The cacophony of battle no longer fills my ears.
A mans scream startles me out of my daze.
I close my eyes to the carnage I helped to reek.
My guilt presses on me like a granite slab.
I fall to my knees and raise my hands toward heaven.
Why did I heed the drums of war?
Those cursed drums that corrupt the soul and steal the mind.
"What have I become?"
I whisper into that horrible silence.
The sky is deaf to my plaintive cries for mercy and my dead companions are unable to provide any relief from my sorrow.
Slowly I rise broken in body and dead in spirit, and limp away.