Author's Notes: I own EVERYTHING! This is protected by copyrights! I will sue if necessary!
Delayed Gratification Series
Shattered
Prologue
Blood Stained Hands
Causalities, it's such a polite word. You hear it on news broadcasts, you read it in newspapers, it's tossed around so often the meaning behind it is almost forgotten. But to those unfortunate souls that are told their love one has become a casualty, the meaning behind it is quite clear . . . death.
War is filled with death on both sides and fate has always and will forever be my enemy. As the sunrises onto a new day, I am left with the reality that surviving war is not always the best scenario, sometimes it is the largest curse of them all.
The sun brings the painful reality that my body is alive. While those closest to my heart, to my soul are lying on several cold metal slabs in the mortuary of this hospital. The pain is overwhelming. A horrid reminder that I am alive. It's as though I've been sucked into a cold, dark, black gel that has frozen me into place. There is no escape, no way to move, no will to do so.
I am stuck on rewind, reliving my mistakes that literally caused hearts to stop beating. I keep praying that I will wake up, that this is some sort of nightmare. But those prayers will never be answered. The only response I am receiving is the beep of the heart monitor. I am half amused that something so shattered could possibly be beating.
Our stance is over, our enemy crippled but not defeated. The cost was too great. As I lay here half-conscious in a hospital bed I know of three who have fallen, one of which bleed to death in my very arms. The others I do not know. All I know is that one is too many. I tried to stop this, I tried but some things you cannot stop. Some things are just destined.
Today I am faced with the impossibility of living past today. I shouldn't be here, I shouldn't be breathing. I'd trade my life for theirs in a heartbeat. I would stop the world if I could. I shouldn't be here, there shouldn't be air filling my lungs. I should not be alive. A shattered heart should never beat for it will never repair.
I listen to the monitors beep, praying that the gods, accept my final pray: Please, take my life too.
There is more where this came from! Interested? Leave a review! (Only way I will post more.)
Fair warning this is BOOK 3 of the series. Want the other two you need to go online and find Delayed Gratification 180 and Delayed Gratification Tantalus!
~ Official Conclusion to the original Punishment Series posted as arianawhitlock here on Fanfic.