The Shambala Chronicle
I don't own Shambala…does anybody, really? Is it ownable, do you know?
Sorry for the long wait. Here you go.
Well, anyhoo, here's chapter four. Enjoy:
Entry 4:
That dream came back again.
Why the hell won't it leave me alone?
Just when I think it's gone, it just comes right back again.
I picked it up in Central, the night after Regazzi told me the news. Ever since I got back, it comes and goes. Usually, I'm fine; I have a good, healthy sleep. But then, when something happens that gets me in a bum mood, it comes back. In this case, the occasion was my failure with trying to being Al back to the present.
It comes when I'm depressed, and it stays for a week or so afterwards, and it usually takes some deep meditation to get rid of it. But it never works permanently. If it had, I wouldn't be writing about it now.
Every dream is the same: I'm in Lior, and we're in the pitch of a battle that never occurred. Makes you wonder why I'm dreaming about it, if it never happened, huh? But there I am, firing my rifle at an enemy I can't even see. Snipers pop out from everywhere. Guys from my platoon keep going down, either wounded or killed; all of them faceless, their names I've long since forgotten.
And then, suddenly, it all stops. Everything and everyone…minus me. It was like that time I tried to invent a machine to stop time, and my cousins were screwing with me by pretending to stand still. I lower my rifle and look around. One guy's coming at me- or, I should probably say flying at me, as he's been hit in the chest by a ricochet and is caught in mid-air, the blood that had been spurting out staying exactly where it had been. Two guys, one's a medic, are treating, or at least were treating, a third guy who was on the ground covering his twitching stump of what used to be his left leg. In another area, a shell had just exploded- well, was in the middle of exploding- and three guys were frozen in mid-air, hit by the shrapnel. Despite these horrific scenes, there were no screams, no all-too-familiar calls for a medic, and no sounds of war that accompanied them.
The Atrocities of War Exhibit, stationed at the luxurious Central Museum. Tickets only, no food or drinks, and flash photography is out of the question.
I keep looking around, searching for someone familiar out of the faceless crowd of soldiers that just a few minutes ago had lead enter- and in some cases, exit- their bodies. Finally, I do. But not in the way I would want.
I see Castillo, walking towards me with his arms outstretched, a large blood stain on his chest from where the sniper's bullet passed through from his back. I see Squeaker, doing the same, with gaping, bloody holes where his eyes used to be, blood pouring out of the holes where the machine-gun stitched him up. I see Shadow, copying those movements. Minus the arms outstretched, because…well, last I heard, he didn't have those. They and a bunch of other dead men come at me, like zombies out of a bad movie. But instead of moaning, they're all chanting the same damn thing: "You left us, you abandoned us." And I try to turn away, but they're everywhere, and then all of a sudden, the bright red light that had wiped Lior off the map in the real world comes and…then I wake up.
It's no wonder I don't see Smokey in those dreams; Regazzi told me there had been noting left of my former best friend, save for his hat. But the others…it just kills me, every time I wake up and remember what they say. Because I did leave them… I did abandon them. If I hadn't have stayed to help out the Brig. Gen. and the Lt… maybe I could've been there to save the others.
God damn it, I was their squad leader, and I wasn't even there to save my veterans from getting annihilated. And for what? A bullet in the leg, and my android of a C.O. shooting the guy I was supposed to be protecting, with my handgun, no less? What help was I to Mustang, or Hawkeye? None at all, from what I can figure.
In the mornings after the dreams, I sit in my bed and I ask myself: How do you go back, to a time where life was simpler? Where death and dying didn't affect you, where the worst things that could happen to your friends was of Jimmy blowing out his knee on the track? And I try to find an answer I like. But the thing is- once you've seen was, really lived it, breathed it, seen guys you knew better than yourself get killed or maimed by it…once you really take that in, and make it apart of your daily life, then the sad truth of the matter is…
There is no going back.
At least…not for me, there isn't.
Yeah, it's been a while. If I had an excuse, I'd offer it. As it turns out, I don't, but you can take this chapter and I'll see if I can get the next one out tonight.
Chapter Summery: Things begin to look up for Scotty as a chance encounter at a bookstore introduces him to someone who may be the key to moving on with his life.
Enjoy, and review please!
