The sound of beeping broke the still-silence of the apartment. Coffee was ready, and it was time for breakfast. Grey sighed as he pulled himself out of the unusually large bed his parents had "gifted" him. Rather, he knew better. The "gift bed" was to cover their asses or "save face" as they'd kicked Grey out of their home with no explanation. Grey buttered a slice of white bread after he'd pulled it from the toaster. While he may have looked exhausted and absent-minded, that was exactly what he wanted everyone to think. Within his head, Grey knew the reason he'd been thrown out. As if playing on a reel-to-reel film projector, Grey watched the memory, his face blank as he buttered his toast. He'd been home from Fort Benning for all of a month and a half, found a job and was getting home real late.
However, just because he'd had a long day, didn't mean he'd get to rest and relax once he'd arrived to that house on a hill, just fifteen minutes from Ottawa, fifteen minutes from safe haven. The memories shows Grey's mother, angryily shouting into her phone, his dad watching Fox News on the living room TV. Grey simply waved to his dad, saying "I'm home" without uttering a word. However, his mother, having ended her phone call, decided this was prime time to relieve her stress, by utilizing her personal stress ball, rather than acknowledge him as her son. She hounded Grey, but Grey kept trying to defuse, again... and again... until she struck a nerve. She knew how to hurt him, get him to react, "if ripping Grey's soul apart doesn't work... target his boyfriend, friends, anyone, and everyone other than Grey, who Grey valued. The last words uttered out of her mouth; "Be bet you want to hit me right now, don't you?" Despite Grey's arms being locked at his sides, and completely failing to analyze the situation, Grey's Father stormed over. His large hand lunged forward to choke out Grey, forcing the young man into his room, locked with his father's hand around his throat.
Grey had managed to counter the chokehold, just like the US Army had taught him, just as Staff Sergeant Marin had personally taught him. Grey forced his father's hand away from his neck, then pushed the older man off of him. "Don't you ever put your hands on me again! Do not step towards me!" Barked Grey, his eyes wide with a mixture of adrenaline, rage, and a hint of fear. However, when his father took that ill-judged step, Grey reacted instinctively... landing a punch on his father's jaw. Not hard enough to break it, but plenty enough strength behind that punch to send a clear message of "BACK THE FUCK OFF", without needing to say the words at all. As the memory reel stopped there were two trains of thought that ran like lightning into Grey's mind. The first was the shocked and fearful response of that helping-hand, leader-raised voice of his subconscious, "Oh fuck... I just punched my Dad." Then there was the second... Now that voice was the voice of a persona Grey had created for "career in the US Army" that never happened. Rather than fear or shock, this voice had the undertones of an now small, but ignited fire that psychology would his personality in the name, "Mastermind-Silent Observer Machivellian". As for this new voice, it said "Fuck... I just fucking punch... and I can see him trembling."
Grey took a deep breath, then exhaled. If he were a cartoon, steam would've exited his nostils... He thought to himself. Except he wasn't a cartoon, he was real, and that "Violent Duality" of his existense, when pushed by the US Army, broken by trauma, had now created something Grey need to counter his narcissistic mother, and her husbandly-weapon of discipline. His once-warm copper-colored eyes, had finally begun to darken... and the world outside wasn't any better.
Politics drove a wedge between friends, families, lovers, and strangers. It didn't matter if what was spat as insults was true, hell the politicians on Capitol Hill didn't even try to hide their ugly, repugnant, wickedly curling smiles as their little pawns marched closer and closer to ripping each others' throats out, all in the name of "a better America." Both Grey and the United States were at a boiling point, the point of no return to be perfectly clear. However, unlike the events that played out to create me, dearest readers... Grey and society hit their limits, and went well past the redzone. Nobody knew it as climbed into bed that late midwestern autumn night... but come day break... three years later... that on that morning, the Land of the Free would rip itself into pieces as blood watered the Tree of Liberty once again...