Unknown, Unknown, Unknown

A wet mist hit his face and he opened his eyes to look around. He was crammed in a dark room and couldn't see anything around him. He tried to move but couldn't. A dull roar filled the air all around him with an occasional loud pop that seemed to shake the very ground beneath his feet. The roar quickly got louder and louder until it was like being in an ancient rocket taking off from Earth. He remembered the similarity from a game he played a while back about the Apollo Missions to the Earth's Moon. It was an educational game that his school made him play for Astronautics class. He quickly got bored of it and didn't finish the game. He wondered if this game was also going to be just as bad. He tried looking around again but still saw nothing but blackness. He shook back and forth with all of his might and heard a man shout from just behind him. He couldn't make out his words over the roar, but as he attempted to turn his head a red light filled the darkness. He now saw what prevented him from moving. He was tightly surrounded by soldiers on all sides in combat armor he didn't recognize. They were all lined up, including himself, in a long metal room that seemed to stretch back as far as he could see. He tried to see how many were in the room but couldn't make them all out. He stopped counting at around forty when a voice boomed over the room in an accent he never heard before, "Zulu. Vector. Vector. One. Seven. LZ Dog. Final Approach. Condition Red."

The soldiers around him reached down between their legs and pulled up what he could only assume were weapons. These soldiers quietly inspected and rechecked these weapons in the dim red light. While they did this Sam reached between his own legs and found his weapon there. He lifted it up in the air and stared at it in awe. It was a long black metal cylinder with a handle, a scope and a small tube-like attachment on the bottom. He had no idea what the attachment was for. He looked down into the barrel of the weapon and tried to see if he could figure out if it shot bullets, lasers, plasma, or something else entirely. He gave up after a minute and lowered the barrel from his face. As he did this the soldiers to either side of him just shook their heads in disbelief. One mouthed the words, "next time shot yourself!"

"You all heard him! The beach is still Condition Red! We'll be hitting the LZ in three minutes so expect heavy resistance from the CHICOMs! The RIM are already on site and have clawed themselves a foothold, but it'd be up to us to push through! Those poor brave Indian bastards volunteered to go in first, but we won't let them have all the glory! We will break through! We will take the fight to the Chinese! We will kill ourselves a shit ton of Commies! Until Valhalla Marines!!!" A man said, who Sam could only assume was their leader, in his combat helmets built-in ear piece.

All together the men around him shouted in unison, "Oorah! Oorah! Oorah!" Their war cry echoed inside the metal container they were stuffed in. Their voices so loud together that it easily drowned out the noises from outside.

The roof of the container he was trapped in started to separate from the walls. Initially it was a small crack that allowed both light and salty ocean air in, but it quickly retracted backwards fully exposing the outside world to him. He realized he was on some sort of troop transport heading towards an enemy held beach and he was super excited. He had seen something like this in an old movie set in the Second Human Civil War about a man named Ryan or something like that. He couldn't recall much of the movie because most of it bored him, but he remembered the first thirty minutes of the movie. It was an awesome battle scene and he happily clutched his weapon in anticipation. He looked up towards the yellow sky and his jaw dropped in amazement. The sky was filled with planes of all shapes and sizes unlike any he had ever seen before. Some looked similar to the sleek space fighters of his era, but those planes were few in number. Most of the other aircraft seemed out of place there almost as if they belonged in another war. These planes were bulky, slow, and a few were even propelled by spinning blades instead of jet engines. He chuckled loudly and said to himself, "Is this really the Third War? Did you guys mix up the program?"

So many planes, drones, helicopters and assorted war machines flew overhead towards the beach that he couldn't keep track of them all. It looked like a swarm of angry bees that literally blocked out the sun. If he didn't catch a glimpse of the yellow sky before he wouldn't have know it was the daytime. He focused on a small blade propelled plane that flew directly overhead of his transport. It was having trouble keeping up with them and seemed to be covered in a makeshift armor that someone shoddily welded on to its body to give it extra protection. The armor barely covered half of the plane, almost as if they had ran out of scrap metal half way through the process. In between the patchwork of armor he could see a faded word underneath that read "D-E-L-T-A." It was probably the planes unit or the Allied country it was from. He inspected the plane further and noticed it had numerous heavy looking bombs strapped under its flimsy wings and had two gun turrets under its belly with someone inside each of them. No wonder the plane was moving so slowly. It was a Frankenstein monster of a plane. He had no clue how it stayed up in the air like that.

Sam's earpiece suddenly came alive, "Ten seconds Marines!!!" He took his eyes off the Delta plane struggling above them to fly and looked forward. He smiled and licked his lips.

The door to their transport swung open and slammed down into the shallow water. Sam stood in place and couldn't see anything but the Marines in front of him, black smoke, and crimson colored water. He barely had any time to take in the scene when the Marine behind him pushed him forward with all of his body weight. Sam almost fell over on his face and turned to see the Marine mouth something he didn't understand as he rushed passed him. It looked like he said something like, "Move forward Pussay." He had no idea what a "Pussay" was, but he could only assume it was some sort of insult based on the way that Marine said it.

He rushed ahead with the mass of Marines from his transport and felt the hot water on his legs as he moved towards the beach. He couldn't see anything in the heavy black smoke and bright flashes of light. He just blindly moved forward while trying desperately not to trip over rocks and soft sand dunes. He heard his leader attempting to talk to him in his earpiece, but the ruckus around him was so loud he couldn't make out any of it. "This is a stupid game. I can't see anything. I can't do anything... What the hell is that smell?!" He said to himself. The wind had changed directions and he wasn't smelling smoke or sea water anymore. A sharp horrendous smell hit his nostrils he had never smelled before. He thought about it for a moment and thought it smelled like a bad bowel movement, overcooked Thanksgiving turkey, burnt plastic, and rusty iron all rolled into one. "Whatever that is... there's no way that's a real smell." He wished that the game had turned off scents. He couldn't remember any other game he'd ever play simulating smells. He found it to be very annoying and distracting. He dropped his small rucksack on a sand dune and searched for something to put over his nose. He found what looked like ammunition, tin cans of food, a picture of some random woman, a canteen, and a bunch of other stuff inside. The smoke was so dense he literally had to lift anything he found inside his rucksack a few inches from his face to see what it was. He eventually found a towel wrapped around a metal potato that he discarded by throwing it far into the black smoke. He splashed the towel with water and wrapped it around his head, covering his nose and mouth. Not to far from him an explosion erupted that came from the direction he threw the metal potato. The shock wave hit him and startled him. His rifle fell from his hand and landed somewhere on the ground. "I can't see anything and now my rifle fell? How am I supposed to play this stupid game?!" He said out loud in the hopes that Captain Abad would hear him.

Sam lowered himself to a crouch and began feeling around for his lost weapon. He kept feeling his hands getting stuck in warm sand or big rocks. He finally found the metal cylinder that was his weapon and brought it towards his face. He noticed something new attached to his rifles handle. He inspected the mysterious object more closely and when he realized what it was. He jumped backwards and tossed the rifle back into the smoke. "Was that a HUMAN hand?!" He shook his head and laughed nervously. The game was obviously just screwing with him. He stood up and tried to see what was going on around him. The thick smoke began to clear around him as the wind swept it away out to sea. He was standing in the middle of a literal sea of mangled bodies. He lifted his blood soaked hands to his face in horror. He wasn't sticking his hands in hot sand. He was inadvertently sticking his hands into the goo of what was once a human being. He screamed and ran back towards the sea line. In his haste he stepped on the still smoldering flesh of a dying man and fell on top of him. The man he had stepped on screamed out in pain. His pitiful dying screams was so loud that Sam could clearly hear it over the sound of combat. He tried to get off of the burnt man carefully but no matter what he did some of the man's flesh would peel off with him. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!!!" Sam lifted himself off as quickly as he could, taking a huge chunk of the man's flesh with him on his uniform. Hundreds of Marines rushed past them and Sam stood there mortified that no one was stopping to help the burnt man. Sam got over the shock and grabbed the arm of the first Marine passing close by him.

The Marine angrily turned towards him and just pointed forward towards the Chinese bunkers in the distance. Sam tugged on the Marines arm again and pointed down towards the burnt man screaming wildly in pain as the salt air and sand wreaked havoc on his exposed wounds. The Marine took one look at the man and swiftly shot him three times in the head. Sam screamed out in disbelief and looked at the Marine with wide judging eyes. The Marine shrugged back at Sam as if to irascibly say, "why didn't YOU end his misery?"

The Marine continued onwards and Sam stood in place watching as the burnt man's blood gushed into the red sand. The water. The sand. The sky. Everything seemed to be coated in a layer of blood. Human blood. He was mortified. He had never experienced anything like this. There was no way this was ever real life. He yelled at the top of his lungs, "I DON'T WANT TO PLAY THIS GAME ANYMORE! LET ME GO HOME! LET ME GO!" He kept screaming to be set free from the game, but nothing happened. He was still standing at the beach surrounded by the wailing cries of the fallen and the reek of death. He collapsed on the bloody sand and began to sob. He wanted to be back home, playing real games, not this nightmare. As he cried he felt the barrel of a rifle press hard against his back. He lifted his head up and saw a Marine looking down at him in disgust. The Marine motioned with his rifle that he needed to move forward, but instead Sam began to weep again. The Marine grabbed him by the neck and tossed him face forward on top of a rifle that belonged to a dead Indian nearby. The Marine pointed at the rifle, then to Sam, then forward towards the Chinese bunkers in the distance. Sam reluctantly grabbed the rifle and ran towards the front line. "This isn't real. This is a game. This is a game. Enjoy the game. Enjoy the GAME," Sam kept repeating to himself as he pushed forward. The closer he came to the front line the more bodies and wounded he came across. It almost became impossible to step forward without accidentally stepping on the dead or dying. He reached a unit of Indian and American Marines on the front taking cover behind a wall made up entirely of the dead. The wall was originally a barbed wire fence that piled up with the carcasses of those who attempted to cross it. Now it had become a solid wall of three people deep and five people tall that strewn across the battlefield for as far as Sam could see.

Sam pressed up against the wall and clutched his rifle tightly. So tight that his hands turned white from the pressure he held the weapon. Explosions rocked the ground all around him and he kept repeating to himself loudly that he was in a game. The Marines around him shook their heads in repulsion as they watched Sam pitifully clutch his rifle and talk to himself like a crazy person. A single green flare shot up into the air towards the Chinese bunkers and soon hundreds of other green flares shot up in acknowledgment. the Marines taking cover behind the wall of the dead sprung up and climbed up over the wall to make a mad dash to the heavily armed enemy bunkers. Sam refused to budge with the others until a large Marine literally scooped him up and tossed him over the wall. He screamed and tried to climb back but the other Marines forced him forward by violently pulling or shoving him in the "right" direction. He accepted where the game was trying to take him and so he began to run with the others. He was determined. Marines to the left of him were cut down by machine gun fire and Marines to the right of him detonated gravity mines that crushed their bones. He ignored all of the chaos around him and tossed himself over a concrete wall and into the first line of Chinese trenches. He landed on a dead Chinese soldier who broke his fall.

A Chinese solder appeared from a side tunnel and they both stared at each other in disbelief. Neither had ever seen an enemy soldier up close before. The Chinese soldier was young. Slightly older then himself. Probably fifteen or sixteen years old. The Chinese soldier lifted his rifle up and fumbled with it. He was inexperienced with his weapon and couldn't get it to work. Sam snapped out of his shock and lifted up his own rifle. Shooting at the Chinese soldier six times. He had plenty of experience shooting bad guys in other games but something about this kill was too real. Only three of his rounds hit its mark. Two of them grazed the soldier but one hit him in the middle of the stomach. The impact of the round tossed the Chinese soldier hard against the wall of the trench. The Chinese soldier cried out incoherently as he tried to keep his guts inside with his bare hands. The only words Sam could understand was his pitiful cries of "Mā ma!" He didn't need to speak Mandarin to know he was crying for his mother. More Allied Marines jumped down into the trench with him and split up evenly down the tunnels or further down the enemy trenches. The Marines ignored the wounded Chinese soldier as Sam stared at the Chinese soldier, his own still smoking rifle, and back at the Chinese soldier. One of the new batch of Marines that scaled the trenches wall observed that Sam hadn't finished off the Chinese soldier walked over and pulled out a knife from his belt. He whispered something into the screaming Chinese soldiers ear and plunged the knife into the soldiers chest. He swiftly pulled it out and inserted it back again. Every time he stabbed the Chinese soldier he furiously yelled out a new name. Sam stood and said nothing as the Marine stabbed the Chinese soldier more than fifty times. The Marine kept stabbing the teenagers body long after he stopped crying out for its mother. The Marine casually cleaned the blade on his uniform and moved on with his mission.

Sam dropped his rifle to the ground sicken by what he did. He realized he was in hell. This. This wasn't a game. This was perdition. How could things have ever gotten so bad for mankind? This must be some sort of exaggeration. This must be some sort of fabricated history to scare children into submission. There was no way human beings could have ever been this cruel to one another. Could they have been?

A large metallic ball from the sky crashed down in the trenches just in front of Sam. Shrapnel picked up by the force of the crash whizzed by him. A large chunk hit the bottom of his right shin and he fell to the ground screaming. The pain. THE PAIN! It was real. He looked down and watched the blood. His blood! Flow out of the bottle cap sized hole in his leg. The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt before. The worst pain he had ever felt prior was from a paper cut he got from a real book he had read once. He had thought at the time that was the worst pain possible. This was a million times worst.

Why was he feeling pain? What kind of animals would make a "game" like this? This is too real. He screamed for help, but none came. He cursed Captain Abad in his anguished cries and wanted to be anywhere but here. As he screamed the metallic ball began to shake and stir. Robotic legs sprung out of the ball it opened up into a large spider. Sam screamed and tried to crawl away, but the machine approached him slowly analyzing the area around it for threats. A Marine suddenly popped out of one of the tunnels to investigate the source of the commotion and was instantly incinerated by the spiders weapon. As the Marine burned to death the machine moved closer to Sam. It stuck one of its legs into the open hole in his leg and spoke to him in Mandarin. Sam squirmed in pain and had no idea how to reply back to it. He screamed for mercy. He screamed for the game to end. He screamed for forgiveness. The spider replied back in broken English, "No Forgive" and lit Sam on fire. He had once thought the hole in his leg was as bad as pain got until he felt the flames consume his body. He burned wishing he had shot himself.

Unknown, Unknown, Unknown

Sam woke up screaming and howling. His skin was on fire and he was burning! He leapt off his bed and rolled around the ground trying to put it out. It took him nearly thirty minutes to realize he wasn't on fire and that his skin hadn't melted off. He found the restroom and tried to turn on the water, but couldn't figure out how. He yelled at the sink in every possible way to turn on, but it didn't do anything. He thought for a moment and tried to use his nanobots, but as much as he thought about turning on the water... nothing happened. He left the bathroom in frustration and stepped outside. He was in a secluded cabin somewhere. He had no idea where. All he could see were tall rocky mountains and brownish yellow skies. He stared at the sky above and wondered if they had always been that color.

"Sir?" A voice asked from behind him. Sam turned and immediately lost control of his bowels. Standing behind him were two heavily armed Chinese soldiers who were guarding the door to his cabin. How did he not notice those two there? He literally walked past them. He flinched expecting them to murder him, but they just stood there. "Sir? Are you alright, Sir?" The same soldier said this time more confused than before.

"I'm okay. I had a rough night." Sam looked at the soldiers name tag and smiled at him. How convenient this guy both spoke English and had English name tags. "Private Zhao can you please draw me a bath and get me something decent to wear?" Sam asked. Zhao clicked his heels in a crisp military salute and then retreated into the cabin to carry out his order. Sam took a nice long bath and found his clothing laid out on the bed for him. A fine tailored business suit that fit him perfectly. It was so fascinating to him to put on actual clothes that