Escaping My Shadows

A loud, blood-curdling scream intrudes into my never-ending nightmare. I scream as an excruciating pain awakens me. My arm, it burns, and somehow I know it is gone. Bright flashes of light surround me. More screams and yells explode inside my mind. I open my eyes. I am adrift in a cold, empty blackness. In the distance I see small points of light that I know to be stars. How do I know this? How did I get here?

"So, you want to be a Space Marine?"

I look past the recruitment officer at the video screen behind him. The screen shows another report of a Chitoxan attack on one of our distant colonies. Grainy pictures show a strange looking dark ship resembling an evil looking crustacean flying toward the camera before the image changes.

"Yessir. I want to do my part, to continue my family's tradition, over 15 generations since World War II."

After the interview there is the physical, the turning of the head and coughing, the drawing of blood and other tests. Before I head out to basic training a lieutenant in a strange uniform and carrying an old-fashioned clipboard comes to get me. She takes me to a small room where another doctor takes a blood sample. After waiting for a few minutes the lieutenant returns and asks me to follow her. I do, down a hall and into a room with blank, gray concrete walls. A weaselly-looking man stands in front of a chair. He motions me toward the chair. As I sit he activates a device around his neck.

He yells something at me. At first I cannot understand but then his words seem to explode in my mind.

"What is he holding!?" 

"What he?" I ask. "I don't understand."

He yells again, "what is he holding?!"

Over and over he yells this. His words burrow into my brain. I look around the room. I see nothing but the blank concrete walls.

"Think boy," Weasel-man yells. "Close your eyes and expand your reach, look outside your pathetic world!"

I don't understand. No one is there. For what seems a long time I undergo this mind-numbing attack. I try to shut him out, but whenever his yelling seems to diminish, he adjusts the device around his neck which causes his words to become even louder.

I push back and fight to maintain my sanity. I close my eyes as the pain becomes unbearable. Though my eyes are closed I can see the concrete room in my mind. Nothing but blank, gray, concrete walls on every side. Then in one of the walls a small, rough-looking window appears. The glass is slightly opaque and I can see a man standing in the room. However, his hands are empty.

Again, my tormentor yells, "what is he holding?"

"Nothing," I yell back. "He's not holding anything! Stop it, please!"

The man in the window reaches down and picks up a small sheet of plastic and holds it up. I'm not sure what is happening.

Weasel-man yells, "now, what is he holding!"

I can see what's on the plastic sheet.

"It's a piece of plastic, uh, with a star on it?" I mumble. The pain in my head slightly diminishes.

The weasel's voice seems to soften. "What kind of star?"

"Five pointed."

The man drops the sheet and picks up another. The window grows in size and becomes more transparent.

"What is he holding?"

"A piece of plastic with a line on ... no, wait, two lines on it, one dark and one almost too light to see."