Death? Yeah, I know all about it. Ever attend your own funeral? Impossible? Nah, just be careful no one sees you..and grab some cake while you're at it; it always seems to taste better when you're suppose to be pushing up daisies. You know, it's nice that they still pay respects to a KIA whose body was never found. Name's Cardinal, and let's just leave it at that for now; I've had more "real names" than I care to admit. Sort of a requirement, if you wish to remain a ghost-untraceable...uncatchable...I have my reasons.
First scrap I got into was during the Great War. I had a knack for fighting, my CO told me. I have been fighting ever since. Joined the U.S. military shortly after both of my parents died. I surmise the cause of their deaths could only be correlated with my "uniqueness"-something we had been exposed to "from the stars" as my mother gave birth to me in a carriage on the way to the doctor's house. I felt dead inside, you know...after I lost them. They had been immigrants from Germany long before the war broke out. All we had was each other, and now, I was alone.
You get use to it after a while...being alone. I have a tendency to lose people close to me. During the Great War, the German Aisne Offensive wiped out my entire unit at Chateau-Thierry. we were part of the U.S. 2nd Division sent in early to slow the offensive until reinforcements arrived. we did our duty, and everyone died....all except for little ol' me. I should have died...part of me wanted to die...maybe a piece did. No, I survived that day while my buddies fell victim to enemy fire. The last image that comes to mind before I too fell on the battlefield was a large cloud settling around me, and then there was the sound of a canon, followed by the earth lifting up under my feet. Mustard gas had filled my lungs, and I was out. They say you see things when you are at death's door. My angel was a French nun named Odette-she found me still fighting for life with each breath as I lay broken, bleeding, slipping in and out of consciousness, and quickly losing my sight. She took me to her family's farm where she attempted to tend to my injuries. Though she provided much care, we both knew I was going to die.
At night, it was the hardest...breathing. She would lay there with me dabbing my forehead with a cold, wet rag, singing a sweet lullaby as I shook uncontrollably in her arms. I can still hear her sing at night sometimes. Then, it began. As I plunged into darkness, my "uniqueness" slowly surfaced. It was not until much later that I learned what had happened. My body adapted. Every cell began to metabolize the gas and stimulate the remaining "blast" cells in my lungs and eyes into rapid mitosis. Before long my eyesight returned, and my breathing grew less labored as the lining of the lungs were restored-different from before...immune to the gas. The first most apparent showing of my new abilities was when I began communicating to Odette in French, which I had never studied.
Within a month's time I was ready to return to the war, but I had fallen for her. We shared a few precious moments, and then I vowed to return. A week after the war had officially ended I learned that German artillery had struck Odette's home, killing her instantly. She had been the one that had given me the nickname Cardinal because I always had direction...a strict moral code. God...I can still hear her sing.
I came back home feeling less alive now than when she had held me as I laid slowly dying. Wars continued to come and go, and I continued to fight, taking on new identities along the way as I realized that my body adapted to slow even time's constant touch.
It was during the War in Vietnam that I came to know Nick Fury, one of only two people who I fully trust. I fought beside him and felt safe and honored to call him my friend. As all wars do it came to an end, and for the first time I parted with the first person that ever held company with me and survived. Still, I felt that no one could ever understand, and so I kept moving as a ghost, traveling the globe...never really staying anywhere for an extended period of time. Along the way I picked up a variety of skills (including advanced demolitions, additional martial arts, and stealth/black-ops) that I employed in an attempt to forge purpose in my life. I became a soldier of fortune, only undertaking work that aligned with my moral code-a tough path to tread, but I managed it well for over a decade.
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