000.5) Prologue

Saturday, March 1, 2081

	I guess I never imagined after all this time I would still be writing in this book. It's been what, 10 years? I feel like the same Jeff Cheveyo before all this and yet... I look in the mirror and I don't see that same person. There isn't a day I go without reliving that event 9 years ago, every single night, wondering if I'd ever be the same again.

	I wonder what would've happened to me had I not decided to leave for this place. Would I still be in the military? Would I be lying dead on the battlefield? I honestly don't know where I would end up. Whatever seemed to happen, danger seemed to follow me. Hundreds of thousands of people died during the war. I, being in the military for 6 years, death and destruction was the one thing I was used to. Fighting, shouting, gunfire, explosions; all that was normal. The screams of the innocent was something that... I don't know, it became something that bothered me more today than it did a decade ago.

	Even then, it bothered me knowing that someone had to die and hasn't done anything to deserve it. It plagues my mind constantly, knowing I had to take a life that hadn't done anything to anyone. Maybe it was the overwhelming level of guilt that had built up over time that caused me to snap. Was it because I betrayed my own team, my homeland, my country; all for the sake of what was right? It was the right thing to do, wasn't it? I knew what the risks involved were. Only I'm responsible for what I've done and now I know I can never go back...