What is “good”... what is “evil”... When the coastlines are soak with insanity. When war is a constant and when someone deems the blood of children is worthy to spill… for what? What is the worth of morality and sanity in such an environment? The dogmatic ideology of kill or be killed seems to be the only reliable creed to follow, and when such beliefs become so integral within a being's life, or a man's, or a human's life, can the human be distinguished from any other mammal?

  Bullets bellow throughout the halls as the ground shakes with great concern. Stepping out from my door, I was clad within my clothes, blood-soaked manifesto of my sins… But what I wear never stains; nothing ever matters when life is fast and loose. When a bullet, a blade, an arrow, or some spell kills you. All just washes away by the rain.

  Death wraps around any land I dare stand upon. My mind thinks as my lips wrap around my flask.

  Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up and down again.

  What's the point of this indulgence? The endless mass of questions stacks upon more questions trying to find the meaning of reality. Thirty-two… Thirty-three years… maybe… of this everlasting repetition of madness.

  Bang.

  A 9mm puncher the skin.

  Tours through the man’s chest cavity, bringing out chunks of gore with the round as its souvenir. The man's body crumbles with his gun still wrapped around him.

  I walk over to him.

  Kick him in the head, rip the rifle off him and any ammunition that was store on him.

  A M16A2 rifle with three mags of 5.56×45 mm, each holding thirty rounds.

  The dog had followed me over to the body and continued to follow me without any need of direction.

  Only one body was filled within this hall, and it was the one I created, but the likelihood of this being the same across this school was impossible.

  Maybe it's simple rot that has filled this land. The same as the great American experiment, built upon the lies and men who expected that a country based upon lies could ever reach what it want to… Thirteen years I spent in the rotting corpse of the American suburb. Spent sitting in that plastic factory.

  Five to eighteen.

  Nineteen years in Japan, most of it either shitfaced or hungover. Only ever working, drinking, smoking, or sleeping… Catching a film or a show or reading a book.

  Only thirteen years—what a surprise.

  “Count—count—count—count—the bullets in the bandoliers.

  If—your—eyes—drop—they will get atop o' you!”

  The halls of the teachers' living quarters is fill with a harsh stillness. Whether real or not, the walls that were stone all across the school were not within these halls. It was this dark yellow painted drywall, and beneath me… was still stone, which wasn’t different. The ceiling was the same as the floor; only the walls had changed.

  Why?

  The kid was doing all right keeping her face buried within the dog’s fur as instructed, and it seems that the nose did not reach her ears. Maybe the decision I made was the lesser of two Devils.

  Being a cripple is rather awful for this field of business, for lack of a better phrase.

  I never did feel crippled when my eye gone and left its resting place.

  Only when my leg started acting up. From that bullet, one of Keyser's goons fired upon my leg.

  There's this little sound my cane makes when hitting against the stone ground. The sound bounces around in the grand halls when no souls are walking in them.

  The sound bothers me, but it’s better than what silence does to my crazed mind.

  Miyamoto probably been cutting down men in dozens.

  How does he do it?

  Maybe a bottle is enough for him, or he just isn’t a bitch like me.

  I wonder how many he has killed.

  The sound of war grew louder every time we ventured another step. The familial aspect of it all hit me with the smell, the smell of fresh blood spilling. The raging bullet and deafening explosions, all filling my senses with the same madness, my mind stays stewing in every moment of my “life”. I hope in some way the kid can’t smell all these, but the possibility of that is the same as me getting into heaven… as well as the possibility of a heaven.

  Two small hallways lay in front of me.

  One to my left and another straight ahead.

  I can only see the opening of the left hallways, not what lays deeper in.

  In front of me seems to be a hallway for a different group of living quarters for teachers.

  There was only one real choice to be made here.

  I turned down the hallway into the unknown.

  Wash.

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  The blood-stained moonlight shines upon a blade that passes inches in front of my face.

  I parry the strike with my cane.

  The blade had grown stuck within the wood.

  The shadow retreats deeper into the unknown.

  The only lighting was this glimmering of moonlight.

  The shadow seems to draw another blade, readying to strike once more.

  I drop my cane and draw my Jericho from its harness, raising it to my right eye.

  Two shadows stare each other down.

  I place my finger on the trigger.

  Moonlighter gleans into the hallway.

  …

  “V?”

  “Miyamoto?”

  The once blackened hall was filled with the moon's reddened glow.

  I remove my finger from my trigger and point the muzzle down.

  “Why are you hidden within a blackened hallway?”

  “I heard footsteps coming from down the hall, so I decided to commence a sneak attack.”

  The dog walks over to me with my cane in its mouth, pushing it into my hand. “Thanks, bud.” I said while patting Bear’s head. “Do you have a vendetta against me walking or something?”

  “You’re the one who keeps using your cane as a defense tool.” He replies while walking over to pull his blade out of my cane.

  “Jesus, man, not so rough. How did your blade even get this deep?”

  “When I strike down upon someone, I like making sure it kills them. Both for their sake and mine.”

  “Christ.”

  Miyamoto was able to remove his wakizashi without destroying my poor cane. The second time he gifted it a scar, and this time my cane was even good enough for the main deal.

  A faint noise starts to bang off the walls from the other end of this hallway.

  The noise of footsteps.

  Miyamoto threw a look at me that said what I was hearing was right. So I return the look of him by pulling my M16 off my back and starting to fire down the hall.

  “RETREAT!”

  Miyamoto, Bear and I ran back to the end we came from.

  I was running backwards laying down supprosing fire in one of the dumbest acts I've done since I got here.

  Shiiiit.

  I would have liked the fully auto mod from the M16A1, but that probably made things worse. Mag dumping while running backward would definitely be the dumbest goddamn thing I would have ever done in my life, but I only had the three busts, so that must do.

  Not a second too soon did we make it out of the hallway and out of the opening when dozens of bullets came flying out.

  Holes fill the wall.

  And the noise of a full fucking armada starts to ring within my ears.

  AHHH!

  Christ Almighty!

  I got one eye, one leg; now I’m going to have no bloody ears.

  Miyamoto seems all right; he probably shoved his earplugs in while we started running, and for some reason the dog seems all right as well. Following everyone else's example, I shove my earplugs in as well.

  Church bells are still going off in my skull.

  Good Lord!

  Who must have died to get such a bloody service?

  I shove the sauce down my throat and start to reply to their vicious attack against the wall by unloading my rounds down the hall. One more incredibly foolish bastard breaking so many gun safe rules, like one of the most important ones…

  KNOW YOUR FUCKING TARGET!

  I throw the used magazine up on the ground and load the next one, but hold my fire.

  Waiting for the returning play from the away team from the other end.

  A real war of attrition.

  But it seems like the rats at the other end are pulling a blitzkrieg.

  Bang bang bang!

  Bang bang bang!

  Two rifles unload, fully auto.

  Must be suppressing fire, so I decided to fire back while their bullets still fly. Aiming anywhere that a man could stand.

  Jumping from the pan to the flames.

  Don’t know whether being stuck in a tub with only a shotgun or a battle where I can’t see shit is worse.

  FUCK ME!

  I feel like John McClane pulling glass shards out of my feet.

  Think, think, stop making fucking idiotic films reflecst, and think of a strike back.

  Rummaging around trying to find anything within my pockets I feel four objects I forget I held onto.

  Four type 97 grenades from my raid on Keyser compound.

  Good old irony of using his stuff once more on his own men.

  It seems that I have a bloody allergy with not using frags outside.

  Well, they're sure as shit more effective inside.

  I throw up a hand to get Miyamoto's attention.

  He looks over at me.

  I move my hand to tell him to go farther back in the hall.

  He moved light-footed down the hall.

  I did the same thing to Violet and Bear.

  With all allies at a “safe distance,” I pulled the pin.

  Boom!

  Hundreds of pieces of shrapnel fill the hallway, with the speed of a machine gun firing, ripping apart whatever man-shaped thing that lay within the abyss.

  With the bang of my cane dropping, I took my chances and succumbed to the shadows.

  Bullets start to whiz around me, but due to the sons of bitches being as blind as me, nothing was connecting.

  I found a body filled with shrapnel lying in a pool of blood and threw the body in front of me.

  My M16 in my right hand, and my left is holding up this son of a bitch.

  DAMN THE PAIN!

  I’LL SEE IT IN THE PITS OF HELL!

  Finally making it out of the fucking hall, I unloaded six rounds into the left side and the other six on the right.

  Two combatants still stand when I hit the back wall.

  The two were aiming their own M16s, most likely A1s.

  Ah… Fuck ME!

  Miyamoto comes out of the abyss, throws his wakizashi at the right man’s head, and his tantō at the left guy’s heart.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, V! Are you insane or just plain suicidal?”

  “No mortal man can dare kill the Devil.”

  Miyamoto drew his katana out of its sheath.

  “Oh, calm down, my good old conrad. I just ran through a hall full of bullets, but I did it because we were sitting ducks if I didn’t. It was a damn choke point.”

  “This is why you have one eye and one leg. I hope you understand that.”

  “I’d rather trade those if I continued to live another day.”

  The dog had caught up to us with the kid, of course, on his back.

  With the cane in his mouth once more.

  I throw down the guy I was still holding onto; I forgot about him for a few seconds in all the excitement.

  And I pet Bear once more, with Bear then dropping the cane into my hand.

  Looking around, I found six bodies lying on the ground, two with blades in their heads and a very pissed Miyamoto pulling them out of their skulls.

  The other four must have been from the M16 cutting through the first guy and getting the guy behind him.

  Miyamoto is right; that was reckless in every way.

  I looked down at the flask, the bottle, the thing that keeps me going, and took a swig from it.

  "There is no discharge in the war!" from "Boots" by Rudyard Kipling's.