"Sergeant Lilienfeld, do you copy?"

I put down my book and quickly picked up the radio.

"Roger sir, I hear you"

"Okay, Lilienfeld, listen up. The convoy will be stopping for gas in an Afghan town nearby. We have a firm pressance there, but remain on guard. Copy that?"

"Roger sir."

Click!

I set down the radio and pulled up my book, Mockingjay. I kept reading until a marine came over to me and practically made me want to blow his face off.

"Spoiler alert, Prim dies"

I never came closer to spooning someone with a wrench.

"Damnit asshole! That was my only source of entertainment around this dump of a country!"

"Your welcome."

I threw a punch at his face. He just simply ducked and my fist connected with the hard and rough metal walls of the humvee.

"Bitch!"

I withdrew my hand. It looked really swollen, but it wasn't broken.

"Motherfucker! I'll have your head!"

The marine just chuckled, and I couldn't help but smile.

"Yo, I haven't seen you anywhere before. Who are you?"

The marine shifted his position a bit and spoke in a completely bad-ass voice that made the drivers turn their heads to see what was going on in the humvee.

"Just call me DJ."

"Cool name."

"Thanks brother."

"Hey! You two quit making out back there! We're approaching the town! You know your job!", the driver yelled.

"Yeah, I think I got the idea on the 27th time you told us were approaching the town."

The driver scowled and turned around to continue looking at the road. In no time, we arrived in the town. It was quite populated, so children ran around in the streets freely. Just seeing all of those kids in the street brought up painful memories.

"If only I could do that in my childhood.", I said to myself.

"What?", DJ asked.

"Nothing.", I lied.

DJ seemed to get the idea and he exited out of the humvee, as did I and the other marines in the convoy. I saw the waiting fuel barrels guarded with some allied militia. I groaned as me and my comrades headed over to the armed militia. I approached them , asked them to lower their weapons, and payed them a rather large amount of currency for the oil and gasoline. They obliged, lowered their AK-47s, and took the money. They handed over the barrels and spoke in the foreign language that I learned in The Middle East.

"Thank you. You are paying for a good cause."

I nodded back as I hefted an oil barrel towards a Bradlys Armored Combat Vehicle in the convoy. I handed the oil drum to a fellow marine, and he began to fill it up. I saluted him, as did he, and I walked over to DJ. I saw him filling up a humvee, so I decided to wait until he was done. After the last drop was poured in, he stowed the empty canister in the trunk.

"Sup DJ."

"Oh, hey, uh, what was your name?"

"Sergeant Lilienfeld."

"Ah, I see. So what's up?"

Before I could respond, I saw an ice cream truck pull up from around a corner. My stomach gargled at the frosty delights that the truck held, as I was pretty much living off of rations. DJ got up from his sitting position and turned towards the ice cream truck.

"Bro, I don't have time for this. I'm gonna purchase some kids some ice cream. You wanna come?"

"Naw, I'm gonna wait a while. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna hurl any second now if I think about eating."

"Suit yourself."

I watched DJ head over the crowd of children waiting for their frozen treats. DJ yelled out in foreign language in the air.

"Ice cream's on me children."

The childern screamed with delight as DJ began paying for the ice cream. I smiled.

"Now, that's making a difference.", I say to myself as I headed back to the humvees.

KA-BOOM!

The ice cream truck EXPLODED before my very eyes and sent the flaming bodies of DJ and the countless children in every direction. I screamed in horror as my fellow marine and innocent children were thrown to the ground. The next thing I know, an RPG sails over my head and turns the Bradlys into a smoldering wreck by hitting its weaker top armor. More and more rockets shot out and caught the humvees as I frantically radioed for help.

"This is convoy 6-3-7-2-2! We are under attack! Requesting immediate air support!"

"Negative, negative, too many innocents in the area, your'e on your own, Sergeant."

I cursed out loud and saw numerous insurgents round a corner of a building rather far away. I ignored them completely and stared at the lifeless body of DJ. I just met him, but he was my brother in arms, and he had died right before my eyes. Suddenly, I saw his chest began rising up and down.

HE'S ALIVE!

I quickly rushed into the middle of all the cross fire as I was focused on saving a fellow marine...no...brother. I took a hit in the side, where my kevlar bullet-proof vest had lesser protection. I flinched in pain as I took the round and continued towards DJ. I moved him behind a concrete barricade as Insurgents appeared on the rooftops with RPGs. One fired at a humvee and caught it in the blast. The humvee was turned into a massive fireball as the surrounding marines were caught ablaze.

"Corpsman! I HAVE A WOUNDED HERE!"

Immediately, a marine with a red cross on his jacket came from one of the humvees and approached me. He took a good look at DJ, who was hardly breathing. His skin was severely burnt and had gasoline all over it from the explosion. The corpsman nodded and immediatly got to work. I poked my head over the concrete barricade I used for cover and looked at the roof tops. I saw an RPG trooper leveling its rocket launcher at my cover. Acting quickly, I drew my M4A1 assault rifle and aimed down the ACOG. I leveled the scope on the terrorist's head and fired three shots.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The RPG trooper's head recoiled back from the rounds and fired his RPG uselessly into the air. I quickly switched targets to an approaching technical, a modified civilian vehicle, usually a pickup truck armed with a machine gun or other weapons. I put a shot into the driver and a shot into the gunner, now making the vehicle useless. Then, I noticed a BTR assault vehicle round a corner of a building. Before I could react, it fired its massive 30mm auto cannon at a marine and made him explode into a million pieces. It then fired some sort of missile and destroyed a Humvee, along with the three Marines standing by it. Suddenly, 5 marines came up to me and informed me that we needed to head to the roof tops and find an anti-tank weapon. I agreed and ordered some machine gunners to cover the medic attending to DJ. Me and the other marines quickly headed into the cross fire of the BTR and the other marines in the convoy.

"MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!"

Right before we reached a multi-leveled school house, one of the marines took a hit and fell to the ground, unable to move. The rest of the marines hadn't noticed and ran on without the wounded marine. If there was one thing that I learned in my service, it was to never leave a man behind. I turned around and dashed towards the marine who managed to hide behind a boulder and fire ineffectively at the BTR with his M4A1. I took a hold of the marine and carried him with the fireman's carry technique. I took a round from an AK-47, but my kevlar did its job, and blocked the round. I stumbled as the force of the bullet jostled me. I had to run quite clumsily  with the weight of the Marine slung over my shoulder, but I managed to get inside the school house where the other marines were inside. If it weren't for the other marines laying smokes down to conceal my rescue, then I would have been swiss-cheesed. I laid the Marine down in a corner and I joined with the rest of the marines to finish off the BTR. Right was we turned for a stair case, an insurgent rounded the corner with its RPK. The insurgent threw the butt stock of the machine gun towards my face, but my knife was quicker. I dodged right, and the insurgent was forced forward. Then, I brought the knife down onto his back, and a fellow marine finished him off with a blast from his Benelli M4 shotgun.

We came into a empty school room that on the opposite end, had access to a fire escape ladder. The squad was about to dash to the opposite end, until we heard an insurgent come from the door and throw in a grenade. Right as the explosive left his hand, he quickly shut the door and locked it.

There was no way out.

"GRENADE!"

I quickly shouted out as I ran for the explosive. Too late, my brothers registered what I was about to do. Out stretching my arms, I threw myself over the grenade, and waited for the pain to embrace me. I waited for my life to flash before my eyes, but nothing happened. I realized, this was it. I was taking my life for my brothers. In the split second before detonation, I wondered if my whole life was leading towards this moment. At least I might go to a more peaceful place...

And with that, a Tear of War fell from my eye.

KA-SPLUT!

--

I never expected that I would open my eyes again. I never expected for myself to breath again. But some how, I was doing just that. I opened my eyes to find that I was in some kind of meadow. My eyes kept turning around and scanned the environment for any clue of where I might be. I looked down at myself. There was no hole from the grenade to my stomach. I looked at my side. There was no wound from the bullet I was struck by. I was still wearing my kevlar body armor and my military fatigues. My M4A1 laid a few feet away from me, and my other gear was slung under a tree. Inched towards the tree and retrieved my gear and inched the other direction for my M4A1 and put it in my backpack.

"Am I in...heaven?"

This had to be heaven, even though I didn't have a religion. I tried to get up completely, but an immense pain flared up in my chest. I screamed in agony as the pain was unbearable. I heard something snap in my chest as I howled again from the pain.

"GOD! SOMEBODY HELP ME!"

Suddenly, a streak of multicolors descended from the sky and landed next to me. A lot of dust as thrown up as I shut my eyes from the cloud. I then laid my eyes on a cyan colored horse, no bigger that a meter tall, and had a rainbow-colored mane. From its appearance, at looked female. I had no idea of what to make of it. It looked at me with very concerning, yet angry eyes. It continued to stare at me, both of our eyes meeting each other. Before the mare had a chance to speak, I barely breathed the words to it.

"Please...help me."

Suddenly, the mare's expression from suspicion quickly changed into concern as it came closer.

"What? Are you hurt?"

"Yes! I think I've broken some of my ribcage. Is there a hospital around here somewhere?!"

"Wait! What are you?! And why should I help you?!", the mare yelled in my face.

Suddenly, I coughed and a small speck of blood splattered against her face. She wiped the blood off and she then looked much more worried about my physical state.

The mare quickly nodded to me and scooped me up with her hooves and set me down on her back. The mare seemed a little uncomfortable with a human on her back, but drew her wings...wait...WINGS?! I stared at the feathered appendages attached to the mare's body. It is impossible for a horse to grow wings. They weren't related to any kind of flying species at all. I decided to ask questions later as the mare looked back at me with very concerning eyes.

"Do you have a good grip on me?"

"Urgh, yeah."

"Good, cause' I'm gonna go pretty fast.", The mare smiled at me before whipping it off her face. She then thought about the situation in process and spread her wings.

"Wait, what do you mean fast-HOLY SHIT!"

The mare rocketed forward with incredible speed. The wind beat furiously in my hair and her mane. I could hardly make out anything in this kind of speed. With a quick dive down, I could make out a small village, or town down below. I could not really see much about it before the pain began to grow in my chest again. With a scream, I blacked out.

Well, that's the end of the first chapter. I hope you enjoyed it, because there shall be more! Please leave your comments below telling how you liked the story, or how it could be improved on!

Quote: "A country cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war."-Albert Einstein