• Blood.

    That one word can hint at a lot of things. Roses, vampires, hospitals...

    Death...

    I blinked a few times to clear my hazy eyes, waking from a deep slumber. Checking my military-issue digital watch revealed the time to be 06:23 hours.

    Suddenly, the pain hit me. I coughed once, then wiped my lips with the crook of my elbow, ridding my mouth of dried spit, dirt, and blood. I slowly stood, using the roadblock I had fallen asleep against for support, my legs cracking with the exertion.

    How long has it been? I can't remember. Seems like ages ago, but... well, time flies when you're having fun, and all that...

    ...soldier, your next mission is crucial to the success of our campaign. We've received intel that Osama Bin Laden, the man behind the 9/11 bombings, is currently holed up in Tikrit, a small city in Iraq. In twelve hours from now, you...

    I licked my lips, moistening them in the crisp morning air. I stumbled out of my home - no, not my home... that's too nice of a word - my shitshack, and began a slow pace towards the nearest general store, hoping to find some useable salvage.

    Who am I? I sometimes find myself asking the same question. My wallet says I'm a United States citizen. My uniform says that I'm a member of the Marine Corps.The dog tags around my neck say that I'm Sergeant Ari McFarley.

    My head says otherwise.

    ...flying in to rendezvous at the insertion point, where you will meet up with companies Charlie, Bravo, and Foxtrot. Timing is crucial; our objective is to spring the trap fast and furious. Failure is not an option...

    Where am I? I can't be too sure, since our chopper was launched off-course in the explosion, but I think I'm on the outskirts of the city. Maybe.

    I sigh, dropping an empty can of baked beans onto the broken tile floor. Wherever I am... the food sucks. And that's saying a lot, coming from a Marine.

    There isn't a lot left, I observe. All life in the surrounding areas had been killed by the blast, so there wasn't anything eatable. Same thing went for plants. This was the last grocery store in the entire city, and it was almost half-empty. Still, adapting is what humans are best at. I'll think of something soon...

    "Sergeant Ari... I repeat, Sergeant Ari... take the shot. Do it. Pull that trigger, and we can all go home!"

    I finished filling up a small shopping cart, and wheeled it back to the shitshack, dumping its contents unceremoniously into a pile on the floor. The shack itself wasn't anything special. It was maybe twenty-by-twenty feet, with a low ceiling, so you had to duck to move around in it. In the center was a wooden picnic table with sheared-off legs, so it was in basically a piece of wooden board sitting on the floor. Three salvaged matresses lined the walls, two of them occupied.

    "Guys, breakfast is here." I called, beating the empty can of beans with my Field Knife.

    The first up, as usual, was Tim. He rolled off of his bed, mumbling something under his breath that sounded like a "mornin'..." He had blond-bleached hair that was short-cut, ending just above his eyebrows. His black combat boots scuffed the dirt floor as he walked over to the table, sitting cross-legged.

    We started to eat a bit, and sure enough Rafi joined us. He stuck out like a sore thumb - curly black hair, thin and extremely tanned - an ex-member of Osama's personal guard. He had sort of found us after the explosion, but...

    Well, we'd all had enough of death.

    He sat before us, opening a can of uncooked Spaghetti-O's with his own knife. Using his deft hands, he began eating at a speed that put both of us marines to shame.

    ...Sergeant, are you alright? Don't freeze up on us, now. It's just one sh-- s**t! They knew we were coming! Abort mission, we have been compromised! Fall back to --*radio static*-ppers inbound! Repeat, enemy choppers --*static*- ...Oh god. They've just launched nukes. I'm counting ten... twenty...

    Oh, god.

    I pulled a packet of cards out of a pocket in my BDU (Battle Dress Uniform), and put it on the table between us. "Anyone up for a game of Poker? Go Fish? Blackjack? Bullshit?" I asked, slowly shuffling the deck. The cards were broken in, just the way I liked them. I would have been even more appreciative had we a second deck, but I couldn't find one at the hobby shop. It had been crushed when a skyscraper had its supports blown out.

    "How about Egyptian Raz Scru?" Rafi asked, cracking his stiff knuckles. "It is an old game of luck and reflex that I played often while enlisted. I can show you how to play, if you'd like."

    He took the deck from my outstretched hands and began dealing the cards, while Tim lit up a cigarette and blew the smoke out of a hole in the ceiling. "Sure, count me in." Tim responded, watching the smoke as it trailed away into the midmorning sky.

    The words we've got nothing else to do went unspoken.

    As we played cards, I couldn't keep my mind on the game. Many emotions tore through me as fresh as when they first arose - guilt, sadness, anxiety, fear, anger - but I hid them, bottled them in the darkest corners of my mind where they would never see another sunrise.

    It's too bad that bottles are made of glass...

    And mine was going to crack, sooner than I had realized.