Story #15: Imagination

Imagination

     So here I am, sitting in a bunker, wondering how I, Steven Wood, from small town

Erie, got into such a big mess. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. I have only one

option, and it’s one that I have no intention of accomplishing anytime soon.

     I was enjoying my High School life, in Erie Illinois, with little to no worries in the

world. Beautiful girlfriend, friends who I could trust. Then it happened, Syria obtained

weapons of mass destruction(WMD), and began to threaten the U.S. Americans

instantly went straight into panic mode. Not only asking eighteen-year-olds to go into

the draft, but taking sixteen-year-olds as well. So I was unlucky enough to be forced

into war.

     Training was awful, the worst conditioning, and physical demanding stuff I had ever

gone through. What made it easier, was the fact that I had a couple buddies from

school that were going through the same stuff. The next thing I know training was done,

and we were on a plane heading to Syria to potentially end my life.

     I stepped off the plane, and it was an instant go. Running from shelter to shelter, not

knowing exactly where to hide, or what to watch for. Not knowing if someone was

watching you or could see you. Not feeling the slightest bit of safeness peered past the

side of the wall I was behind. I caught a glance at someone wearing a black mask.

Making eye contact with my partner, I signaled to him where the opponent was located,

and lucky enough, had the perfect angle to take out the guy in front of me. Then I

heard it. The battle cry that sounded familiar. One that we had been warned about in

training. At this point I knew that I was about to have problems bigger than just one guy.

I then saw three more black masked people. I started to breathe heavy, and my

heart began to race faster than it ever had in my entire life. Not sure what to do,

looking back at my parter who had saved me earlier only to see that he had already

been picked off. Beginning to hyperventilate, my heart beating out of my chest,

crouching behind a small brick wall. One that wasn’t tall enough or wide enough to

hide my whole body. Being in the most uncomfortable position you can think of, not

knowing what is to come next for me. Peering over the top of the wall, then boom.

I put my gun up in the air, in a surrendering position screaming “I’m out! I’m out!”

trying to look around the splattered paint over my mask. Walking with shame over to

the trampoline, I begin to grin and smile at the fact of how much fun I had just had in

this backyard war you could call it. I watched the rest of the game with the others that

had already been “killed," having conversations and laughing at the others who

became the new victim, until the game was over and one team became victorious.

     This was just one of many games of back yard paintball that was to be played over

the weekend. It just goes to show you that letting your imagination go will allow you to

take any scenario and make it extraordinary. Like back yard paintball, all the way to

World War III in Syria. Don’t ever lose your imagination.