The Decaying Dream of America: I Assemble Corpses and Confront Madness

The sky hung low, taking on an unsettling sulfurous hue.

The air was thick with the smell of gunpowder and the rusty smell of iron baked by the scorching sun.

The distant horizon was blurred, with only a few mud-brick houses eroded by wind and sand.

Amidst the broken walls and ruins, the wind and sand howled, uttering ghostly whispers.

Every inch of this land has been soaked in blood and death.

A low rumble reached my ears—the distant roar of artillery fire, carrying a primal, bestial quality, constantly tearing at the tranquility of this ruin.

The daily routine of "Navy SEALs" is to walk between deathly silence and explosive action, treating lives as cold numbers, and marking the end with a period in the scope.

Jack Morrison gripped a sniper rifle tightly in both hands; the gun was heavy, and the scope revealed nothingness.

He felt an extreme focus within him, and the whole world seemed to consist only of that crosshair.

Sweat streamed down his face, mingled with the sand and dust, stinging his eyes. He could feel the tension in his muscles, the pounding of his heart, and a deep-seated numbness towards death.

He had seen too much death, so much that he could no longer distinguish between fear and numbness.

Every time the trigger is pulled, it's a precise calculation being performed; there's no emotion involved, only the result.

Every cell in this body has been trained to be a killing machine, and it has become accustomed to turning a blind eye to the last glimmer of humanity.

Suddenly, a sharp whistling sound tore through the sky.

The sound didn't come from outside; it exploded directly on his eardrums, leaving his mind blank. Then came a devastating shockwave that knocked him to the ground.

Sand, stones, and twisted metal fragments rained down, carrying a strong stench of blood. The air was thick with the smell of burnt flesh and acrid gunpowder smoke, causing a sharp pain in his lungs.

All that remained in my ears was the endless buzzing sound.

He fell to the ground, the world distorted and deformed in his eyes. The mud-brick houses in the distance spun, and the sulfurous color of the sky grew even more intense.

Intense pain shot through the depths of my ears, and every nerve ending seemed to scream in agony.

Blood gushed from his ears, staining the sand on the sides of his neck and seeping into the collar of his worn military uniform.

The world, in his senses, was completely stripped of sound, becoming a silent black-and-white film.

His comrades rushed over, their faces filled with fear and anxiety, their mouths opening and closing as they anxiously shouted something.

But Jack couldn't hear it. All sound had vanished.

He could only see the look of terror on his comrades' faces and the distorted shapes of their mouths, but he couldn't grasp any meaning from it.

In an instant, the world fell silent, all emotions and communication severed by an invisible wall.

He was lifted up, the excruciating pain nearly causing him to faint.

But he forced himself to open his eyes and saw a blurry sky, and his own hands stained with blood.

These hands were once the nation's sharpest blade, the arbiter of death.

Now, those hands hang limply at his sides, stained with his own blood, looking so unfamiliar, so helpless.

He knew he would be abandoned by this war.

His teammates obeyed their superior's orders, abandoned their weapons and equipment, and rushed back to base with the bodies of several other comrades and his wounded self.

The surrounding air was no longer filled with scorching sand and dust, but with the indifferent smell of cheap coffee and the administrative building, mixed with the decay of paper and dust.

Jack sat in a cramped, dimly lit room, with only a few old fluorescent lights humming softly.

The air was filled with the mechanical and emotionless sound of official documents being exchanged, every word carrying the coldness of bureaucracy.

This is the federal Department of Veterans Affairs.

Jack Morrison, the man who once fought death with an iron will on the battlefield, was now sitting in a rickety chair, leaning slightly forward, trying to hear the faint sounds coming from the person at the counter opposite him.

He could see the man's mouth opening and closing, and feel the frequency of vibrations in the air, but he could never grasp the meaning of the language.

His eyes were filled with struggle and a sliver of remaining hope.

He longed to be heard, to be redeemed, to be acknowledged, to be remembered by the country, and to regain everything he had lost.

But in the end, he couldn't hear anything.

"Your application has been rejected." A bright red stamp was affixed to the application documents.

"The medical treatment period is too long and the cost is too high. We need to discuss and consider this further internally. As for your retirement pay... you abandoned state property and need to pay compensation." Those words didn't sound like something a human would say.

The real-time text projection allowed him to see the meaning behind the rejection of his application, and he could even "hear" the indifferent tone.

Every clause and every number on the document was a ruthless death sentence for him.

Hope bursts like a soap bubble.

He gave everything for the country, yet the country demands more from him.

He was hailed as a "war hero," yet he was ruthlessly placed on the altar of capitalist bureaucracy.

The streets of Emerald Dream City.

Fine rain fell from the gray sky, wetting his tattered military uniform and bringing a bone-chilling cold.

His military uniform, once a symbol of honor, has now become an irony of his homelessness.

Rainwater, mixed with the overflowing sewage from the streets, soaked into Jack's shoes, making him shiver with cold.

However, he still had to struggle to find food in the garbage dump, his fingertips so numb they were almost lost.

Now, he is just a homeless man, and even leftover hamburgers in the garbage dump are his lifeline. He has replaced the food provided by the relief program with painkillers because the constant buzzing in his brain will make him commit suicide before he even gets hungry.

The neon lights on the street blurred and distorted in the rain, turning into swirls of indistinct light and shadow.

His homeless companion had just taken a booster and kept picking up things from the ground and stuffing them into his mouth, but there was nothing on the ground except for the constantly changing spots of light from the neon lights, which looked like bright candies.

Finally, he swallowed the hard candy he had been dreaming of and died in his sweet dream.

Jack didn't save him; death is both tragic and merciful.

Before becoming homeless, he did the dirtiest and most tiring jobs day after day, but his meager wages were only enough to sustain his "existence" as a human being, and could not bring back his loved ones.

His parents gave up treatment because they could not afford the medical expenses, and the people who gave him life left him.

Then he saw the divorce papers. His wife had left with the children, without blame or resentment. The people who loved him and the people he loved had also left him.

In the end, even that cheap dignity and decency could not be preserved.

The bank's cold notice pronounced the death sentence on his only asset—his house.

He was no longer homeless.

The rain washed away the sins flowing through the streets, and also washed away the last remnants of hope in his heart.

He knelt in the rain, his body torn apart by the cold.

Those eyes that once aimed at the enemy are now empty and blank, gazing into the void.

He is no longer a hero, but just trash that has been squeezed dry and discarded at will.

A shadow appeared before him; it was Martinez.

He handed over a weapon without saying a word.

On that rainy night, the eerie firelight in Martinez's eyes became the only light in Jack's eyes.

Jack Morrison, a ghost abandoned by his homeland, has now become the sharpest knife in Martinez's hand.

He finally found a place where he could continue to "live" and no longer be abandoned.

But this refuge disappeared again.

Jack Morrison loaded the magazine into his rifle, aimed, and adjusted the trigger.

He sought revenge.