New Beginning: Star Wars

My mother was never particularly religious, but she named me Gabriel after the archangel, hoping I would grow up to be a righteous man. A good man.

I spent my early years trying to live up to that, though I never quite knew what it meant. I wasn't a saint, certainly not. But I did my best to live a quiet life, a simple life, to keep my head down, hurt no one, and help when I could—whoever I could. I didn't dream of glory or adventure. My ambitions were modest. I just wanted to be someone who my parents could be proud of.

But at 19, I found myself dragged into a war I had no say in. Forced to fight for a country that wasn't even my home anymore. It wasn't supposed to be like this. How does a kid from a suburban neighborhood—who thought his greatest problem was a bad grade on a exam —end up on a battlefield, wondering if he'll make it through the next day?

I wasn't exactly looking forward to college, but this? This wasn't the future I envisioned.

People love to complain about their lives these days. About how hard things are, how unfair the world is. I used to listen, trying to be patient, but never really understanding it. But let me tell you, when shit really hits the fan, all that whining fades. It's like a switch flip, and suddenly, everything that seemed so important doesn't matter anymore. The world becomes a place where survival is the only thing that counts.

I'll never forget my first day at boot camp. I was young, nervous—just like the rest of them. One recruit, barely out of high school, was sent to the front of the room. He wasn't even in uniform yet—still in his civilian clothes, nervously clutching his backpack. He raised his hand and told the instructor he wanted to be discharged because he didn't identify as a man.

The instructor didn't blink. He just walked up to the kid, looked down at him for a moment, and then kicked him in the balls with such force that I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his skull, like Glenn from The Walking Dead. The kid hit the floor with a gasp, clutching himself in agony.

The instructor didn't say a word. He just stood there, looking at the kid, then said, "Looks like you're a man after all."

That was it. The kid didn't make a sound after that. The rest of us, we all stood there, silent, watching the scene unfold. It was like a switch had flipped for us, too. No complaints. No questions. We were there to prepare for war, not to argue about who we were. The enemy didn't care about our feelings, our gender, or anything else. They'd kill us without hesitation, and we needed to be ready.

Those first three months? They were the hardest, most brutal months of my life—but they were also the most rewarding. I didn't realize it at the time, but that was when I started to change. I didn't know what was happening to me—how much of the boy I used to be was slipping away—but I started to feel something else inside me. Something darker. Something colder. I discovered a talent I didn't even know I had: I was good at war.

In school, I was average. I wasn't the smartest, or the fastest, or the best at anything that really mattered. But when it came to combat—when it came to strategy and tactics—I was a natural. I moved through the motions faster than anyone expected. In just three months, I reached a level of proficiency that others might take years to attain. Hand-to-hand combat, weapons training, field strategy—it all just clicked for me.

It didn't take long for the officers to notice. I was promoted quickly, and before I knew it, I was at the front lines, leading a squad. The war had escalated too far, too fast, and the army couldn't afford to train new recruits anymore. They didn't have time. We were thrown into the meat grinder—whether we were ready or not. And I was ready. Or at least, I thought I was.

The horrors of war are hard to put into words. They don't fit neatly into the confines of language. You don't just lose friends in war. You lose pieces of yourself. I lost so many men, men I had fought beside, men I had come to care for. But the worst part wasn't losing them—it was the numbness that followed. It became so easy to take life, to kill. You stop thinking about it. You just do it, because the alternative is your own death. Survival becomes instinct, and everything else becomes a distant memory.

By the time I turned 24, I was a different person. Unrecognizable, even to myself. I'd grown so accustomed to the violence, the constant bloodshed, that it was hard to even remember who I was before it all. My family, they wouldn't recognize me. They fled across the Atlantic to escape the war, leaving me behind. They were right to leave. The boy they knew was gone, replaced by a soldier forged in fire, hardened by loss, with no trace left of the kid who once wanted nothing more than to get through life without anyone noticing him.

It may sound insane, but I thrived in it. In the chaos. The explosions. The heat of battle. It wasn't just adrenaline. It was something deeper. It was the only thing that made me feel alive anymore. Every fight, every battle felt like I was finally doing something that mattered, like I was part of something larger than myself. The world was burning, and I was right in the middle of it—alive, unstoppable.

But even then, I couldn't escape the truth: it would all eventually catch up to me.

The mission that was supposed to end everything came on December 31st, 2030. It was simple: infiltrate the Russian presidential palace and eliminate the madman who started this whole mess. We were supposed to end the war, to put a stop to all the bloodshed.

It went to hell. My team was slaughtered. One by one, they fell, and I had to fight my way through the chaos alone. But I found him. The bastard who had set this fire in motion. He was hiding, trembling, thinking he could run. I put a bullet in his skull, just like we were ordered to.

But then, as I turned to leave, it happened. I felt it—sharp, sudden pain in my side. A stray bullet.

A fucking stray bullet.

Here I was—one of the deadliest soldiers alive, a man who had taken on entire squads single handedly and walked away—and I was about to die because of some dumb, lucky shot.

The blood poured out of me. It felt warm at first, like it was all still happening in slow motion, but the cold quickly followed. A numbness. I tried to move, to stand, but it was like my body wasn't mine anymore. I wasn't afraid, not exactly. Just… exhausted. I had fought so long, and now my body was finally giving up.

As the numbness spread, my mind drifted. It wasn't to the war. It wasn't to the battles or the faces of the men I had lost. My mind went back to simpler times. I thought about my family. My childhood. I remembered sitting on the couch, watching Star Wars, wondering what it would be like to have the Force. To be able to move things with my mind. To never feel helpless.

"Man, it sure would've been nice to use the Force… I wouldn't be dying like this…"

And with that final thought, everything went dark. I felt myself floating, weightless, drifting into the void.

…

At least, that's what I thought.

"MAN, THAT SURE WAS A BADASS WAY TO GO OUT!!"