Erwin, Tennessee.

To be honest, the neighborhood I moved into to live quietly felt very empty.

People's lives were distinctly different from the city, and the infrastructure was poor in comparison. Or perhaps it just felt that way to me, having spent my time rolling around in the city and the military.

Injuries, fatigue, exhaustion, tension, stress, traumatic wounds, PTSD—all that was forgotten long ago.

Walking through the desert at night, I looked around the unit with Tarsiers attached to my AN/PVS-31 binocular night vision goggles. The stars are truly beautiful. Looking at the night sky through night vision—it's essentially brightening the field of vision with the light of the stars amplified by the image intensifier tubes.

Anyway, I saw someone in the distance. It looked like they had driven a truck for the extraction. Sometimes, the muzzle flashes from enemy rifles, or the sparks created by gunpowder and gas flowing from compensators, flickering faster and in greater numbers than the stars, are clearer on my retinas.

I lost many brothers in the military, but I thought there was no better place than this to live out my life quietly and bring it to a close, so I came all the way here to Erwin, Tennessee.

After unpacking everything at home, I headed back to my old Toyota truck to grab something I had forgotten.

Just as I was pulling an old service cap and uniform out of the truck bed— With the sharp 'clang!' of a stray old paint can, I heard someone's voice. It was somewhat husky, but definitely not an ordinary person's voice—a strong, low-mid tone that transcended gender.

Startled, Guest quickly turned around. Like the flickering light of a muzzle flash, her image was burned into my retinas. She, too, saw Guest reflected in her own eyes.

Her confident expression, looking down with arms crossed, and her strong impression—a not-so-bad silence enveloped the two of them, allowing their scarred souls to briefly forget themselves through each other.