||||Chapter 2 Begin||||

"The last battle I was in was my first battle, and I had already been sent to the hospital. Ironic isn't it? Everything had been going great; in fact, at the time that the attack happened my battle buddy and I were playing cards. He was a big black man, been in the service for 2 years. He has a family back on Earth; I was the scrawny white kid who came up to his shoulders, zero years in the service, and zero years of experience.

The explosion seemed to come out of nowhere, it just happened, right in the middle of the camp. Everything started happening so fast, my gun was thrown in to my arms, and I was pulled forcefully to my feet. My battle buddy told me to follow him, and I followed. I did everything he told me to do, up until he was shot. A plasma shot took his entire arm off… his left arm…

Everything slowed down for me then. He was in shock, and couldn't tell me what to do then, my training took over. My instructor's voice ran through my head as if I was in Basic again. 'Keep his focus off his arm, keep his focus on me, and make him talk.' My hands were moving on their own. In what seemed to be no time at all I had him bandaged, but the battle was raging on around me. The covenant were closing in, the rest of our men were backing away, leaving us in their path. And that's when I saw it. A Brute.

It was huge, much bigger than they made it sound… Big, hairy, and ugly, and he was coming for me.

I raised my battle rifle, and aimed down the sights. Then I was pulled off balance, my battle buddy grabbed me, forced me to look at him.

'Leave,' he said, 'get outta here, I'll hold off your retreat.'

But the thought never crossed my mind. And I simply told him, 'hell no.'

I pulled him up, forcefully like he did to me, threw his rifle in his arm, and told him to run, get home to his family.

Mind you, this all happened in seconds, I don't know what was going through my head, disobeying my superior like that, but as I turned around to face the biggest monster I'd ever seen, the Brute was closer than I expected, he rammed into me, plowed me over like I was a weed in the wind. I felt my bones crunch, and when I landed on the ground I was helpless, I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe, and I was looking down the barrel of a plasma rifle…"

"…PFC Ethan Michael…"

Ethan stopped talking. He blinked, caught up in the past as the images continued to flash across his vision.

"You can continue Ethan," the counselor said.
Ethan sighed, and then looked up from the floor. "You know what happened after that."

He stood, straightening his uniform, then turned to leave.

"Ethan, wait," the counselor said, stopping him from opening the door, "you never told me your friend's name. What happened to him?"

"Timothy… and he's fine, missing a limb, home with his family on Earth."

"You're a hero then…"

"I guess you could say that, but it doesn't feel like it…"

||||Chapter 2 End||||