Character: Jazz
Age: 34

Jazz unlocked the door of his relatively large residence and strode inside it, a little surprised to not hearing any small children inside. At first, he questioned why there were no excited, happy-go-lucky babies coming barreling down the hall… then he remembered. Sighing a bit, he removed his work boots, placed them on the shoe rack, and hanged up his windbreaker jacket in the closet. Things were not the same; nothing was the same. Closing the front door and securing it again, he slid his feetpaws into his slippers and shuffled down the hallway. A lot of empty hooks hanged on the walls which now appeared to be quite barren; there used to be numerous of family photos stretching from one end of the corridor to the other. Yet, again… things were not the same.

Leaning into the living room, he glanced around and observed the surroundings as he had done more than a thousand times. At the same time, he was earnestly hoping this was just a game and that his children would actually be somewhere hidden in the house. So far… nothing. Leaving the living room, he made his way into the kitchen and noticed that everything remained untouched and just as he had left it previously before he went out to work. Opening a cabinet, he removed a hip flask of Smirnoff vodka, popped off the cap, and took a big swig of the alcoholic beverage. Glancing over the bottle, he shrugged a bit and chugged the whole thing down. These last few months have been on the taxing side of things… and what had happened during them changed everything.

Recently, he had been laid off of work because of his inability to think straight and his manager decided to let him go. There was no arguing from Jazz; he gave in his uniform, apologized for wasting Mr. Hagkull’s time, and left the place with a cheque containing his vacation pay and the payment for his most completed work. It was becoming harder and harder to find a silver lining in the midst of these dark clouds that sought to drown out the light forever. But everything that ever went wrong had one thing in common: he was the cause of it all.

Releasing a frustrated huff, he slammed the empty hip flask on the counter and made his way up the stairs to his bedroom where he proceeded to get out of his daily clothes. A flashback of a memory spelled him for a minute and sent him falling down to his knees, crying aloud. There was no way he could shake his best friend from his mind… even though it had been close to two years now. Darius Reeves was good to him; he missed his best friend terribly. It was hard to imagine that Jazz had been a former special forces sniper because of what he had been reduced to: an emotional, unthoughtful drunkard who tried so desperately to drown his sorrows in vodka.

All it took was one operation to go wrong and his life was forever flipped upside-down. His squad was completely eradicated one day, he and Darius were captured, tortured to the brink of death, and before he knew it, Darius died in his arms. There was just something about having your best friend die in your arms that made it impossible to shake from memory. Due to a wound to the lower abdomen, Jazz was forced into retirement and was unable to carry the casket of Reeves onto the CC-150 Polaris transport aircraft… this again, greatly troubled him. Most were able to help carry the casket of beloved friends onto the aircraft, yet he could not. Afghanistan was a living hell, and he experienced every pain it had for him.

After stepping out of his clothes, he wandered into his private bathroom and shut the door, looking in the mirror at the abrasion on his stomach. Surely it could have been healed by now… had he not been too afraid to let anyone operate on him. In his mind, the horrors of the final days of being in Afghanistan echoed: the faint sound of machine guns opening fire onto enemy positions, the haunting sound of a bullet breaking through flesh, the putrid stench of bodies rotting under the hot sun, the screams of anguish… he looked up. Giving his head a shake, he turned on the water and ran his paw under while using the other to adjust it to the desired temperature.

Everything after Afghanistan was looking grim until he stumbled onto a decent-sized town somewhere in the United States of America called Hope Springs. And it was here where he began to find the hope to continue living. Catharine and a few others helped nurse him back to health and provided so much for him although he did not know them. The golden Alaskan malamute began to volunteer at an orphanage and he fell in love with the children there. It was here where he crossed paths with his high school sweetheart he had got pregnant before he ran off to join the military. Although he tried to be reconciled to her, she instead gave him his son and left.

He stepped into the shower and began to cleanse himself of the dirt, oil, and stench of diesel and alcohol from his body. All the while, his mind tortured him with how things could have been if he was not so quick to speaking without putting consideration of how the other party would take it. Confusion, guilt, shame, regret… these weighed down his mind as he tried to process how everything just did go so far south.

Jazz did everything he possibly could to try to make it up to his son for not being there and only wanted to make his son happy. It worked and the two became inseparable, and one by one the malamute began to let other children into his life because he wanted to give them the life they deserved. However, it was only a matter of time until his post-traumatic stress disorder kicked in and made a mess with everything in his mind. All it took was allowing himself to be with a friend who sexually assaulted him… and that is where it all fell apart. Within a few short months, he allowed his disorder to completely ravage and destroy every relationship he had… and everyone who he had loved so much left him. And there was no way to correct any of it.

With a fist, he hit the side of the shower wall before turning off the water. Stepping out with his fur completely soaked, the mutt grabbed a towel and proceeded to dry what bits of whatever he could before he stumbled back into his room and dressed himself in his pajamas, sliding his houserobe over his back and fastened it with the sash. Grabbing his head, he sank down onto his bed and wept aloud, not caring if his neighbours thought he was being too loud. There was too much insanity in his mind and it was torturing him.

“Darius, my friends, my children, my jobs… there are all gone… I ruined everything.” He moaned quietly before he grabbed the computer sitting on his bed and hurled it at his wall, “FUCK THIS PLACE!!!”

Sobbing, crying, and screaming, Jazz continued his pathetic tantrum before he moved over to his bedside table and opened the drawer, removing his Beretta pistol he had kept inside it, and he pressed it under his chin and popped it.

Nothing happened.

Opening the weapon, Jazz searched for the reason why it did not fire… all he found was an empty chamber. In misery, he threw the gun at his window causing the glass to shatter. Trying to get a grip of himself, the malamute walked out of his room and silently approached one of the abandoned nurseries and glanced inside it. Life was far too difficult now… was it even worth living? He made a mess of everything and continued to do so. As he imagined what kind of settings could be happening in that room right at the moment, Jazz wondered if maybe it was possible to regress into a baby.

A faint flicker of a memory brought a slight smile to his face. Yes. That is what he would do. He would no longer be a caretaker or a daddy… just a helpless infant. And even if that meant he had to be alone… so be it. Besides everyone he got near, he ended up hurting.

“It’s better this way…” Jazz whispered as he entered the nursery, spying a plushy fox on the floor, and lifted it up, “No one needs me, and I don’t need anybody.”

Holding the fox close to himself, he walked out of the baby room and headed down the stairs.

“It’s better for Christopher Jazz Maximus Risingstorm to be alone.”

© Jazz, Story
© Art

You do NOT have the permission to use this image in any way shape or form unless you are the owner, or the artist. Copyright 2014 YourRisingStorm. Art copyright 2014 Kalida. All rights reserved.