Adventures of John: Ravages of War

Chapter 1: The Soldier

Author's Note: I'm sorry for having not written in so long, my friends. I have, unfortunately, been rather busy. I went on a backpacking trip that lasted the majority of a week, and I couldn't risk getting my laptop damaged by bringing it. I am actually on another trip right now, but luckily this one does not require me to keep my laptop behind. I should be able to get back to uploading new chapters regularly.

As many of you know, June 13, 2014 was both a Friday the Thirteenth and a full moon. To be honest, I've never taken stock in such superstition. When I find a black cat I pet it, when I step on a crack I barely notice, and most ladders are too short for me to walk under anyways. You'd think that someone like me, who deals with magic all the time, would be superstitious, but I'm not. I deal with real magic, not simple luck. I've never had problems on Friday the Thirteenth, and I really didn't expect to have any on this one. Apparently it was time for my luck to change for the worse.

I was driving through town that day, doing some errands for my parents. As I drove out of the parking lot of my mother's dental office, I saw a man staring at me. He was dressed in an army uniform, with messy hair and stubble covering his face. He had a wildness in his eyes that frightened me, but I drove away and he was gone. He had been a strange sight, but I live in Las Vegas. Even without including my experiences with magical creatures, I see stranger things than him every day. So I forgot about him and carried on with my day.

I spent the rest of the day doing various things such as watching television and reading. I made sure to close all tears in the barriers between the realms that I came across, dealing with any creatures that had made their way through. They were still invisible to ordinary humans, so I viewed the day as a success, one more day in which the world had not been destroyed. That night I went to sleep just as I usually did, looking forward to seeing Elsa and the twins. Unfortunately, I was not in Arendelle long before I was rudely awakened by a man lifting me from my bed, zip ties around my wrists, a gag covering my mouth, and a blindfold around my eyes. For the first time in my life, I was being kidnapped.

. . . . .

I was thrown into was felt like the trunk of a minivan and my kidnapper drove for an indeterminate amount of time. As he drove, I wondered how I had ended up in this mess. Did one of those dedicated to Order or Chaos discover my identity? Thinking about it, I realized I hadn't been quite as secretive about my life as I wrote these stories as I should have been. But if it was someone working for Order or Chaos, why was I still alive? Why didn't they just kill me? I soon found myself being carried from the car, and before long I was placed in a chair and the blindfold was taken off.

The man from before was standing in front of me, his military uniform stained with grease, mud, and what looked like mustard. His hair was disheveled, and it was obvious he hadn't slept, much less shaved, in days. The wild look was still in his eyes, and I could tell that I would have to tread carefully if I was to survive. So of course I mouthed off to him.

"What the heck do you think you are doing?!" I shouted, or at least I tried to. The gag made that a bit difficult, and instead all that came out was some garbled grunting sounds.

"No!" he exclaimed, running his hand through his hair and licking his lips. "I am asking the questions here. You will listen to me, and then, only then, will you speak to answer those questions." He shook his head frantically, as if trying to get rid of the voices in his mind. I could see the aspects of Order and Chaos flittering around him, his obviously damaged state of mind exciting them. Looking down, I saw that he held a pistol loosely in his left hand. So here I was, tied up and without my magic, while a deranged lunatic held me at gunpoint.

"You were there," he muttered. "When the aliens came, you were there. And the darkness, you were there too. I heard you talking about it at the base. You were different then, but it was you!" He pointed the gun at me, his hands shaking dangerously. "At Area 51, you were the one with the magic. The aliens attacked the base, and… I died. I was dead, and then suddenly I wasn't, and the aliens had never come at all. But they did!" He began sweating, strain showing on his face. "The first time it happened, with the, the Darkness, no one would believe me, so I stayed quiet. The magic was gone, so I thought it was over." He paused, chuckling. "But it wasn't."

Sergeant Calhoun? I thought. Last time I had seen the man he had been clean shaven and took better care of himself, but it was definitely the same man. He had been one of the soldiers protecting Area 51 when I went there to make a plan with the sciency types to save the world, back when the Unlidary invaded. I had sent the aliens back into their own universe and turned back time so they had never arrived in the first place. Basically, I was the only one who remembered the whole ordeal. Or at least I thought I was. But how could he possibly remember?

"And then it happened again!" he exclaimed. "The aliens came, and I was able to use the knowledge I gained from the magical invasion to get myself to the center of the action. And then the aliens killed me. I was dead, and then it was Monday again, and the aliens never came." He tore off the gag, still pointing the gun at me. "I DIED! Explain that! Explain to me why everyone thinks I'm crazy! Explain to me why I was discharged from the army and spent several weeks in a mental institution! Explain that to me!"

I waited a moment before speaking, knowing that if I said anything to upset him I would most likely end up with a bullet in my brain. How did he remember the Unlidary invasion? How did he remember World War Magic and the coming of the Darkness? All of those things had been erased from history. I only remembered them because of special circumstances. What was so special about him that he was able to remember? My curiosity aside, I understood his pain. One of my greatest fears had always been being locked in an insane asylum because of the things that I know. To tell people what you know to be true, and be branded as a lunatic because of it. Of course, this guy was obviously nuts, but I think being institutionalized had been the cause, not the solution.

"I don't know," I told him honestly. "I don't know why you can remember all of that. I turned back time because that was the only way to save everyone. I thought that I would be the only one to remember. I never thought that someone else could possibly remember it as well. I can help you, if you let me. We could find out what makes you different from everyone else. We could prove them wrong."

"Really?" He lowered his gun and for a moment the madness seemed to clear from his eyes, but then the whispering from Order and Chaos grew louder, and the gleam of insanity returned, brighter than ever. "No," he whispered, pointing the gun at my head again. "This is all your fault. Now you need to pay."