As if though I am awoken from a deep sleep, I'm standing in the center of a river bed. Whistling mortars rain down all around me as I began to run across the shallow river, violently shaking the ground and sending screaming shrapnel all around and into me. I keep running with sheer determination to live. Before I can make it across to dry land, however, it was in vein. A large horde of tiger soldiers begin charging across the river through the smoke thrown by my squad mates to cover our retreat, bayonets sticking out from the ends of their assault rifles. There is nothing I can do now, I have a blown out leg and can run no more. I sit down on a nearby rock, awaiting my pending doom while returning fire at the army of enemy soldiers methodically while bullets whistle by my head. I can't distinguish if they are my own side's or the enemy's, there was so much small arms fire filling the air that it was almost suffocating. As if god himself had sent them, two jets scream across the sky. Two seconds later, hell comes to earth raining fire on the charging soldiers. Immense heat hits my face, like opening a hot oven with your face just inches away. I hear the screams of my enemies painfully burnt to a crisp until nothing but the sound of burning fuel replaces them.

The sound someone makes when they burn to death is unimaginable. It doesn't matter who they are or what they did to you. That kind of scream, another being in such excruciating pain, it will haunt you. Its said that once you hear that sound, you will never un-hear it for the rest of your life. It will be stuck bouncing around in your head until you go to the grave. I can attest to that. I hear those awful sounds almost every single day of my spiritless existence. I pity those who experience that fate, one in which I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy.

With the awful sounds playing through my head once again, I fall through the rocks on the riverbed as if they were never there and continue falling endlessly into a burning pit filled with those screams. Those terrible screams. Flames engulf me as I continue falling endlessly, the stench of burnt hair and the heinous smell of rotten death fills my nostrils mercilessly.

I awaken from my bed screaming and drenched in sweat. I check the time, 2:12 AM, another nightmare. I have so many now, I've stopped counting. I cannot go more than a couple of hours without one. Another terrible reminder of my time in the war, the sins I committed, the atrocities I've witnessed. It haunts me. Why couldn't I just leave it behind me? Why must the awful memories of the atrocious war follow me every where I go, always reminding me of the horrible acts I've committed? The war was two years ago, yet I couldn't let it go.

It wouldn't let me go.

As I am driving my car to work through the congested morning traffic, a car besides me backfires.

I duck in my car seat reflexively. Thoughts of the war begin to race through my head, bringing me back to the battlefield once again.

Through the noise and confusion of the battlefield, I hear a shout from my right. "There's too many! Fall back!" As I am running away from the violent guerrilla ambush, my squad mates - my friends are cut down by machine gun fire, green tracers ripping through their bodies violently. Through sheer luck, and what feels like a curse now, the burst of gun fire skips me and continues to rip through the air past me, hitting more of my friends. I dive to a nearby tree, watching as the machine gunner mercilessly mows down my injured and screaming friends that fell prey to him.

BEEEEEP! BEEEP! BEEP! BEEEEEP!

A car horn behind me awakens me from my flashback.

A purplish grey bear in the car behind me was making rude jesters at me, angry that I was wasting his time.
I return my car to the normal flow of traffic while thinking about how they never have to know the true horrors of war. They never have to know the feeling of dread and horror you receive as you see your friends get mowed down by machine gun fire. The screams one makes when they're burnt alive.

The regret that follows you when you get your family killed.

He will never realize how much we sacrificed for him. He will never know what it's like to have the curse I have, all for the price of his freedom. Life seems so unfair sometimes.

After working all day at my miserable job I cannot stand, I return home through the thick air of a heavy rain storm in my jeep. Another day, another grind, another nightmare. How long will this cycle of misery that is my existence continue for? I thought the nightmares would get better as time progressed, but two years later and still no luck. I'm a complete social outcast - unable to make friends because everyone believes I am crazy. I've started to believe that myself. Society has little mercy to give to people like me. I live in an age where people hate their own soldiers just because we were sent off to a war that they don't agree with. It's not our fault that some politicians decided to send us off to stop the toppling of a regime that our government just so happened to support. I am tired of every day reliving death. I am fed up with death. I want death to end. I want my misery to end.

As I pull into my driveway to my apartment complex, the thought of suicide and the end of my misery race through my mind once again. Today is Monday 05/02/98. The day that haunts me.

As I walk through the door, memories of that horrific day play out in my head. I head upstairs completely numb inside. My life is nothing but rejection, pain, and death. Nobody will miss me when I die. I reach my bedroom and a feeling of dread reaches deep into my stomach. It's time.

I pull a 6 round revolver out of my desk drawer, place one round in the chamber and spin the cylinder.

Memories of that awful day haunt me the worst on the anniversary. They are the worst on this day every year, although I relive it almost every day. The guilt is too much, so I leave it completely up to chance to determine my fate. I hate it so much. I hate myself so much.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." I said out loud remorsefully as I pull the hammer back on the revolver, A tear running down my cheek. I place the gun against my temple and apply pressure to the trigger.

Click

"I'm sorry."

I pull the hammer back again and place the revolver on my temple once again.

Click

"Why won't you just let me die? It's what I deserve."

I pull the hammer back once again, but I have a strange feeling that something else is going to happen this time.

As I point the gun at my temple, I have a very brief moment of hesitation.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

UPDATE: I was going to release Contagion in parts, however I've decided to release the first chapter all in one go. Release date for Chapter 1 of contagion has been pushed back to April 20th at the very most, sorry for the delay. It may be released before then, although no guarantees. I hope you liked the short preview! more coming soon!