It was a warm, spring day. The laughter of children echoed through his ears as a young boy about 9 years of age cautiously entered the school's playground. He quickly made a straight line for the swingset, to the seat farthest away from all the other children.

Recess was not at all this child's favorite activity of the day. Geting picked on was no fun, the boy knew this well. There was name-calling, being picked last for school sports, no one ever wanting to talk to him, even occasional physical bullying. Nothing too damaging had happened yet, but it still hurt.

That's why he sat away from everyone. As always. This was nothing new to him, he was beyond used to it. But if you stay out of everybody's way, then you might be okay. Or at least that was what he was hoping, on that warm, spring day.

"Hey Thomas!" called out the voice of one Bill Jones. "Bull" (as people called him) was the biggest child in the whole 3rd grade. And he was walking directly to the boy on the swings. Andrew Sayler (or "Ace" as people called him), Bull's best friend, followed closely behind.

Tommy quickly stood up and tried to look for an exit. Backing up, he attempted to calm his racing heartbeat. "What do you want?" Tommy asked, acting more bravely than he felt.

"What do we want?" awnsered Ace mockingly, "That's no way to talk to your friends, is it Bull?"

"No way," Bull agreed, "Now Ace, I thought we had told this runt before, that this playground was ours, and no ugly or stupid people were allowed on it."

"Oh really, then why are you here?" as soon as the words left his mouth, Tommy regreted them. He so wished in that moment that he could take them back into his mind, to the only place those words belonged.

"What did you just say to me?! Ace, you hearing this? It's like this kid is asking for a beating," Bull said in wonder. His eyes narrowed as his hand curled into a fist, "I guess you diddn't learn your lesson from before."

Tweet! The sound of the whistle was like music to Tommy's ears. "Time to go inside, you two," the school's new assistant gym teacher walked over to where the boys were standing.

Tommy diddn't know her that well, but the tall, blonde woman was an adult, and that was all he needed to know. Surely she could protect him. The bullies looked tough to him, but they were no match for someone official from the school.

"We weren't gonna do anything," Ace protested, "Honest, we were just talking."

"Apologize to him," the woman ordered, pointing to Tommy, "and then you can go play somewhere else."

"But we weren't-" Bull started.

"I don't want to hear it; either apologize or go inside to wait for recess to be over." she interrupted his sentence.

"Sorry Tommy," both boys said unconvincingly. They shot identical glares of anger at both him and his rescuer, before running off to the other side of the playground.

"Are you alright?" the gym assistant asked Tommy.

"I'd be better if they were far away, maybe on Mars," Tommy replied sadly.

"We can't make some things disappear when we want them to. One thing we can do is forgive them and continue on our way." The woman said gently.

That's a strange thing to say, why should I forgive them? Tommy thought as he listened to the woman. She took his hand and led him back to the swingset. She was saying something else but he could not understand her words.

Her voice echoed as Tommy strained to hear. The more he tried to concentrate on her words, the farther away they sounded. He felt as if the world around him was going numb. For one awful moment, nothingness was all he felt.

Then he woke up fully. He instantly shot up to observe his surrounding. He was in a hospital, that much was obvious. The white sheets underneath him on his bed were soaked with sweat. Physical proof of his nightmare/flashback. The smell of disinfectants and other disturbingly clean smells hit his nose.

For a moment he was confused, he was still the 9 year old at the school playground. What was he doing at a hospital? Then it all came back and hit him. Yesterday, University of Georgia, people, bomb, ...BOMB!

I need to get out of here! His first thought hit him in a panic. He quickly swung his legs over the side of the bed and used pressure to help him stand up. Smack! That was the sound of his knees buckling, or to be more precise, the sound of him falling straight down to the floor.

As he lay on the ground, temporarily stunned, a nurse quietly chuckled to herself. "Your body was just in an explosion, and asleep for almost a whole day... give it a minute."

"In an explosion?" Tommy wondered aloud, suddenly remembering how close he was when he set off the bomb, "Wait, how am I alive?"