Crumpling the paper between my shaking fingers, I hoped it would turn to dust. There were no words to describe how badly, how desperately I wanted it to disappear and simply vanish as a hallucination. Every bone and muscle ached with my efforts to make it melt away this figment of my imagination, yet it stayed as solid and real as the message it carried.

"…Alvin…"

My lips barely had the strength to form his name and my voice felt as though it were bleeding, drowning me in a fiery, silent pain. Every shed tear stung my soaked cheeks, burned the tip of my chin where they gathered and fell onto the paper, already soaked with sorrow.

A cry let loose from my throat I had never heard before. Something so primitive, so despairing that it made my suffering seem a living entity, crawling forth from the depths of the anguished soul. Only when inconsolable sobs rippled through my body once again, did the cry eventually extinguish, leaving me alone in the hallway with a truth I could not face.

it is with profound regret that I must inform you of Alvin H. Davenport's recent passing while serving his country on November 29th, 2010…

I had sat in the dark, on the hallway floor for hours, consumed by this one sentence that was now engraved in my head. The rest of the letter was empty words of what a valued soldier he was, and how he would always be an irreplaceable pilot and unforgotten comrade.

"…Alvin…"

A sickening wave of nausea washed the color out of my face and I closed my eyes against the sudden realization enveloping me. The knowledge that I would never see him again, never hear his voice, never walk in on him miming a wild guitar solo with his rock n' roll records blaring behind him…

Choking on my own tears, I crushed the paper in my hand and tried to turn it into a memory of dust, just as it had done to him.


A/N: Gah, I hate it when they kill my favorite characters! The "Journey Home" level sucked to play =(