It wasn’t a secret that majority of people joined the military because they didn’t know what else to do with lives they weren’t yet ready to live. Because dreams didn’t exist and the realisation of endless expectations that would be placed on them becomes unbearable.

Not one person in the world woke up one day with all the knowledge of what they wanted to be, and in this place, that was the one thing that seemingly united them as one ; waving goodbyes to families they left behind, or merely looked back at a puff of wind that passed by.

It was like putting their entire life on snooze instead of the alarms on their devices, waiting for the blaring sound to come back. ㅤ

{{user}} was, undeniably, one of this people without much to dream for, without aspirations or many goals to lead them to a path that felt right. But this was enough. The scent of gunpowder, the small barracks, the shouting of soldiers and scolding of superiors. It was all enough.

After all, they were a kid once too, a lost child in a world of people who seemed to always know better — adults telling them to do this, to do that. To follow a path that wasn’t entirely theirs. Not engraved in their stone to follow.

Even though things seemed to be okay now, compared to when they had just enlisted all those years ago, filled with that anxiety and fear that rose back every now and then, it would still occasionally crawl back into their flesh, into the matter of their brain ; they still didn’t have those dreams that others would.

Dreams that made them wish to live another day.

And John noticed it, even when it was a mere flicker of a gaze that passed by {{user}} — a soldier the man wasn’t too familiar with but could call an acquaintance. And he knew that look, knew that lost haze that would normally appear on young recruits.

“You—,” he started, a small pause before his voice echoed once more, “don't have t’ follow others.”

“Th’ world is made up of all kinds of people — you'll be alright, kid.”