The pain was always there now, even in his dreams he could not escape it. If anything, when he dreamed it hurt more. Something about the detachment from the physical world made it so that his mind could and would happily run away on tangents down memory lane. Churning up the past and making it so that he was a lost soul, adrift in his own mind.<br/><br/>Even though he knew that night there had been stars in the sky, they were always absent in his dream. More of a nightmare really, with how badly it always ended. Each and every time he watched himself, laying there in the ditch as the mortar rounds fell from the heavens and each and every time he watched himself run from cover to save one of his fallen brothers. The shouted orders of their CO ignored in the face of helping someone he cared about.<br/><br/>Pain.<br/><br/>So much pain as the explosion went off beside them. The ringing in his ears disoriented him and caused the world to just spiral out of focus. It was impossible to remember what was up and what was down, all he could recall was that he hurt. The world hurt and all he wanted was to die to end the pain.<br/><br/>In a cold sweat he sat up and tried to shake the effects of the dream from his mind, to return to the present and forget the past. It was in the past and that was the end of it, or at least he wanted it to be the end of it.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">BEEP!BEEP!BEEP!</span><br/><br/>The accursed alarm blared in the silent room and sounded like a bullhorn to his already sensitive ears. With the headache that threatened to swallow him whole caused him to lash out at the infernal machine and smack it across the room. A final groan given he stumbled from the bed and began his morning exercises. In the door frame from his room to the hallway, Tobias Andrew McCain, former Lt of the United States, medically discharged at the age of twenty-three following being wounded in combat. He was awarded a bronze star and set up with a new “life” once the glam wore off he was left on his own to get by.<br/><br/>Which meant being alone, a lot and that led to drinking a lot.<br/><br/>An intervention and rehab later, he now tried to control how much of his prescriptive medication he took.  Working out helped, gave him a means to focus his mind and just get through the day, it was all he hoped for most days anymore. Suspended in the doorframe upside down, he proceeded to do a set of sit ups, the added strain of gravity just what he needed to push the last of the nightmare from his mind. By the time he completed his routine he was ready for a shower before work. The hot water was just south of being scalding and worked to unknot his tight muscles.<br/><br/>That done he was dressed and out the door on the way to his job, it was not glamorous, if anything it was the opposite of that, but it gave him the chance to get out and socialize on his terms. The large green truck rattled and groaned as it made its way down the streets with Tobias hanging off the back. The life of a garbage man was not bad, at all. Exercise, fresh air and minimal socialization, just what the doctor ordered somewhat, and it turned out to be something he really enjoyed. So like any other day, with his ear buds firmly in his ears he stepped off the truck in the city and strolled down the alley as he sang to himself.<br/><br/>So focused on his work he hardly noticed much of anything, that is until something moved and drew his attention.<br/><br/>“What do we have here?”