Trembling. The earth is violently trembling under his body, so that he can feel the force in his very bones, and gunshots ringing through the air stick to his ears, echoing throughout his head so that it’s the only thing he can hear, besides the dreadful ringing. Terror shakes him to his very core, eyes wide as he surveys the destruction around him. Bloody bodies of innocent people, the remaining ruins of buildings, screaming and sobbing people all around him. And as he rolls over on his back, tries to push himself to his feet to get away from all this horror, or to help the innocents, his eyes fall on the body of a child. An innocent, pure child, life taken from them far beyond their time to leave the world had arrived.

His heart sinks, weighed down with the sorrow that floods him with such an overwhelming force that he almost falls over – his knees shifting like he’s going to slide back down onto his stomach, a position he might consider never getting up from – as it flows through his veins like a deadly poison. Tears form in his eyes and begin to fall down his cheeks, and he’s staring, just staring, at the lifeless body of the child – they’ll never take another breath, they’ll never be able to grow up and have goals and aspirations, they’ll never admire anyone or be inspired, they’ll never get to experience life. And that’s his fault. Maybe not directly, but it was caused by his people, his country – the life of an innocent child was snuffed out by the harsh boot of American warfare. And he was a part of that.

As he’s mourning the child, he feels a familiar presence beside him, and then there’s a body blocking his view, turning his head to look into the familiar eyes of a friend, of a fellow soldier. He’s screaming at him, telling him they’ve got to leave, to get a grip, and he’s right in his ear, but he barely hears the words. His ears are still ringing, and even if he’s not looking directly at it anymore, the image of the dead child is burned into the back of his eyelids.

And then he feels a sticky wetness against his cheek.

His fellow soldier had licked him.

As he’s turning his head to aim his confusion at his friend, he’s suddenly pulled from the nightmarish world, and for a moment he’s confused, disoriented. One moment, he was in a warzone, staring at the body of a dead child and mourning, and the next he’s suddenly pulled from the world and into – darkness. Pure darkness. Is he dead? He must be dead, for it to feel so dark. His heart starts to race, and his eyes frantically dart around, and when he turns his head to the right – his gasping mouth is suddenly full of fur.

The mouthful of fur pulls him into reality, grounds him, and allows him to calm down and realize that he’s alright, it was a flashback, or a dream, and it wasn’t reality. As he’s catching his breath and slowing the erratic beating of his heart, light suddenly floods his vision, and he feels safer, somehow.

Rough hands smooth over the top of his head, the veteran sighing as he moves to swing his legs over the bed. Immediately, his dog is moving from it’s position by the lightswitch and moving in between her owner’s leg, tail wagging and lips pulled back into a smile as her tongue bobs up and down as she pants. The smile on her face soothes the veteran, allowing him to fully calm himself, and as he runs his hands along the dog’s fur, he’s given a distraction, that allows him to forget about the horror he experienced when his eyes were closed, so that he can sleep without the memories rising to the surface again.