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- WinterAnon here. It's been a long fucking while. Anyway, trying to get back into it with this. Forgive the inaccuracies as I have never actually been to war but I would love to incorporate any suggestions from military personal into this story. Feel free to point out what is wrong so that I can go over it in the final draft on PB.
- Also, this features fairly dark themes such as child-soldiers, rape, murder, beheading, PTSD and racism. You have been warned.
- Name: Fear.
- Description: See the world though the eyes of a soldier during a tour in Afghanistan, circa 2014.
- >Fear.
- >It’s an interesting sensation.
- >A cold chill down the spine.
- >Hair standing on end.
- >A rock in the pit of your stomach.
- >You’ve felt this feeling more than you care to imagine.
- >When you got into your first fight.
- >When you crashed your car.
- >When your girl broke it off.
- >When you touched down in Afghanistan.
- >The first time you got hit with an IED.
- >It’s strange that there’s no fear now.
- >Not anymore.
- >You came here to do some good.
- >You signed up in the Canadian Armed Forces, did quite well in basic and was shipped out to the sandbox as a replacement.
- >Things were alright for a while.
- >Lines shifted, politics was spoken and rounds were fired but none of it made much difference.
- >The fighting seasons came and went.
- >Friends and comrades came and went.
- >You went out to win the “Hearts and Minds” of the locals.
- >Like that was going to work.
- >You’re lying on your back, looking up at the sky.
- >There are a few clouds in the ritch blue sky, drifting lazily by.
- >It’s rather nice, despite the incredibly bright sun.
- >Sadly the scene is ruined by a few wisps of inky black smoke rising into the air from the corner of your vision.
- >Confusion is your first emotion.
- >Who the hell is ruining your beautiful day?
- >You roll your head on the sandy ground and take a look.
- >Ten feet away, there’s an HMMWV, windows pasted with blood, missing the entire engine compartment.
- >It’s on fire.
- >You start piecing things together.
- >You start to remember.
- >You were up-top on the Browning.
- >You remember the dirt flying up in front of you.
- >You remember the heat and the deafening sound of an explosion.
- >You remember flying through the air.
- >You don’t want to remember.
- >The ringing in your ears, that you didn’t notice before, begins to subside.
- >You ears are immediately assaulted by the radio, static squealing punctured by sporadic voices yelling back and forth.
- >The roaring fire beside you adds a morbid backdrop, earrily close to hell, to the dusty landscape.
- >Gunfire tears through the air all around you, the smaller rounds cracking quickly with the larger weapons shaking your chest with deep booms.
- >The cracking of rounds coming in above and around where you’re laying.
- >Sensation returns to you all at once.
- >You reach down and grab the C7 on your sling, rolling over and aiming your rifle where everyone else was shooting.
- >Then you feel it, like an icy hand clutching your heart.
- >Fear…
- >You’re lying on a road in the middle of nowhere, just having hit a fucking bomb. To your right is the wall of a compound of a village that you went into yesterday.
- >Probably tipped the bombers off.
- >Across from the wall is a field with a few low walls cutting up the poppy fields.
- >A hundred, hundred and fifty, meters further was a treeline with bright flashes winking out of it.
- >Just to the left of that is another compound with a broken door and shot up walls.
- >Your training takes over.
- >You flick the safety off and hunker lower on your dirt mound.
- >You pop off a shot, barely feeling the kick of your weapon as you send a round at one of the winking lights, causing it to go silent.
- >You fire off another three round at another as a rocket comes out of the treeline, just over you and impacts the compound wall behind you, shattering it to dust and spraying you with debris.
- >You continue to fire, emptying your magazine.
- >Changing the mag, you finally take a look around.
- >You were the lead Vick in a convoy of three trucks and two gun-trucks with an LAV for support.
- >It wasn’t even anything worth much.
- >Three trucks of water.
- >Soldiers died for water.
- >How fucked is that?”
- >You return the bolt to the forward position and continue to shoot, now suppressing more than anything.
- >One more mag and the flashing has died completely, the enemy either running away or rotting in a gully.
- >You see someone running from the enemy position toward you holding something solid and green.
- >They look almost too small to be a soldier but they are a threat.
- >You line up and put three rounds into their chest, dropping them like a stone.
- >Your ears still ring.
- >Your heart pounds in your chest.
- >The thick reek of cordite and metal is dissipating quickly.
- >You take some deep breaths and steady your hands.
- >They won’t stop.
- >You feel faint.
- >There’s a pain in your side.
- >You can barely breathe now.
- >The cap is doing squad checks to see who’s still up.
- >You hear your name being called.
- >You roll onto your back, feeling the pain almost knock you out as it explodes down your spine.
- >You pull your hand up to the transmit button but you can’t seem to get it to work.
- >Your mouth is dry as the desert under you.
- >You click it on and try and talk.
- >All that comes out is a croak and a cough.
- >”Vick one? Anyone from Vick one, respond.”
- >Another voice joined. “The whole car’s burnt out. Both in the front seat are dead. Wait one.”
- >You hear boots hitting the half-paved road toward you.
- >The pain is getting worse as the adrenaline fades.
- >You see a soldier, dressed in the same uniform as you drop to their knees next to you and hit the call button on their rig.
- >It’s a girl.
- >”I found the gunner. He’s alive but he needs a medic now.”
- >It’s a girl.
- >Then she looks at you.
- >It’s not a human face.
- >It’s a dog’s.
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