The Burden of a Miracle

by JonHarper

An Ex-Soldier down on his luck finds a new lease on life when he finds himself caught in the middle of a looming clash between two mortal foes. Burdened with his unique insights he must balance his actions with the safety of his family who also reside in this new life. Will he use this knowledge to make changes and risk his family, Or perhaps let things unfold as they should?

Authors Notes: Welp, I finally decided to hop on the SI Crazy Train and see where it takes me. I had been considering doing an SI for over a year now but had held off for various reasons. It wasn't until I spoke to Lightning_Count that things changed. He kept insisting that I do this story, that the plot I had laid out with him was really good and worth doing. I decided against it and over the course of the year came back to it again and again periodically, and every time Lightning_Count insisted that I do it. So eventually after refining the plot a bit, and talking with both Rastamon and Hiver, I finally decided to do it. I'd also like to give a big thank you to Hiver for some of his suggestions. Cause lets be real here, no one knows how to do a good SI quite like Hiver does, and his input has been invaluable. Rastamon also. He too has been a big help in getting this project off the ground. I'd also like to give a big Thank You to Ash's Boomstick, who I've been bouncing ideas off concerning this project for the last few months.

Now as for how quickly I'll be updating this SI. I'll do the best I can to be pretty regular about it, but it seems that fate loves to toy with me. As soon as start committing to writing something happens with family or at work and my time to write gets cut down to a fraction of what it otherwise would have been. But I assure you guys I will do my best. I'm also kind of worried about how this'll be received. I mean its an SI, so the main character is based off of me to a fairly large degree. It'll be interesting to see the responses I get from this.

The Burden of a Miracle. An Arrow/Flash SI.

I've always been a person who has striven to find a purpose in life, and for the longest time that purpose was the Military. Specifically, the Army of the United States. Wearing that uniform defined me in a way I can't really describe to anyone who's never worn it. You just get this sense that you're more than what you are, that you're apart of something greater than just yourself. You're not living a life for yourself, but for Country, your family, and the man next to you. It gave me a sense of pride...of purpose. I knew my place in life and what my mission was and I was content with that. I was a soldier in the United States Army.

The life of a soldier is hard, and it's brutal on the body. After 14 years of jumping out of perfectly good airplanes, Ranger school, The Q course and 4 combat deployments, it was inevitable that something would go wrong. I got older, I got slower, and my body took longer to recover from injury and illness. While my knowledge and experience more than made up for it and I could still drive those cocky young bucks into the ground out of sheer stubbornness…the fact was my body couldn't take it anymore.

The worst part is that I know exactly how it happened and it was my own damn fault. It was during deployment number 4 and I decided to get a good 3 mile run in before the sun came up. Our AO had quieted down considerably since my unit had taken over but it was still rather dangerous. I decided the risks were minimal and clad only in my PT shorts, reflective belt and short sleeve PT shirt, stepped out in the cool crisp air.

Unluckily for me, insurgents decided to drop three mortar rounds on our FOB that morning. The first missed the base entirely and sadly failed to set off the alarm. The second, a dud, buried itself in a diesel generator, and I learned later that that EOD disarmed it without incident. The third landed less than twenty feet from me just as I was raising my arms to stretch….

I don't remember the blast but I do remember waking up in Kabul about two days later after the surgeons had removed the shrapnel from my gut. I was embarrassed more than anything but thankful to be alive. And the guys, who had driven all along IED covered roads just to check on me, gave me a good ribbing about it.

It was my own damn fault, I know. I had no one to blame but myself…and maybe the insurgents who dropped the God-damned mortar round on me but I couldn't exactly have words with them and physically voice my displeasure. So I chalked it up as a lesson learned and concentrated on getting healed up and back in fighting trim.

And six months later, I was doing great or so I thought. I was healed up from the blast and getting back into shape but then I started feeling fatigued all the damn time. Before long I was getting sick constantly and then the tenderness and swelling began. At first I tried to ignore it and push past it, which is exactly the opposite of what I would always tell my patients when they came to sick call. Like they say, doctors are their own worst patients. As time went on, it got worse. Before long, I had a fever that got worse over the next couple of days until finally I could take it no longer and went to sick call.

A day and many blood tests later I was back in the hospital. DI-SSI they called it, or deep incisional surgical site infection. Apparently I had gotten it six months ago from the fragments that were lodged in my gut. After the surgery and meds it had mostly been taken care of but not entirely eradicated…until it had come back with a vengeance. I would spend the next month and a half in the hospital fighting that infection, bedridden and depressed.

And just as I was on the mend from that, I was informed that I was up for medical evaluation for continued service. You see, the war in Iraq was long over by that point and Afghanistan was winding down. The Army was downsizing to meet the new numbers and funding quotas and they were looking to cut the problem children and refuse from their ranks first..

Refuse like me.

I won't bore you with the details, but needless to say it did not go in my favor. I was medically discharged with full benefits and a nice severance package that would keep me on my feet for at least a year, two if I was conservative with my money. And thankfully I was smart, I didn't blow money on beer or frivolous things. I had been saving for a house of my own and spent only as needed, aside from the occasional movie or outing. So I wasn't exactly hurting for money right of the bat, and I was fairly well off financially, given my situation.

And really, who the hell joins the military for the money!?

After my discharge, I decided to pay a visit to my sister in Seattle. My aunt Adeline had recently passed away and she had no children of her own. She'd always adored my sister Jenny and in her will had left her the house. Jenny had always said I was more than welcome to stay with her as I had always taken care of her growing up.

Personally I suspected ulterior motives like dumping the kids on me from time to time. But hey, they loved their uncle Jon and I loved them, so no complaints here.

I wasn't particularly thrilled about the yahoo in her life, however. A self-described bad boy who had done 'bad things' to make it on the streets. The guy was a bum and a leech, and the one time he got in my face he quickly found himself on the floor with a bloody nose. But for some strange reason my sister insisted she was in love with him.

Whatever.

"Jon? You there?" Jenny called out from her room.

I put away the DD-214 I belatedly realized I had been staring at.

"Yo! I'm in here," I called back to her.

She made her way from the master bedroom in her work uniform and I got a sinking feeling in my gut as to what this was about.

"Jon, Justin says he isn't feeling good and that he can't take me to work. Can you take me?"

I took a moment to look back towards the bedroom and the lazy slob who looked perfectly fine chowing down on something and completely ignoring us. I look back to Jenny who is looking at me apologetically, and I nod.

"Sure, I was about to head out anyway."

Jenny smiled in thanks and I got up gingerly from the couch, grunting in discomfort as I did so.

I grabbed the keys to my car; an old 2003 Saturn Ion. Not the best, but it was good for my needs. I helped my sister into the car and I jumped into the driver seat and we were off.

Seattle traffic wasn't anything to write home about. The drivers were courteous most of the time until around rush hour. Thankfully, it was still early enough that I would avoid the traffic going to both my destinations.

My sister Jenny is probably the sweetest person I know. She's good looking (or so all my friends kept telling me), at 5 foot 5 inches tall, raven-black hair and blue eyes framed by a pretty face, she kept in shape much like I had done while I was in the service but I had stopped once I had gotten out due to chronic pain. She's charming, kind and very outgoing. She had people skills I could only envy, you could toss her in a room full of strangers and within an hour she'd have made all sorts of connections. It was...more than a little impressive.

She had a job at the Sheraton Hotel...doing...well I never really knew for certain. She had tried to explain it to me about handling the hotel's clientele but I didn't have it in me to pay attention. The same way she tended to tune me out whenever I told my 'army man stories'. I just know she made better than decent money but nothing extravagant, certainly more than I made even at Staff Sergeant pay. A point she enjoyed reminding me of, constantly.

"So, where are you going?" Jenny asked me.

"Local blood drive. I figured I'd donate. I used to do it all the time and since it's been more than a year since my last deployment and my last blood test proved I was clean, I figured I'd do something useful for a change."

"Jon." Jenny gave me an admonishing look. She hated self-pity. Truth was I did too, but I had been in a bit of funk since getting out. "You've been a great help getting the house fixed up. I don't know jack about carpentry or...whatever else needed to fix the place up.

I snorted. "Yeah." I pulled off on NorthEast Second Street and then pulled up to the front entrance to the Sheraton.

"Here you go." I motioned to the front entrance.

Jenny kissed me on the cheek. "Hey, don't be so down. I know you loved being in the army but something will come along that you like. You just gotta be patient, and you've been amazing in helping fix the house and with the kids. They love their uncle Jon, Jon." She smiled playfully.

I rolled my eyes and smiled despite myself. "What time are you getting off? Cause I assume shit stain isn't picking you up?"

She gave me a sharp pointed look. I held her gaze unflinching. "Can we please not do this again?" She asked me, finally looking away with an annoyed huff.

I nodded in acquiescence. "Fine."

She got out of the car and then looked through the window. "Pick me up at Eight, okay?"

"Will do."

She smiled, straightened, turned and walked into the hotel. I stayed a moment before driving off to the blood drive. Traffic was light and I made it with time to spare, but already I could see a long line going inside. I didn't mind, it's not like I had anything big planned today.

I went inside and spoke to the clerk at the counter. She handed me a number of forms to fill out on a clipboard. I took a seat and began the painstakingly boring job of filling out the info. Finished, I turned it in and then sat down to wait…wait...and wait. And then I waited some more.

It was almost three hours before I started getting drowsy and dozed off. I'm not sure how long I was there for and honestly it didn't matter.

Then a nurse called my name. Finally! I was quickly escorted to a large room where there were chairs and several people hooked up to bags of blood while nurses bustled about. Many of the chairs were hidden by green hospital curtains for privacy. Once I was settled in my chair, the nurse smiled and searched for a viable vein in the inside of my elbow. She cleaned the area with an alcohol soaked cotton ball then carefully yet efficiently stuck a needle into the vein found there. Then she stuck a catheter to the needle and waited to see if the dark blood started flowing through the catheter to the bag. She nodded to herself.

"Want some privacy?"

I shrugged. "I guess."

She pulled the curtains around my chair, smiled and left while I settled down to wait for my blood to fill the bag. I was feeling tired. I had waited too long in the waiting room so I closed my eyes for just a while. I knew the machine monitoring the blood flow would beep when it was time to stop the blood flow and the nurse would come back for it. Just short enough for a cat-nap. After a moment, I shifted uncomfortably in my seat when a sense of vertigo hit me, the sense as if I was suddenly falling and yet being pulled sideways. It was as if...something had changed...a feeling of wrongness all around me, as if everything was suddenly different.

I woke with a start and tried to bring my hand to my face only to find my hands were bound by handcuffs to a chair. The fog that had been clouding my mind disappeared with a start as I looked around in alarm.

This was not the Blood Drive.

There was a bright light in an otherwise pitch black room of wet concrete walls. The light was close on me, and seemed more to blind me and cast shadows in an otherwise dark and dank room. A smell of feces and garbage assaulted my nose and it was all I could do not to gag at the smell.

"Welcome, Brother Jon. It's good to see you finally awake," a deeply distorted voice said.

I looked up and from a nearby shadow, a figure emerged wearing a leather mask fashioned into an elongated skull. I took a moment to study it. The haphazardly sewn leather mask looked odd. The thought of human skin came unbidden to my mind and sent an instinctive shiver down my spine. It was obviously made to intimidate, especially the oval elongated skull. I blinked in clear disbelief because I recognized that mask... I knew it. I had seen it just last year watching Season two of Arrow. Was this some kind of joke?

"The hell is going on!?" I snapped.

"You have been selected, brother. This city is dying. Drowning in its own despair, much like you are. I will save it. To do that, I will need need an army. You have been chosen to become a part of that army and this noble purpose."

I wanted to laugh. If it was a joke... I mean it had to be a joke...right? But I found I couldn't quite force myself to do so. And really I was finding this whole Brother Blood routine really creepy.

'Wha...what?" I asked.

"Silence!" Blood said as he turned away to a nearby table with a small plastic case.

I suddenly got the impression that this was no joke and that it was very...very real. And for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how.

The man standing in the mask was Sebastian Blood. A character from a TV series I quite enjoyed. Yet now he wasn't on TV but standing less than five feet from me, and I had a very bad feeling about what he was about to pull out of that case.

Sebastian Blood turned to me holding syringe of green fluid in it.

"What the fuck is that!?" I barked in alarm.

I knew exactly what it was. Yet my mind couldn't get past the fact that this couldn't be what I thought it was. How the hell does the plot and a character of a TV show suddenly become real right before my eyes!?

I took a moment to eye the syringe filled with green fluid and I shuddered in dread. Mirakuru. DC's answer to Marvel's Super Soldier Serum. The effects on the body could be wondrous but the effects on the mind were absolutely devastating. And those were just the survivors. Mirakuru had a horrible fatality rate as it killed most of its subjects within thirty seconds of being injected and I had no intention of finding out if I would be one of the lucky...or not so lucky ones.

I started struggling against my bonds.

"Restrain him," Sebastian Blood said.

And out of corner of my eyes two figures came out of either side and held me still. I couldn't see their faces as they had masks on, but one of them was wearing the uniform of a police officer. The one on the right wrenched my right arm around painfully and then pulled up the sleeve of my shirt to expose my bare arm despite my best attempts to fight him.

Oh no….

"With this miracle….you will be reborn!"

He removed the plastic cap and placed the needle against my arm. And slowly...he pushed it in. The bite of the needle was nothing I wasn't used too. As a medic in the Army I had given and been given many injections, and I only just minutes ago had a needle stuck into my arm for the blood drive. But this….this was so much more painful and so much more sinister.

And then he started to push the green fluid in.

I felt a burning sensation immediately start from the injection site and work its way down into my fingers. The burning then traveled up my arm into my shoulder...then my chest and abdomen then down to my legs...until every part of me felt as if it was on fire and the intensity seemed to magnify every second. I realized I was screaming, had been screaming the entire time. The pain was like nothing I had ever felt before. It was as if I was on fire yet I was also being torn apart and put back together as something...something completely different. I could feel tears welling in my eyes as I screamed, but these weren't regular tears but tears of blood trailing down my face.

I gulped down as much oxygen as I could but my lungs were burning just like the rest of me, and I could feel my heart about to explode in my chest.

My vision began to blur...I was no longer screaming and I felt as if I was losing my connection to my body….so unbelievably...tired. I had lost all strength and energy, even opening my eyes proved to be a herculean effort. I fought to keep my eyes open but my head now hung at an angle and it no longer responded to my commands. I could feel myself slipping away and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

The last image I had of was that of Brother Blood lifting my head up by my hair as he looked into my dying eyes.

"Another failure….."

And then oblivion took me.