Falling In And Out Of Consciousness

Chapter One

Piper Chapman.

It was blistering hot, and the inside of the building was just making the heat that much worse. My team and I were rummaging through a torn building in a little town called Pyra. I was stationed on my second tour in Iraq when everything was going just the way it always did, until we ran into a little hassle.

"Chapman! I don't think we will be able to make it up the next few floors." Rodrick, who was the current lead of the team had discovered the stairs up were completely blocked and torn from recent occurrences to the side of the building. Our mission at the time had been to clear out building four, and rummage through buildings one and three, while building two crumbled to the ground. "We will split into three groups of two. Chapman and Rodrick clear out the west part of floor 3, Sam and I will take the east part. J-J and Clef, try and find a way up while guarding the stairway. We will round up in fifteen. Got it?"

I wasn't about to tell my commanding captain that there wasn't going to be any possible way up those stairs, and if there was some mysterious way, it would only be another hassle getting back down those stairs without falling through the floor below. The south corner of the building was broken and hazardous, but to share that easily noticeable piece of information with Micheal, our captain, wasn't going to be very easy as it sounded. He would of blown it off and continued with the mind set he already had. At the time, it was best to leave Micheal to figure it out the long way. Later, I would soon regret that decision.

Rodrick and I swept the west side of the building with care and with little noise. The building was so incredibly empty, just like building one. Coming up on our last room, Rodrick kicked down the door and I swept right passed him before it ended just like the rest of them had been. "Clear." Pulling down the cloth that covered the bottom half of my face, I walked over to a tall window before I checked the time. "Little under five minutes. Lets do another sweep in here before we head back." That was another decision I was going to regret. I watched Rodrick out of the corner of my eye from the window. He had been rummaging through a few lockers and some desks, always coming up empty handed when he came across a bottle of liqueur. Rodrick's face lite up every time, only to be disappointed when there wasn't at least a drop inside. I smiled at this, and it only faded as the time went on.

"Chapman! Looky Looky!" I took a step back turning in Rodrick's direction before I bumped into a tall brown dresser. My attention towards Rodrick completely subsided and my attraction to the mysterious brown dresser only grew with anticipation. I couldn't have missed it, the craftsmanship and how insanely new it looked, it couldn't have gone unnoticed in a trashed room like this. I shifted my gun around my shoulder before I opened the very top drawer, when I found nothing inside, I continued down the next two below the first one. My confusion only grew more by the second, and after coming empty handed from the next two drawers, I felt insane for thinking I was going to find something. The dresser and everything about it screamed familiar, but I still couldn't point out why I felt that something was missing. When I felt the sudden urge to look through the third drawer again, I stopped shortly, only then realizing what exactly it was I was looking for. My Passport.

Every fiber in my being froze, my insides were screaming not to look up from that dresser, and even though denying it later; the outcome never seemed possible then. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the dark haired figure sitting quietly on the side of the bed. Silk sheets. "My mom died." Her voice, those blue ends, Paris. "Alex..?" Just when I took those few steps towards her, the reality of everything seeped through, and everything subsided. The walls tore, the building shook radically and I was suddenly thrown through the window just towards the right of me. In just seconds, I hit the ground three stories below, and while the deb-re and ash washed over me; my body felt numb against the warm dirt. At that moment, my ears were already ringing and my vision wasn't doing any better; I knew then, that I was fighting to remain conscious.

"Oh Alex, oh I'm so sorry." I pulled her against me as best I could, from the way we had been sitting on the bed; and I could hear in her voice she was vulnerable. "My first instinct was to call her and talk about it."

I was then roughly shaken, and pulled from the warmth of what I could recall being her arms; but when my vision caught glimpses of a heated desert I knew her arms were the farthest thing from me. Everything was happening so fast, and while I tried my very best to see what was going on, I still couldn't make out what these people were saying. My vision had suddenly gotten worse, and I then realized a cloth like bag had been thrown over my head and my wrists were already tied in front of me. In the next few minutes, I was quickly pushed in to what seemed like a jeep, and just when my head hit the medal floor; I saw her face again.

"Please don't leave. Not now." She looked at me in such an unfamiliar way that I knew her drug smuggling and business meant absolutely nothing. She really wanted me to stay, and if I stayed a moment longer; in her vulnerable gaze, I knew I'd never leave. I turned around all to quickly, and without a word I left, leaving nothing but the door closing behind me.

"Move!" I heard someone say while they forced me out of the back of the jeep and I sprung out onto the rough dirt below. The wind was knocked out of me so fast it was hard not to cough, and this only seemed to make the man angry. My ears were just easing off the ringing, but my senses to the area were still not all that clear. I didn't know where I was or what was currently happening. I could hear the blow before it happened, and that's when my whole body started feeling the ache, it was all an action too fast. The adrenaline and shock was then gone.

"Oh my god, I thought for a second you meant we would go together, like a vacation, like normal people."

"I need you to do this. I wouldn't ask if I had any other option."

Kick. Cough. Kick again. Black.

"I specifically told you, I would never do that again. Jesus, I am so stupid. I really am, I am just another drug mule to you."

"You are such a naive asshole sometimes."

"I'm an asshole!?"

Pulled and shoved to the ground. Another kick. Loud voices. Black.

"I am drowning right now, and you won't even consider helping me!"

"I am done. I can't do this anymore, I cant be with you!"

Dragged. Head hanging towards the floor. Black.

"Rule number one, don't fall in love with a straight girl!" I stared at her in disbelief, dumbfounded that she would even bring that up, let alone say it so forcefully.
"Is that what you think this is about? That I like dick?" I was already closing the space that had been in between us, growing more angry by the second. "You know I guess that is easier than facing the fact that you are a drug dealer and it's ruining everything good in your life! Don't you dare push this on me."

The bag that had been keeping my vision in darkness was suddenly pulled from my head, the rope that binned my wrists together were cut, and I was pushed down against the concrete floor. I couldn't help my body from shaking, aching and tensing against the cold pavement, the coughs I didn't know I was holding felt like a punch in the chest. My eyes had clenched closed just shortly after opening them- the lights were much to bright, and the walls were much to gray. Everything in this very room had the aroma of interrogation. I coughed for what seemed like hours, before finally the blood from my mouth spilled from my lips.

"You knew exactly what you were getting into. I thought we were a team."

My right arm clenched around my now small broken frame, with every move and touch my body ached. Everything seemed to be broken. Everything seemed to be out of place. Everything seemed to be going into no direction but one. Slowly, I allowed the darkness to wash over my eyes, slipping into endless slumber. Team.