It was a night just like any other. Once again I'd gotten the shitty duty of being door guard on a Saturday night. While my friends had gone out, there I was, back at the barracks. I didn't mind to much, since I wasn't much of a partier anyways. But still, it would be nice to have the option.
I paced around the hallway to keep myself awake. It was always odd to be a guard on the weekend. During the week soldiers filled the barracks with life at all hours of the night. During the weekend, the place felt dead.
Around 0120 or so, I finally sat down. I was on the verge of dying from sheer boredom. I amused myself with thinking about all the trouble my buddies would be out getting themselves in. I ran down through the group, coming up with more and more lucrative situations for them to be getting caught up in.
An icy blast of wind blew down the hall, snapping me out of my daydream. I jumped up from my seat and looked around, startled. It felt like I'd be doused with a bucket of water. My heart was racing, and I felt my body tensing, like it was preparing for a fight.
I walked into the hall, and glanced around, to make sure no one was there. As I turned back towards the door, it slowly opened. Opening just far enough to admit a single person. As I watched him the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I instantly felt like something was off, and I wanted to know what.
First I noticed his appearance. He was wearing standard issue fatigues, minus a unit patch on his shoulder. His cover was pulled low, and his head ducked, shrouding his face in shadows. Second he moved with a strange flowing motion, almost like he was dancing.
"Excuse me," a quick glance at his collar showed no rank "Private, I need to see some I.D." I said, trying calm my the uneasy feeling in my stomach.
Whoever it was, tried to ignore me completely. He glanced towards the door to the Supply Sergeants office. He stepped off towards the door, not even bothering to answer me. Replacing my uneasy, was anger.
As the stranger moved to step past me, I grabbed his arm, planning on stopping him. His arm felt like iron in my grip, and I suddenly felt that I had made a dire mistake. He tore his arm free of my grip, and spun with his other hand clenched into a fist, aiming for my gut.
I barely managed to turn my body to avoid the blow. His knuckled scrapped across my abs, and I felt a lance of pain shot through me. God forbid if he had actually hit me. I grabbed his wrist, and twisted it back towards him sharply, planning on putting him on his ass, and my boot upside his head.
But as I twisted, he flipped backwards. I held my grip though, as I watched him land nimbly on the balls of his feet. He crouched down, and sprung forward in the blink of eye, driving his shoulder into my gut. The force doubled me over, and threw me back into the wall.
I bounced off the wall and fell to my knees, refusing to fall any further. My head was spinning and my vision was too blurred for me to even see my attacker. I saw a dark blur spring forward, and felt a vice grab me by the throat and lift me from the ground.
'I'm going to die, and I can't do anything to stop it.' I thought to myself.
I awaited the final moment, but it didn't come. Slowly my vision cleared, but the grip still held tight on my throat. Finally the world snapped back into focus, and I saw my attacker. I soaked in his features, hoping I would live long enough to fuck them up.
He had a pale thin face. Not sickly though. Strength and power showed in his almost delicate features. His skin looked like he needed to get outside more than once a month. His body features shocked me even more. He seemed to be about half my size, but yet his arm didn't so much as twitch as he held me.
"Not yet little brother, for now you shall live. But I can't have you talking about this." He said in a voice that held no small amount of contempt for me.
Suddenly his face filled my vision. I couldn't see anything else. He filled every inch of my eyes, filled my mind. His voice thundered and shook my skull tell I felt like I would die.
'You got in a fight at the bar with 3 men, and got hit in the ribs with chair. You came back and passed out soon after.'
Then my world went black.
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I shot up with a start. Instantly I wished I hadn't, as my world almost faded back to black. I felt my entire rib cage throb with pain. My head was spinning from the pain. Slowly, the room stopped twirling, and I became aware of another person in the room with me.
"Yeah, don't try to much of that. You're pretty fucked up." John, my roommate said. He was sitting at his desk working on his computer.
It wasn't until then I realized that I was back in my room. I was in my bunk, still in my fatigues, minus my top and boots. Very carefully I swung my legs out of my bunk, taking great care to put as little strain on my ribs as possible.
"What happened?" I asked groggily.
"We're not sure. A few of us came back early this morning to find you passed out on the stairwell, bruised up like you took on the only damn town. I was hoping you could tell me what happened." John said, turning to look at me.
I thought back, but my head was still so jumbled. It was like looking through muddy water. I saw myself sitting at a bar, three men, a struggle, a chair hitting me. Then nothing. No matter how hard I concentrated, I could recall no more.
"I was at a bar last night," I started to say slowly "and I got in a fight with three guys, and one of them hit me with a chair. Then I some how got here." I finished, realizing how false it all sounded.
John looked at me with unconcealed doubt.
"Drew, you don't drink, and you had Door guard last night. Why would you be at a bar?" John asked.
Everyone knew that Door guard on the weekend was more or less ignored, unless it was a punishment. Most guys didn't even do their shifts, but I always did mine. Plus John was right, I was strongly against drinking, so it made no sense for me to be in a bar. But try as I might, I couldn't remember anything else. It was like I had holes cut in my memory, and filled in with some 10 cent story.
"I don't know John, but that's all I remember. Honest to god," I replied after a minute of thinking. Suddenly another thought dawned on me. "What time is it?"
John glanced at his computer, "About 1100, why?"
I jumped to my feet and instantly regretted it. Pain shot through me like fire. I felt myself start falling, but luckily John was there. He supported me, while my vision cleared, and the world refocused. My breathing came in short gasps.
"Don't worry, I already covered for you at formation. You need to go to sick call, or preferable the hospital. Whatever happened, you got fucked up bad man." John said concern.
"Sick....call. Not...the...hospital." I replied in-between gasps.
John shook his head, but didn't argue. He helped me get into a clean pair of fatigues. It was a slow process, but in a few minutes we where ready to go. We walked slowly to the sick call building. John continued to ask questions, trying to probe to the truth about my activities.
His questions just frustrated me though, because it didn't make any sense to me either. Nothing added up, but I couldn't think of anything else that had happened. I was still chewing it all over when we arrived at the sick call building. We walked in, and went straight to the injury section of the building. I signed in, and took a seat. John finally fell silent. Either I could sense my foul mood, or he was hoping I would remember some new fact.
We sat in silence for I don't know how long, and still nothing. I was about to talk through my story again when I heard from the door to the examination room...
"Next patient, Andrew..."
I had jumped up at the beginning of A, glad for some sort of distraction from my thinking. Once again though, my body protested to such quick movements. I managed to stay standing. John let a low chuckle, knowing full well why I had insisted on coming to sick call.
The voice at the door was Major Beckham. A short, full figured Asian woman, with one of the most beautiful faces I'd ever seen. Her hair was as black as onyx, and fell to her shoulders. She smiled, recognizing my face. Unfortunately, I'd been here more than a few times.
I managed to walk into the exam room without falling on my face, the whole time trying to pretend my ribs didn't bother, and smile at the Major. She smiled back, with a twinkle in her in, and I could tell she wanted to laugh. I sat down gingerly on the table, breathing out slowly as my ribs throbbed.
"Well Andrew, what have you done this time?" Danielle asked in her sultry voice. I wasn't supposed to know her first name, but through my many visits her, I had picked up it.
"Well to be honest I don't remember too well Major, but I do know my ribcage fu...messed up pretty bad." I said, trying to watch my language.
"Well then, lets not waste any time. You know the drill," She said, winking at me.