Dark Angel
A SFTJ Life During Wartime Story
Trigger Warning: This fictional story contains Gun Violence, and a Suggestive Theme that could be harmful to anyone who suffers from forms of PTSD, or is sensitive to such subjects. Explicit Language.
The message board lit up like the fourth of July.
Freedom said, “Breakfast at 8am. Everyone should be in position by six.” The others answered with the agreed upon code words in unison.
John closed his laptop and sighed heavily. Can there be no other way?
He opened the encrypted messaging app on the most recent burner and sent the group a message that said, “Breakfast is on. 6am sharp.”
He walked over to his work table and removed the sim card from the phone, picked up his small ball pin hammer and smashed both the sim card and phone to tiny bits. After sweeping the contents into the bin, he placed the hammer to its rightful position.
John looked at his watch, five hours until he would need to be in position.
The Mission: support the guerrillas in their attack on the incoming wave of troops advancing on their location.
John was torn though. He couldn’t be sure of which side his true alliance set. There just wasn’t enough credible information available. Everything had been so chaotic in the weeks leading up to the coup, John hadn’t been sure what was real news and what was fake. And then everything just went black.
So the choice had been made for him. The rebels recruited him. And they were the ones in control of his zone, so he had little choice in the matter.
He’d heard from some, that the troops were coming to liberate them. But there was no way to know for sure. The guerrillas also claimed to be liberators.
He sat in torment over the next few hours. The events leading up to this moment swirling through his mind. The same question over and over as if on repeat, Can I go through with this?
When the time came, John collected his gear and loaded it into his pick up. He then proceeded to his assigned location, and took up his position. When he powered up the new burner there was a message waiting, “Breakfast at 8am.”
Fucking aye John. What are you going to do?
The blast went off the instant his watch struck eight. Then shots unleashed with a fury he’d not heard in many years. John had done two tours in Afghanistan as a Marine Sniper. His mission had always been troop support — call sign, Dark Angel.
But this was different. He’d been able to avoid the fighting up to this point. The enemy had been clear before, not so much now. He did not want to kill on his home soil.
He watched the group of troops advance through his rifle scope. He scanned over all of his neighbors’ positions, as well.
A flash caught his naked eye, Tom and Tommy Jr had opened fire prematurely. And the troops were focusing all their attention on the two of them. John picked off two of the threats quickly, then missed the third shot as the soldier ducked behind an amphibious assault vehicle.
John picked up the Roku remote and pressed the home button, setting off a chain of explosions behind the assault force’s position. This signaled the rest of his neighborhood to open fire.
With his trigger finger no longer hesitant. The Dark Angel descended onto the troops beneath him. He unleashed his wrath on any enemy that dared show himself.
He and his tiny brigade of neighbors fought valiantly, but were ultimately no match for the shear numbers of troops that continued to pour onto the battlefield — a place that had just one year ago been a peaceful community.
Life During Wartime had changed everything. The fighting had began far away, over seas, as it usually does. But things at home had begun to worsen. The political machine had lost touch with it’s people, and riots began. Skirmishes broke out in the larger cities at first, and then quickly spread into the rural areas.
And now John found himself shooting down his fellow countrymen, like he had wild hogs over a corn plot. God forgive me.
He saw the rocket propelled grenade launch in his direction…
The End
This flash fiction story was inspired by the Stories from the Jukebox song prompt, Life During Wartime, by Talking Heads!
I had something else in mind for this week, but thought this was just too good not to share it with you. So I hope you enjoyed it! Here’s the Jukebox newsletter. Be sure to look in the comments for the other submissions!
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it and clicking that ❤ button, and I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Oh and if you’re an email reader, just hit reply — I want to hear from you too!
I like what you are doing tremendously. What could be improved is tossing AI for your images - you can pull any images you need off of Google that are already there, and I almost didn't get to read your story, such is my [and most of the "more srs" writers here on Substack] distaste for .
Trigger warnings are dead. You'll notice no one really puts personal pronouns on their profiles anymore, either. They were both born out of the same era, and both superfluous when it comes to serious writing. Gun violence is another nouveau-term that just repeats itself. Violence is violence. Most of the gun violence that really stands out [such as it is when children are massacred at schools] are just lunatics who no one bothered to put down [sometimes even when having been sworn to do so, as it was in Uvalde]. I'm not Mr. NRA or anything, but this is deck chairs on the titanic when the entire kit and caboodle is looking to upend itself.
I am a writer. All of the words belong to me. No one gets to tell me what I can do with them. That is part of what makes this platform incredible. It has single-handledly reversed the cancellation of men and women's lives for their written opinions.
It is a good policy to have. You are a good writer. I am sure you are a fine copyeditor. This sort of thing will only help increase your scope of work and range of clientel.
With all respect, gratitude and grace.
https://lchristopher.substack.com/p/tw-no-trigger-warnings-in-the-land