by Anh-Tuan Vo

The time had come. For three days he had been
lifelessly prone on a small hill above the lake,
chewing on grass to calm his stomach, waiting; waiting
for the moment that could bring him peace of mind for
the first time. He took in a deep breath, his finger
slowly pulling back on the trigger as though it were a
piece of fine porcelain ready to snap off and break at
any moment. An image of his wife peacefully sleeping
flashed before his eyes, as the finger fought against
the weight of the trigger. He heard the mechanism
click milliseconds before the rifle fired. He shut his
eyes. In his mind he saw the bullet break out of its
casing, spiraling out of the barrel as it took to the
misty forest air, following its trajectory like a
soaring falcon coming down on its prey. He imagined
the soft sound of organic material ripping apart, the
bullet slowly piercing through its targets eye,
burning a path to the brain.

600 meters down hill a shadow collapsed to the ground.
The others near it intuitively hunched down
frantically scanning the atmosphere for foreign
thoughts, vainly trying to locate the intruder; a
group of minds working together as one. Where is it?!
Where is it?! Where is it?!

Instincts having taken over, his shoulders pivoted
about the spine, the rifle ready to rid the world of
another miscreant, ready to bring him one step closer
to tranquility. He blankly peered through the scope,
not wanting to see the grotesque, distorted, putrid
face which was once so promising and full of life.

The fauna surrounding him was so vibrantly green, so
full of life; he wondered if all the death he had seen
had just been a dream. It was beautiful - not like the
memory of his wife or his children- but like the
beauty of the skeletons polished pure white by the
acidic rain that constantly pounded the Chernobyl
landscape. How odd that such beauty could exist here,
of all places. How he hated the zone. But fate had
brought him here to the center of all evil. For in his
mind now raged only evil thoughts; a burning desire to
die yet an overpowering urge to live and kill all that
confronted him. He vowed never to forget how he had
failed to protect his family, his blood; How he had
sat by and watched them die. For every scream his wife
had made; for every bone that cracked and splintered;
for all the little teeth left gleaming in a pool of
red, he would take a life.

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