The Golden Stairs

The cries of war echoed across the stinking field. The corpses that were littered across the bare outbacks had their skin scrubbed bright red in their own wounds. The dirt plastered amongst their damp, moist blood stained bodies. The stench on the other hand was more putrid then the bodies itself. The sky that radiated with death and the Devils passing. Clouds darkened by the smoke that rose from the ashes. The war itself hadn't been for their deaths... No it was something much worse, the freedom of their lives. Over and over those same soldiers said they would live, that they were immortal.

Now look at the bodies spread across the dirt roads. Among those broken cribbled bodies, was me. Trambled, and beaten to death. Looming down from the golden stair case from which I stood, I pulled out my cracked walking stick and climbed. I looked away from the mangled up screams, with my tears drifting off my face.

First stair was easy enough, placing my rod on it and only slightly struggling. When I got to the top of the first stair, the rod began to snap and to my horror completely broke in two. I picked up the fractured remains and threw them out towards the battle field.

"Leave me be!" I said with a blood filled scream. Suddenly a dark mist began to come near me, covering all the soldiers. I tried to all my might to get up the stairs as fast as possible. Each stair grew steeper, each stair content on sliding me down to my doom.

"If I can only make it, I will be safe" I told myself over and over. The fog climbed up even more stairs covering them all behind me. Until I finally made it to the final stair, I struggled to reach the top of it; I jumped all in vain.

"Please!" I yelled at the top of my lungs.

"I don't want to go back there!" I began to sob. The stair was too high to reach, forever out of my reach. I fell to my knees and began to sob. The bright light cascading down them, forever fighting the pointless battle from below, I will be trapped. A hand reached from the sickening fog towards me, beckoning me to come. I took her hand as I turned to the fog and walked back down the stairs with ease. The black clearing up until I saw my corpse on the ground..

I woke up coughing up blood, with my comrade next to me. His eyes staring off into the black abyss which is forver unreachable to me. To the right of me was a small child, who's eyes were dull but alive.

"There is no hope, there is no heaven, no not here, there is only the sounds of war" the small child said, as his grin began to grow across his face.

"No here, there is only death" I said.

The monitors ringed throughout the hospital rooms. With a steady beat rhyme, a perfectly timed beat. As I rose my arms, seeing the blood dripping down from them while they were covered in rows of thick bandages. Gazing upon my other scars, with one from a previous gun fire. Ever since that war, I guess you can say that those weren't the only wounds I gained. With my sister holding my hand by the bedside, I looked over to her and faintly smiled.

"It's over...all of it is. You need to wake up from your Nightmare. It's done now, you fought the good fight; please brother be strong. It's not your time to walk up the golden stairs, I can't lose you... I won't lose you for a second time" My sister said in a loving voice.

I let go of her hand, and put my palms over my face. Some distilled tears dripping down, I placed my hands back on my lap and laid my head back.

"I am... I am sorry! I'm sorry for leaving you all alone. How could I not see?... how much I did, have done to you? How could I leave you to find your life on your own? I'm so sorry I left everyone, who never abandoned me.

She turned and wiped the tears off my face. You left to save us, I wasn't there for you. I wasn't there when you needed me. Out on the field, where you saw our brother die, I wasn't there to guide you, to save you... and now-"

"There's nothing we can do" Said the nurse, looking at her paper work which had..

Institution for the clinically insane

Patient: Jacob R. Adams. File:119

Children: none. Born:1/1/ 1983

Relation: Single. Pets: none

Education :*Special grounds * War Veteran

diagnosed: PTSD, Depression, Anxiety attacks