Fractured

3

August 19 2003 - Early Morning

Panic. That feeling in the middle of the night when all you feel is winded. It's the feeling you get when something has gone oh so horribly wrong. When panic sets in it is hard to think of anything else, it clouds your vision, disrupts your train of thought and ruins your plans all at once. Dread. Something very similar to panic, it comes when you have done something so unspeakable that it eats you from the inside out, it comes when you have everything to lose. Dread accompanies panic, that's why they are different, not the same, dread and panic are essential to life because they keep us on our toes. So when he woke up dreading and panicking, he took a deep breath and did what anyone in their sane mind would not, he sat; unfazed.

He opened his eyes in one great big effort as they often do after such a nightmare. He didn't see, he watched but never did he see. For a while after a nightmare it is impossible to think of anything other than that of which has plagued your dreams. Nathaniel did not find himself locked in an embrace with his mind, stuck in the nightmare that had been, he was not one to be contained by something as simple as his mind. He shook as he felt a shiver reach down his spine. The inexcusable act of Graham Walker was all but forgotten by his son, he did not recall the pain but his mind found it an important event to remember and so he did. All the years later... he did.

Most people cannot remember their dreams, and those who can seem to only remember fragments. But, it is very rare to find someone that cannot remember their nightmares. Nathaniel saw everything, nothing in his dreams escaped him and sometimes that fascinated him and other times it horrified him. He was different. He saw every detail in perfect clarity where others saw naught but their reflections on a blank slate. He saw so much in his dreams that when he was feeling especially scared, he found it hard to sleep, because that's when the nightmares came. The vividness of his nightmares scared him, he did not need to be scared, and he needed to be brave.

No one can make a man brave, only the fears he harbours can make a man brave. No one is brave, but they can become brave. Can you be brave if all you are is afraid? That is the only time you can be brave, it is impossible to be brave without having reason to. Nathaniel was scared, he was afraid but above all, he was brave.

A soldier is not driven by his hate for what is before him, soldiers are spurred on to fight out of love for what lies behind them. Nathaniel was a soldier. He was the infantry of fear. He was all that stood between his mind and destruction. He was not the shield that guards the realms of men but more so the wall between his fears and his life. He kept his deepest pains hidden but gave them great thought