, with a light rain constantly drizzling since the night before. It wasn't enough to cancel the mission, but it was enough to turn the dust into mud and make everything soggy and miserable. We were set up in an observation point overlooking a village and one of the main roads in the area. We were watching over a certain farm in particular, after the farmer received death threats telling him to stay out of his field. We knew that there was a cache somewhere in the village, but the tribe elder refused to let us search any of the houses to find it. This seemed like our best bet to put a dent in the attacks we were getting almost every day. It sounded good on paper, but what it boiled down to was a whole lot of waiting in the miserable, damp rain. It was me, SPC Scruffy, PFC Quill, and PFC Buttercup. It was Blaze, Scruffy, Twitch, and Butters up against the world.

The rain started falling harder, coming down in sheets that threatened to block our view of the field entirely. I made the call to move in a little closer to compensate for the reduced visibility. Through the rain, we made out two shapes moving through the field, stopping in the far corner and apparently digging something up. As if to confirm our suspicions the two shapes suddenly took off, noticeably bulkier as they carried something away from the scene on their backs. Motioning for the squad to follow, I began trailing them as they slinked away in the haze of rain. If we were lucky, we might discover their main cache and be able to take a huge bite out of their capabilities. In silence, we stalked on for hours as darkness began to seep in.

It was difficult to judge exactly how far we'd traveled over the uneven ground, since our pace count was shot to hell by the terrain and we had no visual references through the rain. We were doing our best to keep track of our position, but once you've seen one sun-forsaken valley, you've seen them all. We'd tried to pick out any sort of landmark for reference, but it was hit or miss. All hell broke loose the moment the rain slacked off. With darkness falling, we had foolishly allowed ourselves to get closer to the targets as visibility dropped. The rain slacked off in the same moment that a break in the clouds shone a celestial spotlight on us. Several things were immediately clear. We were far closer to the enemy than we should have been, and there were a lot more of them than we'd thought. The air was alive with the crack of rounds flying in all directions as we were shot at and returned fire, bounding to cover. We found ourselves in a kill zone and broke for the only cover around, a series of large boulders. Bullets chewed up the ground around us, peppering us with shards of rock and lead. We ducked behind the rocks just ahead of the stream of hot leaden death that chased us.

"Twitch, where the fuck are we?! Butters, suppressive fire, nine o'clock! Scruffy, take the three, I've got the twelve!"

Twitch immediately started looking around for landmarks to reference our position from so we had a grid location for where we were being pinned. Butters, Scruffy, and myself were all focused elsewhere as we engaged anything that moved within our sectors of fire. Twitch yelled out that he had our grid, and I hollered back to call for fire a hundred meters north of our position. I heard him on the radio and what I heard frightened me more than the rounds skimming off the rock inches from my face.

"Twitch, what fucking grid did you call for fire on?!"

What he said made me shake with rage and fear.

"Luna damn it! That's our grid! By Celestia's fiery nethers, if we survive this I'll fucking end you! Everypony, get the fuck down! Take cover, we've got incoming!"

Even as I said that, the scream of the first round tearing through the skies towards us was growing louder. From the corner of my eye, I saw a pony poking his head around the edge of the rock right before the world exploded. I was vaguely aware of being covered in pony parts as they splattered off of the rock and splashed over me. The world exploded again and again, and it seemed like it would never stop exploding. The pressure wave from each explosion wrapped around the rocks, slapping me across every inch of my body and driving the air from my lungs. My head was pounding, I tasted blood, and I was sure that this was the end. A shell landed very close, and the last thing I remembered was flying through the air before it all went black. I woke up in the back of a medic vehicle, battered, bruised, and confused but still alive. I was shaking from the experience, and it didn't subside for three days. In that time, I'd learned that none of the squad had died, but Butters had come damned close and was on his way home for treatment. Our medic, a unicorn by the name of SPC Remedy was able to repair the damage to our bodies easily enough, but there was far more to it than just broken and battered flesh. Not all wounds bleed, and not all scars can be seen, and the experience had gouged a ragged wound in my psyche.

The fireworks reached their peak as the finale rattled everything for miles around, and the sudden silence that followed seemed almost tangible in comparison. The loudest sound was that of my breathing, as I gasped for air like I'd just run a marathon. My body shook with tension, my clenched muscles deeply sore from the strain. Grace had not strayed from my side during my fugue, and it was because of her gentle touch and reassuring whispers that I was able to return to anything resembling normal. The last time this had happened to me, I'd been twitchy for days afterwards. And yet, here I was not even two minutes later, already starting to feel the residual anxiety fading. Without a word I reached over and pulled Grace into a hug, one which was eagerly returned. I might have bad days, times where the shadows of the past rear up and try to drag me into the darkness, but I had Grace Candlelight to drive away the shadows before they could succeed. Already I could feel the wounds of my heart and soul that had been torn by the war being mended by a pretty nurse with an iron will.

The memories may dull in time, but they will never go away completely. My mind will never be as it once was, but maybe that's a good thing. It was my mind that had tormented me with memories of death and loss, had kept me trapped in that war zone. I'd returned from the war, but I'd never really come home; a part of me was stuck in the endless loops of tormenting memory. I hadn't even known I was in that cycle until Grace had broken me out of it, had helped me finally come home. She had given me back a reason to live and a reason to care. More importantly, she was starting to show me what it was like to love and be loved. If the last two months had been any indication, I had a lot to learn still. I didn't mind, though; after all, I had my entire life for that.

Author's Note

As this story winds down, I want to remind all of you that this is a work of fiction based on secondhand accounts of actual events. I was not there for these events, and they were passed to me several years after the fact. Additionally, slight liberties have been taken in key places in the story so that it would mesh together a bit better. Other than that, I hope you've enjoyed this story of mine.