A man fell dead next to me.
I was crouched down leaning against a wall my heels had dug holes into the sand below me anchoring me while I gripped onto my M-16 tightly. I was incredibly sweaty my helmet made my head feel stuffy and my vest reached my chin in this position.
I stared down at the man who had just fallen. I was unsure if it was the bullet or fall that killed him first.
I slowly reach down to his neck searching for a pulse I knew I wouldn't find. I can't help but to think of how sorry I am for him. He might have been on my team, "We weren't prepared for this" I mumble. We had learned how to address situations like this with random squads every day. We would go through drills, that won't ever compare to the real thing.
Sighing I decide its time to move on as regretting won't bring any of them back.
After a bit of debate of where to go, I stand up, placing the man's dog tag in my pocket and slowly head north. Walking through the street would be way to obvious so I begin walking through what used to be a civilian home. I keep my gun ready to shoot anyone could be out there from what I gathered the about attack; it was a group of five or six snipers that got us during our training rounds and I never know if I could bump into one.
As I'm slowly walking through the house careful not to make any noise that would alert the enemy of my presence. I feel someone behind me, fear runs through my spine as I quickly assume the worst-case scenario; I quickly turn around to meet the scope of a gun.
The gun doesn't surprise me as much as the intense blue eyes of the man who is holding it. Due to the area that we were in I was expecting dark brown eyes along with dark skin. I drop my M-16 without a second thought it's now on the floor and my arms were at my sides as I cautiously looked at the man wearing the same military suit like me. His nametag has been removed just like mine has long before we came out to drill.
"Oh thank god it's just you", the man tells me as he lowers his rifle down giving me a cheeky grin that makes him look foxy and the whisker-like scars don't do him any more justice. He glances at my arm possibly looking at my badges. My eyebrows slant for a second at the statement, 'just you'. He gives off an aura that makes me feel instantly familiar with him just as he addresses me with much familiarity.
"You're a medic?" He asks inquiring about the bright red cross on my arm.
"Yeah." I instantly reply. Knowing that if anyone was injured they would alert me of it right away, but he doesn't he just smiles at me.
"Is there any more of your squad left?"
"No, I don't believe so"
"Hmm." He's giving me a look that says he was out there and saw the bodies of my squad, he understands.
"There are more of us, follow me." He quickly turns around and gives me a swift arm motion instructing me to follow him into the civilian house, we cross a couple of rooms before stop in what I could only conclude to be the living room of this household. It has a couple of couches old TV that is down laying on the floor broken as well as a couple of family photos the previous owners of the house probably didn't have time to pack for.
I'm so enchanted by a photo of two small children who used to live in the house that I don't even realize that the living room opens into a kitchen where there are several men in the room sitting down around the kitchen table looking at the radio. Their features are hard to distinguish as they are also still in full uniform with the helmet on like me.
Five heads quickly fixate onto the direction the man and I are standing next to. I'm hoping now is a more appropriate time to ask him for his name as we are safe at least for the moment.
The blonde is the first to speak before any of them question him about my arrival. "Oh sorry to keep you waiting for so long guys. Backup hasn't come in yet, but I found her outside, look, guys, she's a medic!"
As he is speaking I feel sweat trip down my temple under my helmet. I can feel all of the gazes on me especially the blondes who's standing right next to me. I take this as my cue to talk. "Ummm…" I don't remember how long it's been since I've felt this awkward about introducing myself. I had long been accustomed to this as it was part of my job. Looking around the room I decide the quicker I get it over with the better.
"I'm Sakura." I can't bring myself to say anything else with the given situation. It wasn't nice to meet them. We were in the middle of a fucking war and I was never trained on how to do this so for now just saying my name will be enough.
The blonde looks down on me giving me that friendly smile I saw when I first met him before declaring that his name was, Naruto. After that he took the closest empty seat to the group motioning for me to sit beside him.
There really was no one sitting next to me expect Naruto to my side and the rest of the guys were sitting in front of me giving me a better view as to what they looked like. What distinguished them from each other and made them an individual from a physical stance, as I still had to learn what personality traits made them different.
The man sitting next to Naruto suddenly speaks. "I'm Sasuke," he says. Sasuke has dark hair and eyes would be deemed normal if it wasn't for the sharpness of his feature making him look so pretty but before I can think anything else the introductions continue.
"Neji" This guy has white pupils and what seems to be, white irises as well. The closest thing I've recall ever learning about in med school that faintly resembles that was cataracts I'm suddenly very curious as to how this affects his vision. As it's obvious that he's not blind, but that will have to wait for another moment.
"Shino," Says a man with goggles. They would normally look silly but due to this the situation I have to hand it to him with all the sand blowing around they're probably pretty handy.
The last one to introduce himself to me is Shikamaru he has a very lazy sounding voice and plain Japanese features, pale skin, dark hair, and dark eyes. Even with him sitting the in the far back corner I see a glint in his eyes that lead me to suggest that he is a lot smarter than he seems.
I'm glancing around the room once again unsure of what to say. Millions of questions run through my mind, but I don't have a voice to ask them. I stare down at my lap taking into account how my uniform now looks.
It's splattered with blood from covering up wounds of my fellow squad mates. Blood is on my vest, and pants a have a bit on my arms. At this point I realize why they had been looking at me with such intensity. It looked like I had been through hell. 'But I am in hell' I thought to myself as I looked at the dry blood under my fingernails.
A rich deep voice reaches my ears before I can think anything else about my appearance. "What happened to your squad?" Glancing up I realize Sasuke. 'The pretty boy' I think to myself smiling for a millisecond.
"My squad was doing rounds before we got attacked. I got all of these blood stains from other soldiers who I was helping." I say hoping they're a bit more understanding of all of the blood that I was currently wearing.
"No, causalities?" Asks Neji
"Unfortunately, I saw several" I reply as I reach down my pack pulling out a couple of dog tags I was able to collect from the few soldiers I had reached.
It was around ten or fifteen dog tags that I had in my pockets and I can tell that the number of them scares them. None of the guys bother to say anything, they all suddenly seem to have a deep thoughtful stare as if they're realizing what we are all really into now.
"How did you guys end up here? " I ask to break the silence as I'm shyly placing the tags back in my vest. My gaze looks back and forth at them before Naruto speaks.
"Well, we were doing training rounds too! We had just split into six men groups when Shikamaru here got a message in his phone telling us to hide and the safe locations that were around."
It suddenly clicks as to why Naruto found me outside he was looking for other squads. It's quiet again only this time I don't bother trying to keep a conversation up.
All I can do is stare at my feet thinking about how tired I was. Looking up I realize that all of the other people had the same look in their faces. They were probably thinking about their family, friends, significant others.
My eyes land on Shikamaru who is looking at his phone waiting for any news. Since my arrival, we have only been here for about an hour. While I'm not sure how long they have been here for I pray to god that help will arrive soon.
God must have been listening because as soon as I wrapped that though up the phone rang. Sasuke was the first to take it quickly exiting into the living room. Which did strike me as very strange but no one in the group seemed to complain and so far from the atmosphere I could tell that they trusted each other a lot.
Those two minutes that I waited for seemed to run on forever. I could only hear murmurs from what I assume to be some kind of bedroom. When Sasuke does return his expression is as relaxed as I think it will ever be.
"The area is safe, they told us to stay where we were at for about an hour or less. They'll come fly us out of here soon", he cooly states at he removes his vest and then helmet showing off very rich black hair that normally wouldn't be allowed unless you're in the special forces.
"Thank God" exclaims Naruto. I can't help but to agree with him more as I unbuckle my vest smiling at the long-awaited news. As I remove my helmet as I look down at my boots which also have blood on them, reminding me of how lucky I was to not be one of the soldiers who left their blood out there today. I look up expecting the guys to be minding their own business when again I note that all eyes are on me.
"Uhh Sakura", says Shikamaru with a slight grin on his face.
"Why is your hair pink?!" I hear Naruto yell at me.
Wearing a helmet was probably the only reason why I was able to pull off not dying my hair blonde or something when training with my squad. I had long before decided I would dye it once I was placed into more terminate teams. I reach up to pat my head running my hand through my hair, "Oh, this is natural." I reply quickly knowing that I'd be lucky if they believed me.
I hear Neji cough to suggest that I'm lying. My eyebrows slant in slight anger as this was an all too similar situation. To my surprise the only person who didn't say a word since introduced himself spoke up. "I noticed that your eyebrows and lashes were pink too. It must be a rare pigmentation."
My eyes widen at Shinos statement before I break out a smile at him. "Yeah." I quickly agree. I see that the guys believe me now and they seemed to be accepting of this.
"That's so cool Sakura!" Naruto says giving me once again that warm friendly smile and I can't help but to smile back at him and all of the guys sitting around the table. Even Sasuke who after these few hours with I decide that he's probably too arrogant for his own good even if he didn't say much. Actions do speak louder than words.
After a few second my smile grows even larger as I hear the faint sound of a helicopter above us.