All we are are prisoners of war, a war we never started and a war that we can never end. It's the same for everyone who was ever born.My name is Daniel Rice. I'm thirty-five years old and this is my story.I am not an American soldier, though some might say otherwise after reading this report. Nor am I a prisoner of any nation or entity, though many would make that claim as well. I do not even belong to any particular species, though some will argue the point vehemently. And I certainly don't speak for anyone else on Earth—or anywhere else in the universe, for that matter. My only connection to this planet is my birthright, which I inherited from my parents and their parents before them. They were all human beings who lived through wars fought over land, water, resources, religion, ideology, money, or pride. The wars they waged were brutal, bloody, and often long drawn out with little hope for victory by either side.But unlike those conflicts, the war we're involved in now is different, much more insidious. It has been raging across space for centuries and it affects every living thing within several hundred light-years of our world. Its outcome may be predetermined but its course remains unknown.It is called "the war." We refer to it as that because no one knows exactly when the initial event occurred. It could have happened millions of years ago or merely thousands. Our records indicate a single point in time at which something terrible began to happen and then went on happening without interruption ever since. There were periods where things got noticeably worse and others when they got better. But nothing changed enough to break the momentum of the downward spiral.
