∞CASSIDY☼
I don't have a one- track mind. Mark and Henry have it. Layla too, if she forces herself.
As for me, I don't.
There are pros to having your mind loop and tangle itself in all different directions like a ball of yarn. Like being able to solve complex mathematical problems, being able to make a time machine and seeing things in all angles. Always out of the box that sometimes it's hard to contain and color within the lines.
Actually, let me backtrack on that. The pros are also the cons.
Dad used to say that my mind is a castle. For a kid who grew up not having much, I had to use my imagination. A big, beautiful palace with no windows or gates, he said. To let all the sunshine and starlight stream in, to let the birds fill it in with songs and to let wise visitors from foreign lands come as they wish bearing stories from far away.
That was all fine and great when you are a kid and have your parents to protect you.
But life is no fairy tale.
When my parents died in sixth grade, darkness descended upon my castle. Invaders bearing sharp swords came, sorcerers hit the bricks with spell after spell, they let loose their monsters inside my walls and they stayed inside but they left it open still.
The sunlight and starlight continued to enter but there are new occupants inside.
When I saw the carnage in front of us, my mind castle immediately shoot out meteors. I watched each one descend to the earth to cause destruction.
Mark will die first because his pride will not allow him to stand by and do nothing. You will be killed right after because you are reckless.
You will die first and Mark will stay here in this time period and he will die from infection.
You will be raped and Mark will be forced to watch and then both of you will be killed after.
The time machine's battery is finished and you will both be forced to see this war through and you will not survive.
You will both die now.
And those were just the first five.
When Mark held me to him, I noticed that he was much warmer than he was when I first checked. If he continues like this, his wound untreated, it will only worsen. Maybe that was what snapped me back, instead of the intensity of his voice. He's burning up from the inside and the human body can only take so much before it sends out the signals. He'll be delirious with fever before the sun rises.
Even in the middle of war, Mark tried to make friends with the man whose uniform he's about to steal. Extrovert.
I don't believe in God. At least, not anymore. But perhaps Gibson Smith does. So I did the sign of the cross before I took his clothes which doesn't even count because I'm not Catholic. If I think more about it then I probably wouldn't have the guts to do it. He's just another casualty of war and that's what war does, it takes.
Something that resembled a building was in the distance. There are no lights over there but I heard the screams of men and they are talking in English. Very frantic English. It's too dark to know for sure but it might be a hospital. I pocketed the knife and pulled my boots tight. It squelched with Gibson's sweat as it made contact with the dry sole of my foot. My newly cropped hair fits inside the helmet well enough, the tip of it almost covering my eyes. I felt blood and sweat that doesn't belong to me seep into my already damp hair and I cringed despite the situation.
