text: The soft sound, delicate against my not-yet fully awakened ears, echoes throughout the space like a pebble skipping across still waters. It threatens to rouse me to awakeness, to pull me from the peace, quiet and safety of the deep and empty slumber that my mind had slipped into. My mind slips back into darkness, away from the prying, grating noise that threatens to steal me away from my place of safety. Again. *Hoot. Hoot.* My eyebrows knit together in solemn acceptance, recognizing the significance of the sound as my mind stirs into lucidity. I am alive. Now is not the time for rest; there is work that must be done. My eyes slide open, pupils dilating in silent protest as shafts of dim light snake their way between the hoods of my eyelids to assail my still waking eyes. I lick my lips, the modest amount of saliva attempting to saturate their parched, cracked, and desert-like surface. I swallow, the spittle on my tongue feeling like sandpaper as it treks its way through the bone-dry crevasses of my tortured throat. The dull, throbbing aching in my joints, my bones, and my muscles crying out like a single voice, lost within a vast and uncaring wasteland. A third time. *Hoot. Hoot.* Now fully awake, but still not fully alert, I open my eyes to survey the wreckage around me. I lay within the shattered remnants of the still-smoking ruins of our battalion. Around me are the dozens of hollowed out shells of our trucks, carrier ships and machines of war. It’s then that the scent finally hits me, the putrid, agonizing stench of decay mixed with motor oil. I gag on it, the implications of its presence tightening around my mind like a vice, threatening to overtake my still recuperating mental faculties. It would seem I was the only survivor of this conflict. Still not wanting to believe it, my thin, raspy husk of a voice quietly, solemnly calls out, the sensation and the weight of the noise tearing through my aching vocal cords with the force of a gunshot. “H..Hello?” I whisper to the vast, empty void of space around me. “Is.. anyone t..”, I pause mid-sentence and cough, lungs forcing the air out of my chest in a violent, painful burst of sound. “Is anyone there?” I try again, hoping beyond hope that I have not been left alone in this wasteland. Much to my surprise, a response comes, the syllables tickling my ears as it travels through the air, the meaning of the words still incomprehensible to my tortured senses. I blink, muscles protesting as I raise a sooty hand to my eyes, wiping away the grime and stains of warfare that coat my eyelids. The voice comes again, words now much more clear, the threatening tone and harsh meaning cutting straight to the core of my being, and I know that I am undone. “Kyle, get off the floor and turn your alarm off, it’s time for school”. “But Moooooom...” I protest, looking at the circle of toy army-men and figurines scattered around me. “I don’t WANT to!”.