A Girl Out of Place

Chapter 1: The Aftermath at Hanjong Village

Blood coated my hands, which wasn't anything new, however the soldier beneath those hands was. He writhed and moaned but it would only last another moment. The blood gushed from far to many lacerations to save him. I managed to pick the most prominent, a hole in his gut right over the left kidney, and applied pressure. He would need much more than the basic first aid I could provide. One, two, three, the twisting turned to twitching and eventually he was still.

Gunshots in the distance had numbed my empathies. There was no time for such things. I picked up the first aid kit and ran to the next body. Cold bodies, one after another. From the looks of this massacre I wasn't hopeful in finding anyone alive. The village had been ransacked. There had been a handful of soldiers in town at the time but not nearly enough to hold off the many that came to level it.

Our mobile unit received the call minutes too late. All we could do now was verify the dead.

Riffles locked in to firing position, the clicking echoed around me. The active platoon hushed my medical personal motioning for us to stay low. I traced my line of sight down the scope of his riffle to there target. There I spotted a slight shift in the distance, but with the dirt in the air, it was difficult to make out which side the figures belonged too.

"Help!"

English. Hearing the sound of my own language sent a strange sense of calm down my spine. Though we were trained not to trust it, since the enemy could easily learn to mimic our language, I found it impossible to not trust that one familiar connection.

More bodies came into view, some limping, others holding those limping. The shuffling made it obvious that these were the villages only survivors. Our Military trained escorts remained on alert telling us not to move until they could guarantee our safety.

But my own safety was not why I had chosen to be there.

I spotted a young boy trying to carry a solider, a solider who looked perhaps only a few years older then the boy. From my distance I could see his bleeding arm, his injured legs and a bullet wound in the side. A miracle he was still moving, but he couldn't wait any longer. Wiping my hands the best I could, I pulled on new gloves before I ran to him.

"Margaret!" My MP called after me though I'm sure he knew it wouldn't stop me. I reached out and took some of the young soldier's weight from the boy. His body was like led in my arms and his blood smeared crimson across my uniform.

"Lay him down," I instructed and the boy helped me lay the solider on his back. The rest of the crowd slowly shifted past us. Because of my rash move, my MP was obligated to release his hold on the rest of my team and they rapidly aided the others.

The soldiers name patch was tattered to the point it was impossible to read, I pulled his dog tags out from under his brown crew neck tee and managed to give him a name. "Private Samuels. Is that your name?"

He tried to nod,

"Don't move your head. Can you speak?"

"Y-y-yes ma'am." They were soft American accented words but still words were good.

"Can you tell me what happened?" I pulled away his uniform exposing the open bullet wound and no signs of an exit wound. The bullet still lodged inside, probably keeping him from bleeding out. Strange that the object attempting to kill him might also be keeping him alive.

"We e-evacuated ..."

"We? Who's we?" My MP asked. His large imposing presence shadowed my shoulder however I appreciated his attempts at keeping my patient talking giving me the opportunity to fully focus on the damage.

"Sir. Private ... uh ... Carlson and ... myself." Private Samuels winced. I dug into my first aid kit for a compress and tied it tightly around his middle with a silent prayer that would keep the bullet in place until we got him into surgery.

"How did you escape?"

Private Samuels winced again. "There was a cave ..."

"I need a stretcher!" I demanded, my MP glared down at me. "If that bullet dislodges it will kill him, we need to get him into surgery now."

Face lined with disapproval, my MP left to get me to secure a stretcher. I glanced up to see the young boy still kneeling beside the soldier. The boy's thick black hair was matted with blood and his warm colored skin was covered in fresh bruises and cuts.

"Can you speak English?" I asked and the boys expression became more anxious.

"No he ... He doesn't ma'am." Private Samuels answered for him, wincing again as I shifted over to his injured arm.

"Do you know how to ask him if he is hurt?"

"Other than having to carry me, he's not in to bad of shape, Miss. S-s-she kept him safe."

Without thinking I handed the gauss to the boy and proceeded to cut off Private Samuel's sleeve. The wound had torn open exposing several layers of muscle to the open air. The boy held the gauss carefully in his open hands where I could easily take it as needed. I pressed and wrap the Privates arm, my bedside manner not as delicate as it might have been had we met in the clean sterile London hospital. As I finished I managed to give him an approving smile which seemed to ease his tense body slightly.

The stretcher and two other soldiers arrived along with my MP's acceptably sour expression. They placed the stretcher right beside Private Samuels. "One fluid motion please, we cannot risk any additional twisting." With my hand on the bullet wound the soldiers did their best. One lifted the shoulders, the other the legs, together we slid the Private onto the stretcher. "He goes first! And -" I put my hand on the young boy. "What's his name?"

"Jeoung-Woo," Private Samuels answered for the boy. At the sound of his name, Jeoung-Woo's wide black eyes connected with my own.

"Jeoung-Woo, you stick with Samuels okay." I pressed his hand onto the stretcher. He seemed to understand. As the other soldiers lifted the stretcher Jeoung-Woo stuck close to Private Samuels.

Now alone, My MP rounded on me, "I know you have this inexplicable need to save everyone but you do not engage until I give you the go-ahead."

"And how many enemy soldiers did you find among our injured group?"

He shifted his weight forward, his deep blue eyes burning into my own. "Had there been, you'd be dead."

Both my hands balled into tight fists as I starred back at him. He was right of course, but I couldn't let him know that. And if I was being honest with myself, at that moment I wasn't sure if I wanted to punch him between the eyes or kiss stupidly perfect lips.

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