The Sack

You may find it hard to believe, but I wasn't always like this. There was a time when I was free to roam where I liked. I had a beautiful wife, two little boys that aspired to be just like their father, and a nice big house. But unfortunately, as I have figured out here, all things good were meant to be destroyed.

It was the year 1981 of our Planet's international Calendar. A Great Depression swept into my hometown, leaving little food, and less money to buy it with. We did manage at first, but as months passed, and then years, we became desperate. It was two years after the Depression when he came into town.

He was recruiting for a force of sorts, which would be tasked with recovering confidential documents from the Republic Of Lode, the army of our rival planet, Skatoa. Knowing that my current job security was non-existent, I jumped at the chance, and after six months of training, we began our first mission. I remember the silence when we hit the ground. We all seemed to weigh our options, and we were off.

15 minutes in, in only 15 minutes, it was over. 5 dead, 8 wounded, and the rest captured, including me. We weren't tortured, mind you, no. They had something worse in mind. We were first stripped of our free-will, so we wouldn't kill ourselves purposefully, or try to escape. Then they took our arms, then legs, and replaced them one by one with machines, until we were more metal than man.

And then one day, two of our men were gone, only one returned the next day, to shaken up to talk about what he had seen or done. And then the same thing the next day, and the next, and the next, with all who returned not able to even speak. This continued on, until one day, I awoke alone in a dark room. When I stood up ,the doors opened, and I saw it for the first time. I was in a maze, full of brick blocks randomly placed in an arena of metal, with a sack in front of me. A sack full of bombs.