Chapter 128: Simple Justice
I had lived long enough to witness many horrors, and lived through events that should have remained confined to feverish nightmares. The life of a soldier hardens you against death and cruelty.
As the price, it takes a piece of your humanity. Many lost too much of theirs and had become alien to peace and kindness—more at home in the chaos of war than the warmth of family or community.
After coming back from Korea, life was never the same. After seeing comrades fall while I ended up surviving, I felt guilty to be alive.
Smiles irritated me; laughter even more. Because how dare the world go on in its merry way, after so much life had been extinguished, so much pain endured, and so much evil had been wrought?
It ought to stop spinning—take even a moment’s pause. For faces to hide their smiles, for nature to conceal its beauty and take on a grim veil, and weep.
That was how I became estranged from my family. I had become too detached, like a citizen of another world. I lived my days stuck in a daze, imprisoned by the past, wandering through routines with no anchor to hold me.
It was hard—and at times, I thought impossible—but slowly, I healed that part of myself I had lost on the battlefield. In the Appalachian Mountains, where I had found magic when I was a boy, I had found myself again.
And even through the loneliness, I consoled myself that at least the horrors were now nothing but distant memories.
But today, they returned.