The battle raged on around him. The smell of gunpowder was heavy in the air, and the soot from it covered every blade of grass and leaf on a tree. The sound of artillery and cannon blasts split through the air every second, half a second, millisecond, until a man might go mad just from the sounds of it. In times like this, it was easy to forget what you were fighting for, why you were fighting, and blind instinct for survival overshadowed family, land, country, and God.

He crawled along behind the bushes at the edge of the battlefield, knowing he’d be safest here. True, bullets still whizzed by his ears, heating his skin, but he hadn’t been hit. Yet. When a cannon exploded in the ground five feet from where he crouched, the air filled with smoke and soot.

Coughing and barely able to see straight as his eyes stung from the smoke, he felt his way along the dirt, his rifle held close to his side and just ahead of him. A Union soldier stumbled in front of his path, and, hating himself for it, Brian squeezed the trigger and watched him collapse in the dirt. There was no room for conscience, only room for the most base of all survival instinct.

And then he was in the middle of the field again. The bushes that had protected him were gone, and he’d crawled right back into the center of battle. There were torn and bloody bodies around sprawled on the ground around him, and another was thrown into his path from a nasty cannon blast.

He felt the bullet graze his temple, and his vision hazed for one, hideous second. Then, he was up and running, firing shots right and left, not caring who or what he hit. He’d seen the forest at the edge of the battlefield, and, though it was still seventy yards away, he was desperate to reach it, to find a hiding place.

He didn’t register the next bullet that buried itself in his upper arm, didn’t even feel the pain as he was so intent on reaching cover, safety. Damn you, Papa, he thought with a despairing anger. If it hadn’t been for his father’s fury, he wouldn’t have been fleeing the battle as a coward would. But his father had been firm. Brian had freed a prized slave, and his punishment was to join the ranks of the Confederate army in the War of Northern Aggression.

Brian had spent years going to a university in Boston, and, by the time he’d returned to the family plantation in Georgia, he’d been dead set against the idea of slavery. For three years, he’d argued with his father, and, finally, in an act of what he’d thought was heroics, he’d let his personal valet go. He’d never seen his father so angry. Despite his mother and younger sister’s pleading and begging, Brian had been sent off to war.

A hopeless war, he thought now, as he eyed the last few yards to the forest. Crouched behind a boulder, he wondered when the battle would end. He could hear his ragged breathing and smell his own blood. He peered over the boulder at the battle, hoping beyond hope, that no one would see him run and fire at him. When it appeared all was clear, he bolted.

Just as he’d ducked into the cover of trees, he felt the stinging impact of a bullet in his back. Even as he stumbled from the hit, a cannon blasted nearby and tossed his body in the air. His head struck rock when he fell. Despite the dizziness and abrupt nausea, he fisted his hands in determination and pushed himself to his feet. Gasping for air as blinding white pain burst through him, Brian began to move forward again. Away from the battle.

It seemed as though hours passed as his blood ran sticky through his fingers, as his vision grayed before he gritted his teeth and kept moving. The sounds of battle had grown faint by the time he lost the strength to stay on his feet. Now, he crawled through the woods, his fingers clutching at the dirt, determined to pull him just another foot. Then one more. Somewhere where he could die peacefully.

For he knew death was his only option now. He’d lost too much blood—it stained his gray uniform to brown—and couldn’t breathe for it felt as though sharp knives stabbed in his chest.

When he saw the bright light ahead of him, he thought of heaven and God and begged for mercy. The light grew stronger, and Brian, not realizing it was the sun peering in from the end of the woods, moved towards it.

He didn’t feel the sunlight warm upon his face as he dragged himself the last few inches into, what he thought, was death. He saw the horse and the man that stood next to it. Even as he collapsed in the meadow grass, he heard his own voice, thin and wheezing, ask if this was heaven.

Green eyes filled with concern and fear were the last thing he saw before he faded into nothing.