Darkness swept over the thick vegetation and canopies of the South American rain forest. In any other circumstances, it would have developed a sort of dreamlike quality, with the breeze blowing softly through the trees and the soft chattering of animals hidden just beyond the shadows. But right then, the raw beauty of the natural world was eclipsed by gunfire and angry shouts in any given language. His was the site of a battle, a battle between good and evil, between an oppressing dictator and the rest of the world.

Armed forced from across the globe had joined together to fight off the menace. A British defense squad from the Special Air Service stood at the front lines as one of the leading groups among the international militia. Unlike many of the others, they had no names. At home, they were called K-Unit. Their leader, a dark-skinned man with a handsome face and an uneven nose, was called Wolf. At the moment, Wolf was having a heated discussion with his unit's medic, Snake, while kicking an enemy paratrooper in the gut.

As the night dragged on and the battle drew to a close, several opposing soldiers disappeared into the surrounding foliage, and other groups called out to fellow members for a head count. Luckily, few men had been lost that day, but one could never be too sure of the casualties within his unit. K-Unit assembled under a towering ausubo tree to patch up their wounds and take a short rest.

"Where's Hawk?" asked Jaguar, one of the newest recruits, massaging his busted lip with his thumb. He was barely twenty years old, with bright blonde hair and amusingly thick eyebrows, and had the temperament of an irritable teenager whose parents forced him to go to summer camp.

Wolf looked up from the bandages he was wrapping his bleeding arm in and looked at each member of his unit with a serious gaze. "He should be here."

"He left earlier," Eagle interjected. He didn't seem the least bit worried about the whereabouts of his comrade. "He said he was going to scout the perimeter."

"And you didn't tell anybody?" Wolf hissed, his open hand balling into an angered fist. He handed the remaining bandages to Snake and picked up his rifle. "I'm going to find him. Snake, you're with me. We don't know what could have happened to him. Eagle..." He trailed off, glaring at the newest recruit. "...Make sure that Jaguar doesn't go anywhere."

Jaguar glared back just as fiercely, but didn't bother speaking. He didn't want to get his leader too worked up, now did he?

Satisfied that there were no more interruptions, Wolf turned and tromped off into the forest, Snake following close behind.

-x-

"Hawk!"

The name echoed off the trunks of the trees soaring high above their heads, bouncing off them ad returning like a dog playing fetch in an open park. It had been only a few minutes since Wolf and Snake had started their trek into the unknown, and Wolf's anxieties were increasing with every passing second. By now, he had created a system: call Hawk's name, scan the forest floor, scan the canopy, repeat. He could feel himself growing more tired as well; whatever the time was, he was sure that he had not slept in at least a day. The way that Snake was walking, he observed, suggested that the medic felt the exact same way. "Hawk!"

"Mmm..."

Wolf felt his heart skip a beat in surprise. He heard the sound as clearly as if it had been right next to him, despite the sounds of the rain forest around him. He sped up his footsteps, following the direction in which the sound had come. "Hawk! Hawk, are you –"

he was frozen in shock at what he saw.

Just beyond a nearby clump of ferns, Wolf spied a young man with dirt-stained fair hair, who shifted slightly but couldn't seem to move very far. He was laying his side, turned away from Wolf, the wounds on his back blatantly obvious. The young man had more shrapnel in his back than pins in a pincushion, and a spot of dark red stained the back of his shirt and some of the dirt around him. A tiny hole just large enough to accommodate a bullet sat not a centimeter from his heart.

"Hawk!" Wolf rushed over, dropping to one knee next to the young man. He saw with fear that his eyes were staring blankly at a point in the distance. Snake kneeled down behind him. "Hawk, can you hear me? What happened?" He let out a relieved sigh when he saw the young man blink.

"Grenade," Hawk replied simply, his voice icy and somewhat weak. "I didn't have time to get away. They... they had a sniper." He didn't have to say anything else, and Wolf suspected that he wouldn't even if he wanted to. He was more or less sitting in a pool of crimson, and it didn't look like the flow was going to get slower any time soon.

Wolf nodded bluntly at Snake, silently telling him to start doing what he could to protect Hawk's life. Snake complied without question, and Wolf looked away, not wanting to see any bloodied shrapnel at the moment. "Do you have any siblings, Hawk?" he asked, trying to keep Hawk speaking.

"No." Hawk's response was emotionless. Despite the pain he should have been going through, he felt nothing.

"...Oh." Wolf wasn't expecting that quick of an answer. "What about parents?"

"Dead."

"Aunts and uncles?"

"Dead."

"Friends?"

That question made Hawk think. Of course I have friends. But almost all of them he couldn't trust, for one reason or another. "I have plenty of friends. I just don't know where –" At that moment Snake pulled a rather large piece of shrapnel out of his back. Pain rocketed through his nerves like a sonic boom, the results of his ambush finally catching up to him. It was all he could do not to cry out. "– where they are." He finished his sentence through gritted teeth.

Wolf nodded, running out of small talk to keep both his and Hawk's nerves calm. He could see Hawk's skin paling, and what little light that he had in his eyes was fading fast.

Hawk's brows knitted together in a look of thinly veiled contempt. "Why are you asking me these questions? ...Am I going to die?"

Wolf threw a glance at Snake, who only shook his head dismally. It was obvious now; there wasn't any going back. "...I don't know."

hawk drifted into silence, his eyes staring off into the distance again, this time without focus. He could hear blood rushing through his ears, and his heart beating slowly against his chest. He suddenly reached into the pocket of his combat trousers and removed a small piece of paper. It was a photograph, probably ten years old, and depicted a younger Hawk holding the hand of a dark-haired girl with bright blue eyes. He placed it on the ground next to Wolf's boot, withdrawing his hand shakily. "Take it."

Unsure of what to say, Wolf nodded sadly and placed the photograph in the pocket of his jacket. "Hawk. I need to know your name." He stuttered slightly with the glazed look Hawk gave him. "Since you're probably not going to...go home."

A cloud of black was creeping over Hawk's vision, and he closed his eyes to avoid the dizzy sensation that clawed its way into his head. "Rider." His voice became scratchy, like he hadn't spoken in weeks, and he could feel himself breathing less. "Alex... Rider."

"Stay with me, Rider," Wolf condoled as darkness and silence engulfed him."Stay with me..."

-x-

"Alex!"

He froze.

"You've overslept again. Get yourself out of bed!"

Alex's eyes blinked open from underneath his pillow. For a moment he was silent, giving himself a moment to take hold of his sanity. He wasn't a dead SAS soldier; he wasn't lost in the middle of the rain forest witnessing a brutal battle for supremacy. He was Alex Rider, and he was in bed.

"Alex..." Jack sighed once, obviously sightly annoyed.

Alex just reached up a hand and clutched the pillow tightly, pulling it to his face. "What day is it, Jack?" His voice was scratchy from disuse.

"It's Friday. It's a school day."

"I don't want to go to school."

"Yes, you do."

"What's for breakfast?"

"You'll find out when you've had your shower." Jack slipped away and closed the door behind her, and a moment later Alex threw his duvet off of him and sat up. He scanned his cluttered room once, examining the piles of everything stacked everywhere before standing and stumbling into his bathroom. A small photograph lay atop one of his school books. It was Alex and Sabina in San Francisco, smiling, holding hands in front of the Golden Gate Bridge.

A/N: I rewrote this because the first one needed serious editing. It's all good now. :) ~RP164