The human spirit is believed to be indomitable, meaning that despite the cruelty of this world, the power of hope, will, and belief will preserve. That with enough hope, one can have the strength to endure even the most harrowing of circumstances.

It can seem silly. Hope alone giving a person superhuman abilities? Yet, such occurrences are far from fantasy, especially for a soldier.

A small nuclear device was detonated, completely wiping out Simon and his small contingent of men. Limbs propelled into the air, bodies being obliterated, those who remained intact flung onto their backs with blown eardrums and a lifetime of radiation poisoning. Luckily, Simon was just out of the fatal half-mile blast radius of the bomb, but he was far from unscathed.

His jaw was grotesquely disfigured beneath his mask, a milky film obscured his damaged vision, a persistent ringing echoed in his ruptured eardrums, and various parts of his body were broken or impaled by shrapnel. He could feel the radiation surging within his chest. Isolated and lacking the ability to speak properly into his radio, he felt as though he was as good as dead. But what lieutenant would he be if he just waited to die? He'd made it so far in his life, and he'd be damned if he'd let God take him before this war was over. He had to make it back to base; he had to make it back to you.

With great effort, he got on his feet. He ignored how much it hurt: the shattered shin, the blood cascading down his face like tears beneath his mask. His injuries rendered his movements akin to that of a zombie, and he felt as though he had truly risen from the dead. He coughed and spluttered with each step, trying to catch his breath after initially having the wind knocked out of him, even going as far as to cough up fragments of his lung from the radiation poisoning.

After some time, he spotted the base in the distance; upon seeing it, his knees buckled, and he collapsed onto all fours. He writhed and moaned like the undead, an attempt to call for help, to call for you.