Raven leaned forward over the table and asked, "How long ago are we talking?"

  I needed to stay in control of this conversation as there was absolutely no way I was going to tell them everything about my past, so I said, "No. No questions. I will talk. You'll need to listen. If you interrupt me, I'm afraid I won't be able to start again. Please."

  To his credit, Raven remained silent, and the others mutely shook their heads in affirmative. I took a deep breath and started over, "I am the second oldest being in this room."

  I looked over at Frank and said, "Yeah, I'm older than you. Before all the Gods disappeared, It seems that my mother attracted the attention of the God Lugh and he gave her a gift for her son. Me."

  Ravens eyes gleamed and he started to ask, "You mean you really are..."before Martina leaned over the table and slapped her hand over his mouth.

  She glared at him and said, "Shhh! No questions!"

  I went on, rushing past the painful origins of me, "I'm God touched by Lugh. He gave me my ability to never miss, and a few physical gifts for warfare. I'm faster and stronger than most human beings. My step father was a monster. I learned to fight early."

  I wrung my hands together, looking away from everyone, afraid to make eye contact. "So of course I became a warrior, but Gods are a shitty bunch of assholes,"I looked over at Sam to see him frowning and looking distinctly offended, "and as my reputation as a warrior spread, a certain Goddess took interest in me."

  I shuddered and glanced guiltily over at Martina, "The Morrigan. Goddess of War and Death. Chaos and Sovereignty. Chooser of the Slain. She saw me, loved what I was doing on the battlefield, and decided to give me a gift. A 'Get-out-of-hell-free' card."

  I paused for a second to get my head straight, "I had lost everything. I was alone, all my friends and family dead. I was about to die and there was a sound of wings, a pulsing of a dark purple light, and the Morrigan paid me a visit. She declared that my soul could never be chosen on the field of battle. At first I thought that meant I couldn't die, but after she flew away, I met my end. I died, my guts around my feet."

  Frank looked confused, "but..."

  "Three days later at sunrise, I sat up gasping for air, body healed, mind still broken. Morrigan sat there at the foot of my deathbed laughing." I slammed my hands down on the table, "Laughing!

  "She explained it to me. I will die. Everything dies. However, I have to die in combat. When that happens, she will refuse my soul, and since I'm also God touched by the Sun God Lugh, I will wake up at sunrise on the third day at the age of my first death, twenty seven fucking years old.

  "So," I swallowed hard and ground out my sins through clenched teeth, "I have fought and killed non stop for the entirety of my existence. I don't do twenty years on, and sixty years off. I go from army to army, unit to unit, country to country, fighting, killing, and dying. Over and over. I can't even remember most of my life; it's one set of barracks after another. The uniforms, the weapons, the scenery, it all changes, but the core remains the same. I kill people until they kill me, then I do it again."

  I sat there quietly, lost in my own fractured memories of death.

  Sarah was sitting there shocked into immobility. She murmured, "What about friends, family?

  "I don't have any. They've been dead a long time."

  She raised her hand to her mouth in anguish and leaned against Franks shoulder as she started to cry. I think she got it even before Frank or Martina. She understands the long term trauma of being on your own in hell. She lived it too.

  Frank held his hands up, "Wait. You've been a soldier non-stop for centuries?"

  "Yes."

  "How?"

  Martina asked, "For who?"

  If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  "Anyone who'd have me. I don't really remember."

  Sam looked at me closely as he asked, "You don't remember who you fought for?"

  "I don't want to remember."

  Martina started to reach out to grab my hand, but stopped short as if she couldn't cross that last few inches of space, "How many times have you died?"

  "I'm not sure. Dozens? Hundreds? That last time was about seven years ago. IED shredded my legs with shrapnel. It took about twenty minutes to die that time. I woke up on a hospital bed in Afghanistan and was informed I'd be going to some special branch."

  Frank looked sick, "Hundreds?"

  "I started killing long before gunpowder. Getting killed hurts a lot with a sword through your guts or an arrow in your eye, but it comes quick and easy once bullets start flying."

  "Bullshit. It's me you're talking to, Dru. Killing and dying hurts." He unconsciously rubbed his right stump as he said it.

  I shrugged, remembering flamethrowers, "Some hurt worse than others."

  Martina started crying too, "Screw the dying. I'm so sorry, Dru. I'm so sorry you've had to do that. I'm so sorry you've had to fight alone for so long."

  There was a hitch in my breathing as I tried to process what she said, "It's all I've ever done, Martina. I'm a butcher. I've literally done only two things in my entire life. I've died, and I've killed. That's what I am. Right LT?"

  He was nodding his head slowly in negation, but I knew he was only denying the truth to himself, not absolving me.

  "I'm a monster. A murderer. A professional killer."

  I turned to Martina, who was sobbing now, "Thousands, Martina. I've killed thousands."

  Frank spoke loud enough to interrupt me, "Hey, there's no way for a person to do that for that long and stay sane, Dru. No way."

  "I didn't," I shrugged.

  Sarah gasped out, "Didn't?"

  "Stay sane. I didn't stay sane. I think that's why I can't remember stuff. I had to forget in order to function."

  Sam muttered, "Maybe."

  "I think I remember most of my first twenty-seven years of life. Then whole decades start to disappear. Nothing but fragments of battles, deaths, fights. Killing over and over."

  Frank swallowed hard and asked, "What about…"

  I looked at him as he stared at his own legs and knew what he was asking, but I didn't want to answer, "What?"

  "Well…what happened when you got wounded. Really bad? Lot's of us don't die, we just…"he shrugged helplessly and swung his arms to indicate the missing leg and foot. "There has to be a time or two you lived through…this!" He slapped his thigh in anger.

  "I only remember once. I lost my right arm somewhere hot and dry. India? Africa? Not sure. They tried to send me home. I snuck out and started fighting the enemies until they killed me. Three days later, I was alive and whole."

  Frank ground his teeth together as he said, "Good trick."

  "Frank," I said. "Frank, look at me."

  He stared at me with red rimmed eyes full of self loathing and despair.

  "It's not 1700. I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong. This doesn't make you useless. It doesn't make you less. I know what you are thinking, and I was around back then too. I remember when the disabled were sent away and hidden from sight. I remember when physical challenges were tied to your character and worth. But those days are gone. Humanity is better than that now."

  "So you say. I'm not so sure about society. Plus your legs would fucking grow back!"

  "And yours won't, but I know which one of us I'd want planning this fight, and it ain't me or this lunatic Sam. I need my Lieutenant!"

  Martina finally grabbed my hand, "Do you hear yourself, Dru? A monster wouldn't even think to comfort his friend, his brother, at a time like this. There is good in you, a man worth loving and saving."

  "How can you say that? So many have died at my hands. What kind of redemption is possible for a creature like this? What kind of people would invite that into their family? How could they? But this is what I am. What I have always been."

  Sam muttered, "War Dog indeed…Dru, you might not be as evil as you think you are, but you also might be far more dangerous than you believe."

  I blinked as I tried to figure out what the hell he just said, "What?"

  In lieu of an answer, he leaned forward and asked, "What's you first memory?"

  "No."

  "No?"

  "No. I will not answer that."

  He seemed to understand me and rephrased the question, "Think back in time from today and go back to the last memory you have before you reach a blank spot. What is that last memory of?"

  "Oh. That's easy. I left the Military at the end of the Korean war to live in Myanmar for about sixteen years. I fought in the civil wars there."

  "So you remember the Korean war?"

  "No. I remember going AWOL in 1953 after waking up in a MASH unit morgue and scaring the shit out of the doctors. I stole a jeep and made it to the shore, where I stole a boat and island hopped to the Philippines before heading to Thailand and eventually Myanmar. I was there until the Vietnam war got hot, so I started fighting for the French, then back to the Americans."

  "Do you remember any of the combat in Korea?"

  "No. Well…bits and pieces."

  Sam sat back and crossed his arms, thinking. "Did you fight for America?"

  I was stumped, "You know what? I have no idea."

  Frank was shell-shocked, but trying to keep up, "Sam, what are you thinking?"

  "You were in Korea and Vietnam too, weren't you, Frank? With the unit?"

  "Yes."

  Sam smiled and stood up.