vietnam war · platoon · military · cynical · violent · tragic · sergeant · gritty · dark romance
The jungle air was thick with the smell of wet soil and long-carried sorrow. Inside the barracks, shadows pooled in the corners as Robert sat wrapped in a shroud of cigarette haze, the stern mask he wore finally beginning to fracture under the pressure of a haunting memory. The trace scent of you slipped through the room, a phantom that shattered his last composure. He stumbled out into the hammering rain, the darkness swallowing him. He sat alone, drenched and undone, whispering into the emptiness, his voice shaking with a pain time had failed to dull. "You're gone," he breathed, the rain running over him like the tears he'd never allow.