Sydney, Australia, Earth – April 5th, 2553 – 0102 hours
Petty Officer Second Class Anthony-B256 woke up screaming and tumbled out of bed in the dead of night. He hurriedly grabbed his trusty Magnum that he always kept under his pillow by habit and scanned the room with trained accuracy and precision. Having noticed that he was all alone in the bedroom with nothing but the slight moonlight creeping through the blinds keeping him company, he let out a deep sigh and sat down on his bed, glancing at the digital clock on the opposite wall: 0103 hours. The Spartan-III had been experiencing recurring nightmares ever since he retired from the UNSC a few weeks ago, in fact the nightmares were so intense and vivid that it often kept him up at night.
He found the nightmares rather strange, as he had never experienced such things when he was still in active service, but he brushed them aside, thinking that he only experienced them because unlike during service, his mind wasn't preoccupied far more important tasks like missions to execute and objectives to accomplish. With that, he laid back down on his bed and tried to go back to sleep, even though he knew pretty well at this point that he wasn't going to get any.
As dawn broke and the first rays of sunlight were visible over the horizon, Anthony groggily climbed out of bed, having not gotten any sleep at all, and headed downstairs to the kitchen. As he fixed himself a cup of coffee, his mind wondered to what he'd do today. Having been trained and indoctrinated at a young age in an environment where you always had some sort of purpose or objective to complete, he felt very lost now that he was out in the civilian world, with no one to give him any missions or orders.
"Fine then, I'll just give myself missions instead." He said to himself as he grabbed his coffee and sat down in the living room couch, taking a sip and letting out a satisfied sigh. He then picked up a thick book from the coffee table. An Alien's Guide to Life on Earth - 2553 Edition it read on the cover; someone, he wasn't sure who, had clearly sent it to him as a joke but it was a very helpful resource, nonetheless.
"I might as well be an alien around these parts…" he mumbled as he flipped through the pages, looking for nothing in particular. After a few minutes of mindless page flipping, he closed the book and got up. "Current Objective: Stock up on supplies." He thought as he headed out the door. By now, the sun was clear over the horizon and rising and the quiet and lazy suburb slowly began to wake up. Anthony walked quickly with purpose to his Hog, not only was it a familiar vehicle, but it was basically the only civilian car that could comfortably fit the large, muscular 6'5" frame of the Spartan.
"Maybe I'm too used to war… Hell who am I kidding of course I'm used to war it's what I've been basically doing since I was born."