just a start?

Michael Carrington walked the lonely streets, rifle slung firmly around his shoulder. His boots pounded a staccato beat, the only sound for blocks. It was a ruined city filled with ruined people, a canvas displaying the true nature of these boys turned men. Bullet holes peppered the walls, a tangible reminder of the anger that perforated the city. He stopped at the school. The entire building had been blasted apart, words he could not understand danced behind his eyelids.

He was walking through the city when he came upon an enemy soldier, wounded and lying in the street. He watched as the man’s life bubbled out of him in great gasps of pain. He could smell the burnt flesh where a grenade had opened his gut. He watched as the dying man's' blood gurgled out of him, and all Michael could think of was a bottle of champagne being opened. He tried to hate the man but couldn't; everyone feels pain.  His hands trembled as he brought his rifle to bear, his stomach churning. The injured man gave a great moan, a cry of some type. A terrible grin stretched across his face, engulfing his visage. He began to laugh, a laugh that left the man shaking as if from cold. Michael couldn't breathe, he felt as if all the air around him had been sucked out of his lungs. This corpse kept staring at him, the eyes boring into him, his soul. He had to close those eyes, before they became his own. He squeezed the trigger. The shot rang out, echoing off the ruined walls of the city. Michael turned and vomited, leaving the grinning corpse behind him.


As he walked he heard the muffled sound of sobbing; a child’s voice. He rushed to the spot, hoping to help the child. She sat in a ruined house, her yellow dress, bright as a canary, the only point of color in the gray landscape. He walked towards her, hands out and nonthreatening. She cried out in a language he did not know. She hid behind a grandfather clock, trembling like an animal. He held out his hand to her, just waiting. He could not move.

"How can I take her with me? What relief will I give her, I'm a killer not a father. I would be sentencing her to death, not life."

She tentatively reached out to him. He looked in her eyes and saw himself; he didn't see what he thought he would. He saw a thin, haggard man on the verge of tears. A man that needed someone just as much as she needed him. As he took her hand she began to cry. He held her close, two ruined people in a ruined city. They cried together, sharing their pain and relief. When he finally stopped crying, he rose up and took her by the hand.
“Come on little canary, let’s go.”