Survival of the Fittest

Chapter Fifteen - The Soldier

It's funny how sensory stimulation can drift in before you are ever fully awake. Someone cooking breakfast on a lazy Sunday morning brings dreams of a feast, the need to pee suddenly filling your head with thoughts of waterfalls, a 2000's pop hit playing on your alarm clock radio putting you happily dancing with your prom date with hopes of coping a feel later that night. That middle ground between asleep and awake can play with your mind in all sorts of ways.

So when my dreams are filled with gunfire and screaming, I bolt upright, praying I've left the tv on some cheesy action movie.

No such luck.

I am hit with a litany of sensations. I see nothing but green everywhere I look. I'm outside. The air is heavy and humid, with unnatural smells of burned chemicals. My body aches from head to toe. I wince as I sit up. In the distance, I hear the sounds of straining, twisting metal, speckled with the odd voice yelling. I shift into autopilot.

After a quick scan, assuring me I am alone, I am on my feet, crouching low in the heavy brush. I quickly assess the best path to lead me away from the danger. The path that would make me hardest to track. I make quick time, taking in thousands of tiny details as I move. After at least twenty minutes of flight, the sounds and smells of danger are finally too far away to assault my senses anymore. I spot a grouping of downed trees that will provide me cover. I hunker down, allowing myself to think for the first time.

Where am I?

How did I get here?

I try to remember anything helpful. The fog of adrenaline is clearing and I am struck with all that I don't know. My haze doesn't seem to be relegated to how I got into the situation at hand, but to, well, basically everything. I can't even remember my own name. Panic starts to set in, so to combat it, I decided to focus on what's in front of me. Survival. That's what's most important.

I decided to search myself first, to find anything of use, or that might jog my memory. In my back pocket, I find a tin of chewing tobacco. It's not the average container you buy at the store. It's polished and engraved. The engraving reads:

'Ghost,

Thank you for always standing with me. Brothers for life!

Semper Fi, Rock'

A quick flash of a man's face bloody and gasping shoots through my mind. I hear my voice yelling the name Ghost. Then shouting orders to others I can't quite make out. Then the image is gone. My heart races, a feeling of desperation had accompanied the memory. It scared me.

What kind of man was I?

Was I the "Rock" from the message or did I kill Ghost and steal this from him?

My thoughts swirl and I shake my head to refocus. I continue my search and find a receipt from a bar for a Jack and Coke in one of my front pockets and in the other...a tiny black velvet box.

I shakily open the box to find a beautiful platinum ring staring back at me. A woman's face pops in my head. Seeing my arms stretched out in front of me, the box open and offered to her. There are tears in her eyes but the expression is unreadable. But just like the last time, the image is gone as quickly as it came.

Did I propose to someone? Am I married?

I look down at my hand and see no ring.

Am I engaged? How could I be if I still have the ring?

I feel my brain scrambling to make sense of all the thousands of tiny pieces of information it has, but it is like trying to put together a puzzle that's all one color. Without any context, the images and sensations make no sense. Helplessness starts to cause anxiety to rise in me. I clutch my chest feeling it growing tight. That's when I feel them. Under my tan t-shirt, I feel two small pieces of metal. I feel my neck to find the chain they are attached to. Dragging them out of my shirt I find a set of dog tags. They read: