H λ L F - L I F E: Bishop's War✔️

CHλPTER 13: Lethargy

"I think he might be coming around..."

Eric was extremely tempted to keep his eyes closed. He was coming awake slowly, yet again arriving on the rocky shores of painful reality. His body was already being assaulted by a plethora of agonies. A dozen cuts and scrapes across his skin, a skull that felt like nails were being hammered into it, his right arm felt like it was presently on fire, his muscles were sore, his joints ached. On top of all this, he was exhausted.

He was bone-deep tired.

But Eric opened his eyes.

"Oh thank God," Vanessa, who was crouched over him, said. "You've been hit on the head so many times recently, I'm beginning to worry that you might have a concussion or even a skull fracture. You get a brain bleed and you're going to die."

"Thanks for the good news," he muttered.

"What I wouldn't give for an MRI right now."

"I think that's out of the question," said another voice.

He blinked and then shifted, glancing over. He saw rough, rocky walls. Where were they? His gaze came to rest on another face: the female Marine. As they locked eyes, he suddenly realized that he actually recognized her. Where had he seen her before? Well, given that she was a Marine, it was extremely likely they'd served together...

"Yeah, I recognize you too," she said, walking over and crouching beside him. "Bishop, right?"

"Yes. You're...PFC Lopez?"

"Lance Corporal Lopez now. And Maria to my friends. I remember being friends. We served together in Iraq. Did a tour."

"I remember now," he murmured, then hissed as Vanessa began to bandage up his arm.

"Sorry. You tore your stitching and I needed to reapply. I tried to finish before you woke up, just need to rewrap it now," she said.

"Thanks," he murmured. "Uh...where are we?"

"Some kind of cave system," Maria replied. "I think they were going to expand the area at one point but forgot or gave up. There's just some crates and work material around."

"How long was I out?" he asked.

"About half an hour," Vanessa replied.

"The others have been scouting the area, trying to find exactly where we are on the map we have," Maria said.

"You have a map?"

"Yes."

He hesitated, remembering all at once that he was talking to a Marine, and now in close proximity to a squad of Marines, who had, up to this point, been trying to kill him. Maria seemed to read the change in his expression.

"Don't worry, you're safe with us. We aren't going to kill you or anyone else who doesn't fire on us first."

"Why?" he asked, and hated that he had to ask it.

She sighed. "When we were flying in, some of the transports got shot down, including the one I was on. I got pulled from the wreckage by some security guards and they took me and several others to a medical ward they had set up shop in. None of us had any idea of our orders. That was where I met the others here now. We wanted to reestablish contact with command, but there was just too much going on. We spent awhile just trying to help hold that ward. Ultimately it got overrun. Those zappers teleported in, and some of the big bulky ones busted a few doors down. We made it out with some other survivors and tossed together a plan: make for a radio facility, call for help. But on the way there, we ran into another squad of Marines and they blew away the other survivors we had with us, and we...fired back on them. We killed them. Managed to pull a working radio off one of them, found out our real orders by listening to the chatter..."