Four Letters

The following is a transcription of a series of audio tapes made by one “James Brown”.

Day 1
Hello? Is this thing on? Thought I pressed that Record button… oh, yeah. Machine’s got that red light on. Ain’t never used a recorder like this before.

I’m Private James Brown, used to be in the Army. My shrink says I shouldn’t say too many details, though. Would remind me of Iraq.

The date is… uhhh… November 17th, 2007. Can’t believe the war’s still goin on, but it’s only been a year and a half since I was discharged. Oops, maybe I shouldn’t have said that.

Well, since I said that already, may as well tell you a bit more. I entered Iraq about a year after the Battle of Bagdhad, served 2 years, then got discharged. They said it was for psychological reasons, but I’ve got a job now, and was lucky enough to not get shot up. No amputations, no bone fractures, a couple bullets may have grazed me now and then, but them terrorists had a hard time trying to put one between my eyes. A stable life.

Still, they made me see a shrink. Only thing that happens is that I got some recurring nightmares, but the shrink says that’s normal for us vets. So whatever psychological reasons they’re talkin about, I don’t know em. Or remember em, is more likely, according to the shrink. I hate that bitch, thinks she knows better than me and stuff just cause she got some fancy degree. Would love to see her in that desert, tryin to stop those terrorists.

I haven’t done much in a while besides my job, sleep, and eat, so the shrink said I needed a hobby or to start a project to get my life “back on track”. As if it ain’t stable right now. What a load of malarkey in her brain.

So I’m gonna start this little audio journal. Maybe they’ll make a book of it or something. I don’t write, except a journal from the desert, but that’s locked up in the shrink’s BDSM dungeon. Otherwise known as the therapy room.

I miss the war, though. Helpin out my country. Killin them terrorists. So I’m gonna do a project that semi-reminds me of the war, like workin on a gun range maybe. Shrink says anything that could fully remind me would be dangerous to my mental health.

That ends the first entry, I guess. Where’s that Stop button… oh yeah. Found it!

Day 2
Recording? Helllooooo? Oh, red light. I’ll get used to this thing sooner or later.

So my little bro who’s goin to college for a fancy degree in shrinkin told me about this new video game. I think he went that path cause he thinks my shrink is hot or somethin. My whole family was there for the first session. My mom who thanks God every day I’m back home, my dad who almost went to Vietnam, and of course, my little bro.

Dad didn’t go cause his older bro got a KIA there, and his dad sent him up to Canada where the pussies roam free. But I lived through war fine, so Granddad didn’t know what he was talkin bout. I guess.

Anyways, back to the video game. He said it was a shooter, but it wasn’t very realistic. It’s in the first person, but there’s red jelly splatter on your screen when you get shot, and there’s no medikits to pick up or whatever. I remember Medal of Honor way back when, that was a pretty good game. Makes me think of Granddad. Even though he was wrong about me, he definitely did something right at Normandy.

The game is called Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. It’s all the rage at my lil bro’s dorm, when they’re not partying. Probably has to do with my little bro’s inability to get laid. Anyways, I’ll go buy a copy tomorrow. Without telling the bloody shrink. How could anyone like that woman? Ugh.

Not much to say today, did my daily routine of work, TV, eating, and now to sleep!

At the Gamestop
Is the light on? Let me check before I go into the shop… okay. Good.

In case the shrink tries to tell me this game is going to bad for my perfectly fine sanity, I’m going to tell her the plot of the game and how unrealistic it is. Straight from the horse’s, or rather, the clerk’s mouth.

A door being swung open can be heard.

So, there’s these new game systems that came out right after I came home. First was “Xbox 360”, and a year later came “Nintendo Wii” and “PlayStation 3”. I have none of these, just a PlayStation and a PlayStation 2 catching dust. I’d get the third one but it’s really expensive compared to that 360. Looking through these games, I can’t even see a Wii version of that Modern Warfare.

Ah well, looks like I’ll go Microsoft.

Now, let me see if any games are in stock… ah, perfect, one left.

“Hey jerk, I’ve been waiting for Modern Warfare for a week!”

“What? Get lost!”

“I’ve been a HUUUUUUGE fan ever since the very first Call of Duty made by Infinity Ward and Call of Duty 3 wasn’t even by Infinity Ward and was about World War II and this one’s about like Afganistan and Iraq and-“

“Don’t. Mention. Iraq.”

“LOL you are such a noob!”

“…Did you just say online slang in real life?”

“LOL yes! Why are you so worried about Iraq noob?”

“Because I was in the war til a year ago. I suggest you shut the hell up.”

“Ummmmm… are you like big and buff and stuff?”

“No, I’m a fatass like you.”

Sounds of footsteps scuffling away can be heard.

Jeez, what pricks these video game nerds can be. Anyways, here it is, the last copy! Got my hands on it this time… And this is for the shrink. I’m gonna talk to the clerk next. Is there a way to, uhhhh, erase what just happened with the nerd? Ah well. Wait, now she’s gonna hear this too. Screw it, her brain’s full of bs anyways.

“Excuuuuuuuuse me? Did you just say ‘bs’ in front of my nine year old son?”

“…What?”

“I’m trying to buy him that new ‘Cold Doody’ game!”

“Mooooom, it’s called Call of Duty, and I want it NOOOOOOOOOW!”

“Sorry, I have the last copy.”

“WHAAAAAAAAAAT?!? GIVE IT NOW YOU LITTLE BITCH!”

“Johnny, no swearing!”

“SHUT UP MOM!”

“I don’t think you want to use that tone with an Iraq veteran.”

“Oh, you’re one of those meatheads who got brainwashed by the government!”

“And I see you’ve been brainwashed by your libtard mother. Good day Johnny.”

And they’re yelling behind me too… hopefully people leave me alone now. Finally, the sweet destination, the clerk. This is for you, shrink. You know where you can stick all of your psychological diseases and your BDSM dungeon.

“Hello, I’m going to need to buy an Xbox 360 and a copy of this game,”

“Modern Warfare, eh? Good job on getting it… and a new 360?”

“Yeah, I was in Iraq for a while, when all these new consoles came out. I had Sony but uh… it’s a bit heavy on the wallet,”

“Yeah, you should’ve seen when it was first released if you think it’s expensive right now,”

“Ah, don’t tell me about it… but my sh- I mean, my therapist, may think Modern Warfare may give me recurring nightmares about Iraq or something. What’s the plot about?”

“Well, most people are in it for the Multiplayer aspect, but the Single Player only has a few missions taking place in an unnamed Middle Eastern country. Most of it takes place in Russia. If you get through the first act, as it’s called, you’ll be fine. It’s not very realistic either, so I don’t think it’ll trigger you or anything. Maybe get a World War II shooter instead if you’re worried?”

“Nah, I was a fan of Medal of Honor back in the day. Those shooters get boring after a while. This Modern Warfare’s somethin new. How much?”

“Let me see… 300 for the Xbox, 60 for the new game… Plus tax… 379.99,”

“Ugh, always that extra penny… keep the change.”

“Thanks for shopping at Gamestop! Have you heard of our new-”

At Home
Sorry, I cut it out there. Anyways, I decided to play the first three missions of the game, as well as some multiplayer. My little bro was right, it is NOT realistic at all.

The first mission is supposed to be some last-minute combat training, and to introduce you to the game. But seriously, slashing a watermelon with your knife?

I do have to agree with the Captain Price character, though. Soap is a really dumb nickname.

Anyways, my actual combat training helped me immensely. Especially during that training course thing at the end of the first mission. I flew through the course, beating Gaz’s record quite easily. Not on my first try, but hey, I wanted to overachieve. My twitch shooting was still the same from the war, and as for flashbangs, well, I had thrown them and seen their effects firsthand. The game’s not realistic at all, but hey, it’s fun.

Anyways, I was chosen to play on “Veteran” difficulty, but I haven’t played a shooter in quite some time, and who knows how hard Veteran is. I slowly ran the course on purpose to play on Regular, so I could have an easy ride. The second mission, on the crew ship… I have no idea how the SAS run their missions, but where the hell did all those terrorists come from? It’s a constant stream if you just stay in place, of course you can just run through the whole ship and not even get close to dying. I guess you’d have to stay still on Veteran and little kids like Johnny would get bored or somethin.

When the ship crashed, I gotta say, I felt a little thrill. Like I was back in the desert or somethin, adrenaline running through me. That jump off the ship could’ve been a scene from Saving Private Ryan, you know? I was a bit shocked that the other soldiers just stared at Captain Price saving you from your death, though.

The cutscene was alright, the one with the President getting forced in a car. I looked around and saw those Middle Eastern soldiers killing civvies and stuff… unforgiveable. I started to remember a civvie massacre I saw in the war, so I closed my eyes… are you happy, shrink? I looked away. Perfectly sane.

The third mission, where you have to rescue “Nikolai”, boy they personified those ruskies really good. Granddad never mentioned em much, you know, but Dad and Mom hated the commies. My lil bro isn’t really like us, I guess cause he’s smart, and he doesn’t hate the ruskies. Gaz putting that one Sergeant, Kamarov I think, against that stone wall was hilarious. When Nikolai mentioned the Americans were invading at the end of the mission, I decided I’d probe into the mission a bit and see if anything wrong would happen. If I’d get flashes of the war.

The guy’s name was Ryan Jackson. I remembered riding in one of those helis, in the beginning of the first American mission. I played about halfway through that mission, I think, then I started to get a headache. I saved and quit the game. Tried a bit of the Multiplayer, it’s filled with little kids like Johnny. Always screaming and raging, as if they know what real war is. Like they’ve picked up an AK47 from some dead Iraqi cause your sidearm’s all jammed and you don’t have time to reload your assault rifle and your buddies are getting shot at so they need suppressive fire-

Yeah, I need a break. You win this round shrink.

Day 4
Okay, okay, uhhhh… shit, I don’t know why I’m recording this right now, cause the shrink’s just gonna tell me to burn the game or something. Something strange happened.

The rest of the mission played through normal. No headaches, no flashes of the past, nothing.

Once I finished, a text box appeared. It said, “Extra Mission Available. Play it?” There were two options, but the “No” was grayed out. Only option to keep going was Yes, so… so I clicked it. Ryan Jackson wasn’t there anymore. It was years before muppet Soap went to the SAS I gather. Cause this mission was… it was something real. From real life.

You know how in the beginning of each mission there’s a little timeframe, location, and who you’re playing as? Instead of saying Sgt. Ryan Jackson, I was playing as… Cpl. Charles Barker.

But I knew him as Sergeant Charles Barker.

He was a big dude, was built like a football player. One of the best noncoms I ever saw, always spitting in the face of danger. I think I once saw a terrorist cower at his feet from how loud he was bellowing orders. Barker knew how to get things done… yeah, he did… until… until…

The recording ends there and continues later.

Anyways, Barker told us about the Battle of Baghdad. He was there, saw everything as a footsoldier. The location was Bagdhad, Iraq, but the date was blacked out, except for the year, 2003.

The game, at this point, had the same graphics as it did before. It was just me playing as my Sergeant from 2003. He told us about this tank fight he saw, and how a shell landed right next to him from one of Hussein’s tanks. As I was running through, killing terrorists, I heard a grenade sound ringing in my ears. I slowly turned as Barker to see a big tank right in front of me. Thought he was gonna get crushed, but about a couple hundred feet before Barker was gonna die, the tank exploded. Barker hit the dirt, and somehow, no shrapnel went through him. He stayed in the prone position, unwilling to get up no matter how hard I pressed the B button on the Xbox controller. Not until another soldier forced him to get back up. A series of lights came from the TV then, and I was forced to shut my eyes. When I did, I remembered sitting at night in the desert, unable to go to sleep. I saw Sergeant Charles Barker in front of me, telling me the story. He said:

“I thought I was going to die. The tank was so close to me, and all of a sudden… BOOM. Explosion. I knew to bury my face in the sand, so I did. When I looked back up, I saw a big piece of the tank’s side plate right next to me. A couple feet to the left, I would’ve been dead… but I couldn’t get back up. I heard all the gunfire, you know, and I was scared to get shot. At this point I must’ve got 5 or 6 kills, running to Baghdad and all that. But I couldn’t get back up, til a guy from a whole different Company grabbed my hand, shook me, said ‘Get back up soldier!’ And then…”

I opened my eyes. And then he got shot by some Iraqi sniper, is what Barker said. And sure enough, the soldier was on the ground. But his brains… it wasn’t any graphics from the game. I’ve seen actual gray matter from headshots, and… it looked exactly like that. All of a sudden, instead of random dead bodies around, I heard screaming people. One Iraqi had his arm blown off, crying to Allah to take him then. My mind was racing, and I had no idea how this was possible. But I couldn’t stay still, or Barker would be the next to die. So I kept running through. Smoke was everywhere, and I heard Barker started to cough. Actually make coughing sounds.

I was searching frantically for a building to go into, and all of a sudden, I saw a metal door. With a rust-red “P” on it, but I didn’t care what it stood for, I went in. It was pitch-black. I couldn’t see a thing, but then green letters were on the screen. They said:

Private James Brown

March 30th, 2006

[REDACTED], Iraq

A spotlight shone in the dark room. I was viewing Sarge. I remember what happened on that date too, just a couple weeks before I was gone from Iraq for good.

There was an IED, and Barker told us all to hold and he’d go protect the Bomb Squad. Barker’s the only man I ever knew who could run with a LMG in his hands. He didn’t have time to set the bipod, so he just shot with it in his hands, like he was Rambo or something. It looked like the terrorists wouldn’t be able to shoot back, but all of a sudden the Bomb Squad screwed up.

I saw Barker stare at me, a second before fire engulfed him. He was burned to a crisp, I wanted to go check for remains but I saw nothing there. Nobody knew what to do, we just ran away. And the game made me see Barker die in flames again… again, again, what the hell, I would’ve gone too but he said no, the bomb squad could screw up, and the IED could go off, and you’re all too fucking young to die in this godforsaken desert… his last words before he went Rambo and… and… and… I can’t talk anymore.

Day 5
I haven’t told the shrink what happened. One time’s a coincidence, right? Right, right… except it happened again. Yeah, I know, but the game was playing normally for a while too!

I got to level 10 in the Multiplayer, but those little kids thinking they know so much about guns and crap started to get to my head. I would’ve cussed them out if I had bought a microphone. There’s some bad parenting going on, let me tell you. I was afraid to play the Campaign again, afraid to relive the past… but I convinced myself it was just one time. You’re sane, you’re sane. So I pressed Continue.

The green text said Ryan Jackson. I was in the clear.

One mission went by, with that Lt. Vasquez barking orders and stuff. We went into a bog. There was an Abrams stuck in it. Perfectly normal mission, I remembered doing it a couple times with… with Barker.

Once I got to the actual bog, the game froze for a bit. Or at least I thought it did, but it just didn’t let me continue. This was right after I destroyed some tanks with the Javelin, on that highway. But as I tried to advance to the Abrams, some white text appeared on the screen saying “You haven’t completed all objectives!” I was confused. I paused the game, and all the objectives were completed… but I saw something strange on the campaign map. The letter “T”. It was in the area too. The game wouldn’t let me advance. I thought this was just a part of the game, okay? So I went to the T. And there was a door, like the P door, but it had the letter T. “Press X to Open”. So I did.

Another black room, but this time, the green text said:

James Brown (civilian)

May 2nd, 2003

[REDACTED], Virginia

The spotlight shone, and this time, it was a bigger picture, of me and Dad, in the house. Dad was staring angrily at my younger self. He started to scream:

“Why the hell would you want to join the Army?!? You wanna go kill yourself? There’s not even a damn draft!”

“Dad, come on, I do shitty in school, there’s no money for me to go to college or nothin, what other option do I have?”

“You could be like me! Work in a factory, Walmart, ANYWHERE but there!”

“Dad, I’m going to li-“

“HOW THE HELL DO YOU KNOW?!? My brother DIED in Vietnam because of this god damned government thinking they can send children to fight for them! My… brother… DIED… and you think I’m going to let my SON, MY FLESH AND BLOOD, BLEED FOR SOME OLD MAN’S OIL FETISH?!?”

“DAD, I’m 18 now, it’s my decision! Nothin you say can change my mind!”

I remembered this confrontation. Then Dad… he took a double-barreled shotgun…

“Oh yeah, it’s your decision… here! Take this gun!”

He threw it at me. It was loaded and everything.

“Why the fuck don’t you just shoot me right now? Go ahead, kill me, that’s what you’re doing with your Army crap! Your Granddad lost his leg fighting in Omaha. He told me all the time, ‘It was a MG42, I remember the sound well, it was cutting through all of us, and I was wading through the surf. Bullets kicked up everywhere, but they weren’t gonna hit me, no, I was gonna kill some Nazis, help my nation, until it struck my knee. I was pinned down under that surf. I was gonna drown, son, I tell you, I was breathing in water, and I almost blacked out…’ I always remembered that because that’s what he told me when he sent me up to Canada. So I wouldn’t get amputated and drown. My older brother was just like you, never did well in school, so may as well join the army…”

The room was quiet for a while after that. The shotgun felt heavy in my hands, and I had to lower it softly. My father scoffed.

“You can’t even hold it for five minutes and you want to go kill some brown people thousands of miles away,”

“How do you know anything about the military?”

“…Because I was drafted too. Granddad begged them, you know, but I went anyways. Boot camp, footsoldier training, the whole nine yards. On the last leave before Vietnam, Granddad knocked me out with the blunt end of the shotgun. Put me in the trunk and drove off to Canada. In Michigan, I was still asleep, but a government agent went up to Granddad and said what he did was ‘unlawful, and I can’t believe someone of your stripes and valor would do such a thing,’, and…”

“…What did Granddad do?”

“…He took the shotgun, fired one of the bullets at the agent’s feet. He said… ‘If you say one more word, the next bullet is going through your head,’ The agent left, and we made it to Canada… I was so angry at Granddad, I was just like you, even though my brother was swamp food, I couldn’t see it at the time…”

Behind the screen, I was crying. This time, I could pause the game. I couldn’t bear to remember that night with Dad. Somehow I convinced him to let me go anyways. Somehow.

When I came from Iraq, Dad just stared at me. He didn’t hug me or anything, he only said a few words:

“My son died in the desert. Who the hell are you?”

Day 6
Third time’s the charm, right? I know what I keep saying about the shrink, how she’s always in my business, but tomorrow, I’m going to go talk to her about these visions. These flashbacks on this game just keep getting more and more realistic, you know. I had another one today.

I played a couple of hours of Multiplayer when I came home from work, to relax. Part of me just kept wanting to play it, but the kids kept talking about some big event that happened in the Single Player. A nuke went off.

I had to see it.

This time, I didn’t get to play a regular mission. I was playing as Charles Barker again. The P door was right behind me, but I couldn’t go back in. It was that more realistic version of the game again. There were some torn limbs strewn across the ground. I saw a soldier running, only to get obliterated by a mortar shell. One second he was there, the next, gone. Like he never existed. The sound was deafening, and it felt like it didn’t come from the speakers… like it was just outside my door.

More and more mortars were hitting the ground, and I wondered if we were still in Baghdad. A new Objective came up, the first time I saw one in this new game: Get to Bomb Shelter “S”. I couldn’t shoot or anything, just run. Dirt was kicking up everywhere, and at one point, Barker fell to the ground. A mortar struck just a few feet in front of him, and he fell in shock. I forced into prone position again, and just crawled and crawled. The mortars sounded louder and louder every time they landed, and my screen was filled more and more with dirt.

Eventually, the screen was entirely covered with dirt. I could only hear the grunts of Barker as I moved him straight. There was one, final mortar strike that almost popped my eardrums. Intense pain came to my ears, and I couldn’t take it, I fell to the floor and closed my eyes.

All of a sudden, I remembered going through mortars just like this. I was running after Barker, in the same conditions… wait. This wasn’t Baghdad I was playing in, no. I didn’t know the name of the region, we were off-course. Barker and I were supposed to link up with the rest of the squad at a command post, but we got stuck in that situation. I remembered seeing him on the ground, his face in the sand. I thought he was dead.

When I opened my eyes, I saw the sand wiped from the TV. The screen shook uncontrollably, and when Barker looked up, I saw… myself. In all my glory. All the creases in my skin, my murky brown eyes that had specks of sand in them. I could see small tears in my uniform. Some thought in the back of my mind told me “How could a game’s graphics be so detailed?”, but the rest of my brain was focused that the game was retelling my story to me.

I picked up Barker, just like in the game, and the perspective switched from him to me. I sprinted down the desert, but the Objective made no sense.

There was no bomb shelter. I found a jeep and drove us to the command post.

Not in the game, though. I saw a small, metal trapdoor. It was never there in real life, but when I hovered over it, the screen showed text saying “Press X to enter Bomb Shelter S”. I had to escape the mortars, what other choice did I have? I entered the shelter. Instead of a black room, I actually had to climb down rungs of a ladder. Barker’s nearly unconscious body was slung around my back.

When I climbed to the bottom, a spotlight shone, illuminating the area. And it was filled with… terrorists. Not friendlies. Terrorists.

They started yelling in Arabic at me, pointing AK-47s. I put down Barker and went into crouch mode. It wasn’t good enough for them.

I fell down on the floor. Bullet holes were riddled through my character’s body, but I felt as if I had been shot. All of a sudden, I had a hard time breathing. My vision was blurry. I fell down on the floor of my room and went unconscious. When I woke up, the mission “Hunted” was playing. As if it nothing ever happened before. I was scared. The game was reading my thoughts, my past actions, I don’t know how, but it did.

I need to tell the shrink. I need to have an explanation. I’ve never been more thankful for having her to speak to…

Day 7
Oh God, oh God, oh God, tell me it’s recording. I don’t know. I just need to keep speaking. There’s someone in my house. I didn’t even play the game today, I swear to Christ. I didn’t touch the Xbox. I didn’t touch the Xbox.

I tried going to the shrink’s, I swear I did. I was walking to her clinic, but I saw a “Closed” sign on it. Maybe I had come too early or somethin, I don’t know, I don’t know, I just went to a Dunkin Donuts to grab a bite to eat, you know? Just to get a donut and sit and think that hopefully it’ll be Open soon and I can talk to the shrink and everything will be normal. No more mind-reading games, no more sanity loss.

But when I left the Dunkin Donuts, I saw a building. It was just a shack. I never saw it before. But it had a letter on it. It was the same metal door with the same style of letter. This time it said… it said… what did it say… D. One D.

I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, why would I go into a strange place? But my feet were moving by themselves. It wasn’t me, it was like I was in the video game and someone was controlling ME. I opened the door, it wasn’t locked, and it was… pure… pitch… black. Until a spotlight came on, and I just saw me.

I saw myself. I was looking at myself. I thought it was a mirror, some cheap trick, but no, my clone started walking towards me. He went up to me and whispered in my ear:

“You shouldn’t have done that,”

I knew what he meant. Go to war, buy the game, have your mental problems you thought you didn’t have act up. You shouldn’t have done any of that James. But you did. It was your choice. You made Dad go mad. You made Mom a religious nut. And little bro… what is he doing right now? I hope he’s alright.

The clone… he stepped backwards, the whole time facing me. “Your house is going to be gone,” He said menacingly. He drew a revolver. My heart started to beat. No, no, no, I couldn’t die, not yet, not NOW, not in some shack I’ve never seen before, no, no, NO!

I said nothing, I just stared at him, like maybe he would forget about me. But he didn’t even point the revolver at me, he just pressed it against his temple. He waved goodbye and… shot himself. Right there. I saw myself commit suicide.

I screamed out and tried to leave the room. The door swung open and I sprinted home. Something was supposed to be wrong, but no, everything looked fine.

No shrink now, I don’t know if I’m ever going to talk to her again. That shotgun, it’s with me right now. I’m in my bedroom, with the Xbox in it and everything. When I entered the house, I heard footsteps. Not fake steps, no, these were real, someone was in my house.

So I ran up here and someone’s coming, I know they are, I just need to keep speaking to myself until I’m sane again. Sane again, yes, sane again, and safe from the terrorists. Terrorists. Wait, terrorists… what if… they must be terrorists. In my house. Yes. They couldn’t get me in Iraq, so they came over here. They got Barker and now they want me. That’s what the game was warning me about. It must be true. Yes. Yes. Yes.

A door can be heard slammed open.

OH GOD, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!?

Two gunshots can be heard.

GET AWAY FROM ME! HOW MANY OF THEM ARE THERE? IT’S JUST LIKE THAT CREW SHIP MISSION, THEY JUST KEEP COMING.

Two more gunshots can be heard.

''The recording device is then thrown outside, but nothing is recorded except more gunshots and incoherent ramblings of James Brown. The shotgun hits the ground, and the last thing that is heard are footsteps leaving the room.''

Aftermath
After the incident, James Brown dissapeared. His psychiatrist, Dr. Ellen Smith, said that he suffered from PTSD and hallucinations from the war. Many times, in their sessions, Dr. Smith observed him saying that terrorists were surrounding the room. His sanity was clearly gone. His father was crying when he saw him barking about suicide bombers blowing the command post up, and having to protect his squadmates from the danger. His biggest problem was that he had convinced himself he was perfectly sane.

A neighbor called the police after hearing screams and gunshots. They investigated the room, but found nothing out of the ordinary, except a destroyed Xbox 360 and a “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare” disc split in half. A recorder was also found at the scene, which the police studied intensely.

No gun was found, and the police guess James Brown took it with him when he left the house. A manhunt was staged for him, but it was called off when a police officer was found dead in a shack.

There were four letters on the door of the shack:

PTSD