Summary: Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, "Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep." I awake face up in a dark room. The world around me is cold. I move my eyes around, a task that takes noticeably more effort to achieve than it once did, and I don’t see anything except a small green LED in the corner of my eye to my left. I try to move my head, but I cannot. I can’t move anything. I can only flinch. I notice the sound of a machine. A low-pitched motor movement, accompanied by a sound almost like a squelch, happening periodically. I recognize the sound. It’s an IV pump. Am I in a hospital? I try to remember— but nothing. I try harder to remember, but my memory is failing me. I begin to pick up the pieces with the basics. My name is… Trish. My best friend is Fang. I’m… 20. 20? Yeah, 20. I joined the Army. What the hell is going on? Why am I in a hospital? Suddenly my memory begins to fill in a little more: I deployed. Late, to Iraq. Anon was there. That fucking ape. No… No, I’m past that now. I’m not angry anymore. He… I talked to him. We made up. Did we? Why am I in a hospital…? Farcy gave him some sort of punishment— I freed him from it. He came clean to me. He looked… sad, talking about Fang. I never talked to him about the projector. I woke up the next morning and had breakfast. I… had breakfast. What then? I had breakfast, and then… And then I awoke face up in a dark room. Void. My breathing begins to quicken, my lungs resisting the extra work as I begin to panic. What the hell is going on? Why can’t I move? Why am I in a hospital? Why can’t I remember? I notice my left hand has something in it. A block of what feels like plastic. I move my thumb over the top of it, feeling its surface, and notice a bubble on the surface of the textured film. I have a remote in my hand. I aim my thumb right over the bubble, as accurately as I can manage, then try to press my thumb down. A tone startles me and I can see a new, faint red glow illuminate the ceiling. Something happened. I hear shuffling outside and my door opens, pouring a blinding light into my room. I try to blink it away to no avail, and the figure that enters flicks the lights on in my room, blasting me with yet another tsunami of white fluorescent light. “She’s awake!” My eyes can barely begin to adjust and I can see the outline of a pterodon standing over me— thankfully between me and the lights. I don’t recognize her. She continues: “Can you hear me, Patricia?” she asks. I open my mouth and attempt to reply, but my voice falls mute before it begins. I try again, the breath not making any sound. It is as if my vocal cords have been removed from my throat. I speak instead in a whisper: “Where am I?” “You’re in Otter Reed Medical Center. You’re safe, here. I’m the night nurse, my name is Nala. You just woke up from…” She checks the notes on a whiteboard on the wall, the clock, then the calendar. She pulls up a few pages on the calendar one at a time. What the fuck? “A two-month-long coma. Wow…” She stands paused at the calendar, before checking the notes again and looking back at it, then turning back to me. “You shouldn’t be alive…” Her words echo in my brain: You shouldn’t be alive. “Nora, what happened to me…?” “It’s Nala, and… Let me look…” She picks up a manila folder stuffed thick with papers held together by a paperclip. I can hardly see what she’s doing, my field of vision seems limited somehow. “You’re one of the Crossroads survivors.” My heart sank, and a new intensity of fear gripped me tightly. ‘Survivor’ had always been a good thing. Being a survivor was something to be admired. It was a word that meant strength, resilience, perseverance, and a hearty spirit. But in this nightmare, to call me a survivor meant something else: That more had died than had lived. “What’s the last thing you remember doing before you woke up?” Nala asked. “Just being on deployment. Chow hall. What happened to me!?” I said, new worst-case scenarios flashing through my mind every second. She came over to me with a new somber look and sat down gently on the empty space of my bed. The movement of the cushion startled the dulled nerve endings in my waist and back, sending a small ripple of TV static across my lower back. Time began to slow down. I don’t know how exactly, but I could tell that whatever she was about to say was going to be the worst news I had ever been delivered in my life. The worst that would ever be delivered. And I was right. “They’re still working out the details, but… I heard on the news you were in a convoy, and got hit by an IED and an ambush. There were way more enemies than anyone previously knew of, something went wrong, and…” She paused, her words caught in her throat. I saw her pupils shiver, her mind looking for any way to not say what she knew she had to say next: “No one survived except for you and one other PFC.” I wasn’t in a hospital anymore. I was in high school, in the auditorium. I handed Reed a small USB stick, regretting my decision as soon as I released it into his hand. It was too late, now. I was all in— no guts, no glory. I was with Stella and Rosa in the food court, crying, and texting Fang over and over again. Trying desperately to get a response from her. This isn’t what I wanted. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. I fucked up, and now she hated me. Reed only stayed because he pitied me. I was in a recruiter’s office, listening to him answer every problem in my life with the Army. Every question, every doubt, melted away with his responses. I had a suddenly optimistic, but realistic view of the future. It wouldn’t be great, but it would get better. I could have a clean start. I was a young trainee in basic getting yelled at by a raptor with stupid-looking black feathers. He doesn't know who I am or what I'm capable of, I thought. I hated him. I wouldn’t let him break me. I was in the medical trials scrambling to stop the bleeding of the dummy that lay before me, searching frantically for a tourniquet that I didn’t have, looking to the sidelines to see the same raptor, widened feathers encircling his head, yelling, giving me instruction from the sidelines. I pretended to already know, but I didn’t. I was screaming at him with vitriol between breaths while he smoked me with endless push-ups, releasing all my hatred into the air, while he said nothing and watched. The other privates and their sergeants had all moved on. I didn’t care how many pushups I had to do. I yelled and yelled every insult I could conjure, and when I ran out of things to say, my tears muddying a small patch of dust beneath me, he knelt and gave me the biggest wakeup call I would ever receive: “I don’t hate you, Kolk. I love you like you’re my own daughter, because I see myself in you. I carried hatred like you, once." I stopped, in shock that he had dropped his grilling voice. He spoke instead in a smooth, low-pitched tone, laden with the vibrato of his reptilian vocal cords. A comforting sound, like a father to a child on the sidelines of a snootball game. Away from everyone else, where the facade doesn’t need to be kept up. He spoke again sternly: “It’s time to let go. Slay your dragons or they will consume you.” I was helping him instruct another medical course, and he held me back from correcting a young Private. I was frustrated, the Private clearly didn’t know what he was doing. He had his tourniquet pouch mounted upside down on his rig, and he was fumbling at the top of it to try to open it in a panic. The raptor didn’t let me intervene, only watch. I watched the Private try once or twice more, before looking at his pouch, muttering an expletive, then opening it from the bottom and resuming the exercise. “Couldn’t have taught him better myself,” the raptor said. “Don’t be afraid to relax and let go now and then. Life is a fantastic teacher,” he lectured. I was frustrated at his victory, but he was right. I thought about it later that night in the dark security of my bunk. I try to teach people stuff all the time, but they never want to learn. I try harder and sometimes it works… I remembered back in high school. The ideas I brought up— no, the decisions I forced upon my friends. On Reed and… Fang. The guitar, the stage setup, the band name… And now Fang is… Fang. What have I done… The terrifying realization came upon me that I never taught at all. I controlled. What if… What if Anon was right about me? Next, I was having my Private First Class tape removed and replaced with a Specialist tape by Captain Foster, whilst the raptor stood behind him to his left flank, with crossed arms and a proud smile. I didn’t feel his pride. I felt guilty. Undeserving of such a promotion. I had too many things to set right with too many people who were suddenly so far away because I ran. The raptor's name was Farcy. He was the father I always needed, and the carnie role model I never wanted. He taught me patience, humility, and love. I was his accomplice. His derringer at the hip. I was his medic. And he died without me. …You shouldn’t be alive… The nurse droned on with condolences and reassurances as a couple more staff poured in and began to check my vitals, but I suddenly couldn’t hear her anymore. My hearing had gone distorted and my vision blurred. There was nothing more she could say. … “It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived.” – General George S. Patton Jr. … “Hey, Trish!” The doc said cheerfully but softly as he entered my room. “Just got the lab results back, and they said you’re good to begin physical therapy. Isn’t that great?” I looked at him with my left eye, the right side of my head encased in hard casting, my neck barely too weak to lift my head off of the pillow. I awoke from my coma 12 hours ago in the dead of night. The hours had not been restful. I was a prisoner of my own body. I was a corpse, buried alive, banging at the inside of the coffin struggling to be set free. I had spent every waking moment fighting for the small victory that was to move any of my bones with any of my muscles at all. The plasticity in the doctor’s demeanor made me sick. I didn’t respond. “Here’s a packet of the exercises we can start you on. Have you had any progress with your arms since last night?” I slowly raise my left arm at the elbow, then my right. They don’t look like mine. They’re thin, heavy, and slow. My whole body is weak. This body isn’t mine anymore… The doctor sat with me for a while, carefully raising my head off the pillow, then lowering it back down. He touched me with apprehension like I was a corpse, refusing to lay a finger on the cast— the broken part of me. He carefully bent my knees and then straightened them one at a time, repeatedly, reminding my muscles and tendons that there is still a leg there. I didn’t want to look at him, but I needed answers: “How long until I can walk again?” His plastic grin fell. “Well… It’s gonna be a hard battle, but it could be anywhere from 6 to 10 months before you can walk normally. It’s hard to tell this early on, your muscles have atrophied pretty badly.” Finally, the doctor left, allowing me to move of my own free will. 6 to 10 months? I wonder why they didn’t just unplug me. Suddenly I almost wish they did. But they didn’t. Fuck him. I’m gonna walk now. I strained, fuelled by a new hatred, and was able to lean forward in bed, my head and torso swaying once I was up, the muscles in my neck struggling to try to keep my head upright. The scales of my back feel cold as they suddenly get exposed to the air of the room by the split in my loose hospital gown. Probably for the first time in months. I twisted my legs towards the edge of the hospital bed. My tendons were seared with pain, disturbed by the new and unfamiliar maneuvers. Damn, I really have been laying in a bed for two months. My legs fall off the side of the bed and my feet dangle above the floor. Almost there. I slowly strain my arms and scoot side to side, getting closer to the edge of the bed, my feet almost touching the floor now. Excitement built up inside me. I’m not broken. I can do this. I’m a triceratops. I made it to the edge of the bed. The point of no return. My toes barely graced the cold linoleum, and I heaved off of the bed, pushing my legs hard and leaning my body over them. Without my team, I am nothing I hit the floor hard with a loud, embarrassing, weak-sounding squeak of pain. My body crumpled beneath me like it was made of paper mache, but I didn’t hit the bad side of my head to the floor. Not out of the fight yet, Trish. I look around, looking for something to grab hold of, and find one of the chairs to be within my reach. I try my best to straighten my legs and lay flat on my stomach, which takes agonizingly long and all of my strength to achieve. Now I’m laying. Next, I’ll be sitting. I reach for the chair and manage to lay my hand around its leg, my breaths heavy, now exhausted from moving only the weight of my limbs. I get my other hand to my side, preparing to push myself up, and take a breather for a minute. My head throbbed. It’s time. I sucked in air through my teeth and held my breath as I strained my arms and my legs, trying to push my torso up and get my knees under me. My legs and arms felt like they were on fire, but my body did not move. I am but a soldier, there are many like me. Releasing my strain, I lay on the floor again, breathing heavy breaths. My head felt like it would explode at any second, the headache stabbing me with every beat of my raging heart. My arms and legs are on fire. I will not be imprisoned by my own weakness. I heaved again, trying desperately to push my torso up and get my knees underneath me, to just get a little closer to the seat of the chair next to me. I just want to sit in a chair like I’m a person. I just want to feel like a person. My thighs and arms shake with effort, before failing again. With them, I am an Army. I lay on the floor again, defeated. The linoleum sticks to the now sweaty scales of my face. Tears well in my eyes as the fear creeps in. I am trapped on the floor. My eye frantically darts around, before I collect myself and take a deep breath. I turn to the right and curl up in the fetal position. I need to take deep breaths after just this small effort. I wait another moment, before deciding I’ve given myself enough time. I push again, hard, with my arms, trying to get my knees under me and into something of a kneeling position. My body screams at me to stop, but I do not. I push with my tremoring arm until it gives out yet again. Without them, I am a useless piece of shit. My vision begins to shake and I feel tears begin to fall from my eye and onto the floor. No way, I’m not broken. Not Trish Van Der Kolk. The terrifying fear racks my already sore chest with sobs, my shoulders shake with my shaking breaths. I can’t stop crying. My arms hurt, my legs hurt, my chest and my abs hurt, my head feels like a pressure bomb, and I’m stuck on the fucking floor at 21 years old. Then, the worst-case scenario came true. I heard a knock at the door, seconds before the handle turned and the door opened. I’m caught. I failed. I couldn’t do it. I am a useless piece of shit. “Oh no,” the young dino said, seeing my crumpled skeletal body on the floor. He had an unprecedented casual demeanor to him. He didn’t seem panicked, just disappointed. As if my predicament was nothing unusual. He shouted to the hallway for a second person and got himself a position of leverage to lift my helpless body into the bed as his help rushed in. “No, no… no…” I moaned through sobs, begging them to leave me in the defeated state I had assumed. I let out another shaky exhale as they firmly gripped my arms and lifted me like I was a sandbag, my ugly tear-stained face now exposed to the room and both of them. “I just want to be a person again…” I pleaded in a broken whisper, my face contorted and hot with shame. They didn’t pay any mind. The nurses finally released me after rotating me to lie down in my white-fitted casket. “Well,” the nurse said with a relieved sigh, “I’ll mark you down for day one of intensive training done.” So it’s a hospital, where dignity goes to die. Her assistant laughs. It isn’t funny. I remain silent and refuse to look at them. I wish they’d leave me. The nurse sighed, apparently noticing my scowl. “You know, Patricia, we’re not your enemy. If you want to train faster we can probably get you in the pool later today or tomorrow if you want.” That got my attention. “The pool?” I looked at her, my tears broke by the sliver of hope. I can’t float, my body is way denser than water, but the lightness of a pool sounds amazing. “Yeah, the shallow pool. Great for muscular atrophy, makes it easier for your muscles to move you. Didn’t you read your packet?” I hadn’t thought of actually reading that thing. I decided that I’d give cooperating with the doctors a chance. A few hours later and after some more solid food— itself a very dignifying activity— the physical trainer, a large Neanderthal man named Grug, wheeled my bed down to the pools. He's a funny ape, he only speaks in the third person. All I could see was him and the ceilings as I went, but when he opened the doors to the pools, I immediately knew it. The warm humidity and the welcoming smell of chlorine took me way back. The high ceilings of the pool room were beautiful, supported by thick lumber. God, it had been so long since I’d been in a pool. I would’ve killed for it over any day in Iraq. Grug wheeled me to the entrance of the women's locker rooms, and the bad part came— A nurse had to dress me in the plain blue swimsuit, which was made relatively easy by my unusual thinness. I expected it to be a hellish experience, but this nurse was sweet. She was an older ptero woman who spoke softly, warning me of any discomforts before they came. She had clearly done this with many before me. Then the good part came. Grug brought my bed to the poolside and lowered it to the floor. I looked around excitedly and could barely see the surface of the gleaming blue water from my bed. He looked at me and chuckled heartily— he caught me smiling. I felt my face heat up along with the excitement of being near the pool building in my chest. “Trish ready?” Grug said, smiling. “Yes.” He carefully slid his right arm under my back, his left arm under my knees, and lifted me slowly. I felt another nurse supporting the back of my head as we moved. I became euphoric as I felt the water come around me, then my descent was stopped by one of the stairs of the pool. The water was warm and welcoming, a light steam graced the surface. The nurse slid a pool floatie between the back of my head and the pool’s concrete edge as a pillow. Grug stepped deeper into the pool in front of me. “Trish keep head cast not wet— keep dry. Yes?” He pointed at me sternly. “Yes, Grug, I know.” Sitting up in the warm water felt awesome. I looked down at my hands and moved them slowly back and forth through the water. It was still a good effort, but man was it easier. I couldn’t help but laugh with joy. I’m moving again! For real! “Okay, now Trish will stand,” he declared. “Really?” I said, excited. “Yes. Only little bit. Grug will help.” Grug approached me and gently guided me off the first stair of the pool, holding me by my armpits like a toddler. He is more than capable of lifting me even if I weren’t thin. He’s as big as Principal Spears was. Man… As crazy as it is to think, I’d love to see Spears again. Grug brought me off the pool stairs and into the shallow 3’10” zone, letting my legs dangle beneath me. He slowly lowered me closer to the bottom of the shallow pool, the water coming up over my chest and touching my neck. My toes found the bottom of the pool, then my heels stopped me abruptly. “Trish has legs locked,” Grug said. “Bend legs.” Oh. Right. I bent my knees a little, allowing myself to sink a little deeper into the water. “Good,” Grug said, pleased. “Now try to push with legs,” he said, still carefully supporting me and watching my leg’s motions intently. I began to take on more of my weight with my legs, the pressure building on them as Grug slowly released my weight onto them. I felt like I had a full-grown adult riding on my shoulders, but I stood. Overcome with euphoria, I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m standing! Holy shit!” Grug laughed and smiled. “Yes, Trish stands good! Now Grug teach Trish some moves,” he declared. He had me try to move my leg out and touch him while he took on more of my weight to compensate. When I did that, he moved further away until his arms were fully extended to support me. I couldn’t raise my leg that high. He called it “Hip Kicks.” He spent a couple of hours with me, teaching me more routines and exercises until my muscles wanted to give out again on me, and his time was up for the day. Some other patients came and went from the pool, all of them usually noticing me for how young I was, and how happy I was too. I smiled so wide I could’ve been getting married. Finally, he brought me back to the edge of the pool and carefully sat me on the highest stair, completing our lesson. “Trish move good. Good for today,” he said, climbing out of the water and fetching towels from a cubby on the wall. “Grug, can I ask you something?” He grunted in affirmation before wrapping the towel around me and beginning to gently dry me off. “How long do you think I have until I’m back to normal?” He stopped. After a few seconds, he stepped down onto the stair in the pool and knelt down in the ankle-deep water to look me in the eye, taking one of my hands in his gigantic mitts. “Grug see many patients. Many from coma like Trish. Patients from coma take very long time. Many patients see Grug forever. But Trish,” he said, pointing at me with his other hand. “Trish is very hard worker.” A smile crept onto his smooth, hairless face. “Grug think Trish will walk very soon.” … ”Heroism doesn’t always happen in a burst of glory. Sometimes small triumphs and large hearts change the course of history.” – Mary Roach … The next day I was sore from head to toe. It was the good kind of sore, though. The kind that reminded me that I’ll be stronger the next day. And I was. The next day I could sit up more easily in my bed, though I doubt I could walk yet… And they now have my bed alarm on 24/7. The boredom of hospital life was terrible. Sitting in a stark white room with nothing to do but wait for the hours to tick by. Not being able to see Anon was driving me even crazier. I woke up when he was in surgery. Who knows if he’ll even survive it? I couldn’t have woken up just two days earlier or two days later. The anxiety was agonizing. I have so much I still want to say to him that I never got to. So many things to apologize for, and now it might be too late. He’s also the one fucking person who can tell me what happened for real. One of the nurse’s assistants, a younger kid, left me his phone playing a podcast episode. He said it was an episode that helped him feel a lot better when he was a patient, once. Something called the Jackal Podcast. Either he took pity on me or this is his way of hitting on me, but I couldn’t tell and didn’t care. It did help a bit. The sounds entertained my mind enough, and the true story was gruesome enough to make me feel just a little bit better about what little squabble I was going through. After a few hours, a new knock came on my door. I reached for the phone at the edge of my bed to pause the podcast. The handle turned and a new face came into my room and greeted me happily. This was nothing unusual- Almost every face I’ve seen here was the first, with different nurses taking different shifts and the nurse’s assistants and lackeys from different departments checking in all the time. I couldn’t remember half of the job titles I was told. This Baryonyx was a nurse’s assistant, I read the “RNA” in bold on her nametag. We ran through the usual ringer of how I’m doing, do I need to use the restroom, et cetera, before starting into the real reason she came: “So, I’ve got good news. Anon is out of surgery and his anesthetic has worn off enough that he’s coherent again. We can get you wheeled down to his room in about an hour if you’re ready?” “Yes! Yes, absolutely. Awesome.” An enormous weight left my shoulders, but a new fear began building inside me: What would I say? How can I say it? I messed up his life with the projector stunt. That’s on the apology list for sure. But Fang… She wasn’t the same after that. I heard Anon’s voice: Maybe it’s your fault for being such a bitch. Maybe it’s mine. I don’t know. But it sure as hell isn’t Fang’s! She’s outside the door thinking this is all her fault! God, what could I even say? After what you did? I don’t know if I can forgive that. Me neither, skinnie. Me neither. Fang doesn’t forgive me, and she shouldn’t if I’m honest. I didn’t just dox her boyfriend, I piloted her life for her. Maybe coming home with half a head will get you some sympathy points. Fuck, what an awful thought. Go away, intrusive thoughts. I’m not lobotomized enough to entertain you. I miss her so much. I miss things when we were kids. She was my world. My family away from my family. When I was with her, it was just us versus the world, and we were unstoppable. But that dream is dead now. Left behind in the sands of Iraq. Like you. Shut up. The nurse left, and I turned on the podcast again to try to dull my racing mind. I watched the spackle on the wall until I swore it began to move. The only movement in my field of view was the clock’s hand. I waited probably 20 minutes, but it felt like hours. I was sure the sun should set soon. The transporter nurse wheeled my bed through the halls, and into the elevator. The back of my bed was raised so I could look forwards. Usually, I would have some sort of chatter with the transporters, but not this time. My mind raced with worst-case scenarios, questions, and fear. I had a lot of things I needed to make right. In Volcaldera first, then Iraq, and as undeserving as I am, Raptor Jesus has given me yet another chance. I’m not gonna miss it this time. I can’t. I knew he would reject me. I knew he would rub it in. I knew this was going to be the “stay away from me and Fang” talk, like at prom. I was ready for it, but I wasn’t. Had I not been wheeled by someone else, I might’ve turned and ran all over again. We arrived on his floor and the transporter wheeled me through the halls, nurses parting to the walls of the hallways to allow my large bed through. We came to a large, curtained-off room. The transporter peeked around the curtain to the inside of the room. “She’s here. Are you ready?” He asked to the inside of the room. “Wha-uh, yeah, yeah I’m ready,” I heard Anon’s unmistakable voice from inside the room. He still stutters. His being nervous is something I hadn’t considered. The transporter pulled back the curtain, and I saw him. Laying in a bed, looking panicked in my direction. His body was covered by a blanket, and both his legs were raised and made abnormally large by the enormous casts that lie underneath. The transporter wheeled my bed parallel to his, with a two-foot gap between our beds, then walked away and left. I’m not gonna wait anymore. “I’m sorry, Anon.” He took on a somber look at my words. “I’m so fucking sorry…” My voice began to break and the unmistakable twinge of the pain of incoming tears struck my face. Goddamn it, not now! I can’t break right now… “I’m sorry too, Trish,” he said, looking even sadder than before. Just like that, I broke. My sobs immediately became audible, my vision blurred and I just cried. He wasn’t saying anything, and when I took a break to breathe, I heard him crying too, trying to keep his sobs quiet. “Fuck, Anon, why you?” He spoke up again, his voice breaking: “You- you saved me, Trish. I almost died, I thought I was dead, and I was so scared…” He broke into sobs again before continuing in almost a whisper, “and you pulled me out and put me back together, Trish, you saved me and then you were in a coma and I thought you wouldn’t wake up and I was scared all over again…” His shoulders shook with panicked sobs again, he was trying to regain his composure but achieving little. “I thought I was gonna be alone…” My heart broke, and I cried with him. For him. A nurse outside heard us and peeked his head in, interrupting the moment: “Everything okay in here guys?” I turned to answer, Anon far too in hysterics to reply, and I said something I didn’t expect to: “Yeah… Could you… Could you move my bed closer, please…?” The nurse obliged and brought our beds together, his bed to the left of mine, before leaving us again. “Anon— I’m sorry… For the projector, for driving Fang away, for being a bitch to you in high school, and…” I could see another of his tears fall from his face through my blurred vision. “I’m sorry I didn't tell you in Iraq. I’m a controlling bitch, and it was my fault, and I’m not gonna miss this last chance I have to make it right.” His only response was hysterical sobbing. I took up his right hand in my left and he gripped it hard. Terrified to let go. I don’t know why I did it, but I pushed my top half across the seam between our now joined beds and slowly and carefully laid the good side of my head over his chest, our arms under my side. I slowly let down my head’s weight onto him, listening to the sound of his breathing become steady. I relaxed and let the weight of my head onto his chest. His breathing suddenly stopped, then resumed with quick, shallow breaths. “No… No no no no…” He released my hand with his arm, which was now under my side, and he began to struggle. “No! Trish!” He began to frantically push at my back with his freed left arm. I quickly sat up and looked at him. His eyes were darting all over, his breathing becoming quicker. His breathing became audible and loud. He was in terror. Suddenly, everything began to fall apart. The nightmare returned. “Anon? Anon!” I shout at him, to try to get his attention. The monitor to his side begins to beep rapidly. He whips his head to his left and his eyes widen at the wall of the empty room. He isn’t here anymore. What the hell is going on!? I called for a nurse, putting my left hand on his cheek to little effect. A parasaur nurse rushed in and dug her hand into a small box to the side of his bed, then rushed around to his side and held a small white packet to his nose as he thrashed around to thwart her approach. Suddenly his eyes refocus and he looks at her, startled, then at me, and he slowly begins to calm down as he verifies his surroundings. “I’m sorry, Trish…” He said, shamefully. “I’m… I haven’t been well.” I don’t want to know, but I have to. I can’t avoid it anymore. “Anon… What happened to us…?” … “War is the greatest evil Satan has invented to corrupt our hearts and souls. We should honor our soldiers, but we should never honor war.” – Dean Hughes … Hours passed, and the reality of what happened to me still hadn’t fully settled in. It felt like Anon was telling a story. A fantastical series of events that could only be read in a book or seen in a movie. I sometimes hear about these crazy events where the enemy, usually disorganized and weak, somehow pulls off these massive offensives, and the poor American forces caught in it don’t stand a chance. The guys left behind getting medals of honor and shit. Honoring the dead. I always thought those would be just documentaries to me. War stories. Legends. Stuff you’d hear about and go ‘man, those guys are heroes,’ but, in the end, there wasn’t a damn thing heroic about it. Sixteen men died on 18 December 2021. Six of them had wives. Five of them had children. All of them had families who will never see them again. So there’s me. The lucky survivor, going home to a family that won’t recognize me and a town that would rather I never return. I looked at the bedridden man next to me, and against all odds, it filled me with a new sense of hope. I’m not alone. We might get home after all. It won’t be great, but it’ll get better. [POST-NOTES] Fun fact: the podcast mentioned after the pool scene is a reference to the Jocko Podcast, which I listened to during a hospital stay of my own, the episode I was listening to being a gruesome true story which eventually became the direct inspiration for the events in the original Valordictorian. Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!