The protagonist's girlfriend was killed, and the endings were him choosing between killing himself to be with her in death, or choosing to live and move on. Nothing unexpected there. What's interesting is the circumstances surrounding it: the bombed-out bus, the newspaper clippings about the war, the strange buildings and desert city contrasted with the bright green hills & tree. The kicker for me is that in the green ending, the protagonist looks like he has the tanned skin and black hair of an Arab or Indian.
That's when I realized I made the unconscious assumption this was all taking place in the U.S. Once I moved that to the Middle East, it all became clear:
He met her, or they grew up together, in a western land symbolized by the green hills and the tree. Later, she returned to her Arabic homeland for some unknown reason and is fatally wounded in a bus bombing. The protagonist learns this and rushes to her side, only for her to die as he watches. This drives him insane and he spends several days in psychiatric care, regressed into his own mind, trying to decide whether to kill himself or move on.
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