Home from War by Toby Sanders

Rick is a good soldier. The best kind — the kind who brings his men home alive by becoming something his wife can barely recognise and his son will never understand.

The war is nearly over. Just a few more months of being the monster, a few more weeks of the violence and the savagery that has kept his platoon breathing while others fill the ground around them. Then he can come home. Put the monster away. Be a husband and a father again.

But monsters don't simply disappear when the fighting stops.

When victory finally comes, Rick returns to find that the hardest battle is the one being fought inside him — against the part of himself he needed to survive, and can no longer afford to keep.

Home from War is a deeply human story about the cost of survival, the weight of coming home, and the long, painful journey back to being alive.

A novelette of approximately 12,000 words.