I look up into those haunted eyes. Full of pain and longing and wish for just a moment, that I could see the world from those eyes that have seen a million ghosts walking through the streets full of rage and woe. The ghosts of men once alive with love in their hearts and lyrics dancing from their now cold lips. They own these streets when the world has gone to sleep. When the rest of the world is silent is their time to be heard.

He looks away. Remembering that he is the soldier who made these streets fill with rage during the night. The man who burned the bodies that now own these forgotten roads. I wipe a tear from his face leaving a trail on his cheek. “You need to leave that life behind” I say. His back stays turned “How can I leave what my whole life was, in the shadows?” “I left no legacy in my eyes, I brought only sorrow to this now empty path” “This path people followed and fought upon.” “You left a legacy” “One that those ghosts will never forget.” “Their still ghosts!” “ghosts that haunt my soul.” “Ghosts that haunt these once seeing eyes.”
“Why do you live in a life that is forgotten?” “Forgotten?” “Forgotten!” “This life will never be forgotten” Not as long as these men haunt the streets” He turns to me and gazes into my unknowing eyes. My eyes that have not seen the red sun rise. He turns sharply and walks away from me down the lane of memories he will never forget. Can never forget. I watch as he falls to the ground, a knife in his gut. He now walks with the ghosts that haunt these streets.

Five years earlier...

The stars are still bright in the crisp morning air. I wait for a signal, a sign to start stopping the enemy. These streets have still not seen war or blood on the hands of every man. And neither have I. As I see the stars fade and the sun rise I know it is time. I reveal myself from behind my shield, my protection from what I am about to be hit by. Reality. They called it training, preparing us for what would be out here, how to fight, how to kill and conquer. But they never prepared us for the guilt, shame, destruction of our mentality. They never prepared us for the sound of bullets as they hit a mans heart. They told us that we were saving our country. That each bullet that ricocheted through a mans head was for their own good, for our survival.

As night dawns I kneel, with the weight of my comrades limp, cold, dead body over my shoulder. It is just the weight of one man but feels like the weight of the world. He needed someone to carry him home, a home I realize with dread has become a lost memory with people who when I look into their eyes will be strangers. There is the blood of a hundred men on my hands their screams rattling my shaky thoughts. As I look around me tears blurring my vision, I realize I can not tell the difference between friend and foe, angel or devil. All I can hear is a voice in my head bringing me back to myself, a scary place to be. I feel so lost with these people I never knew before I ended their life. I never knew them... Anger, shame, adrenalin fills me. I stand roaring with the weight of this man I can no longer save. These men that are no longer salvageable. I scream their names. I wander, waiting for a reply. A silence ripples through me and these roads I roam upon. Looking for salvation but seeing only bodies, so still and silent. I fumble in my pocket for something, a memory, a moment that can bring me back home. I find a lighter. I take it out of my pocket and click it until a small flame begins. Heat, warmth on such a cold night. In anger I throw the lighter. It hits the fine black powder from the guns of dead men. That small flame becomes a roaring fire. A fire burning the bodies that I fought for and fought to kill. I look into the fire. Trying to find a savior, an angle, anything. My eyes begin to sting from the smoke concealing the images that haunt my mind. The flames are the only thing that reflect from my eyes. Everything slowly becomes fuzzy. The bodies, the flames, the screams. My feelings have sharpened though. I feel fear as the world slowly begins to disappear. I scream for help. A scream of despair as the only images I see are the ones tattooed into my mind.