The Shrouding Darkness
The armored truck barreled through the forest floor, crunching the leaves and fallen branches like the failing hopes of the three silent passengers. The occupants could just barely make out the grey rooftop of their army base ahead, and all their stomachs seemed to twist in unison. War was looming. And everyone in Colonel Worthington's troop could feel it. It was like the thick, frequent fog that constantly creeps into camp to dampen their souls.
"Goodness, will this depressing fog ever end?" Mary's desolate voice echoed through the cab of the truck. She slumped down in her seat and laid her fatigued head in her hand.
"Bad news, Mare," replied Jason, "It's just beginning," he said gazing up at the darkening sky, knowing that after sunset, the ever present fog presses in on one's eyes to the point of blindness.
"Yea, yea, I know," she cut across him irritably, swatting at a fly that took a wrong turn through the open window. She took a surreptitious sidelong glance at him and smirked. His eyelids kept half closing over his glistening blue eyes, and he looked like he was ready to fall over. He had the night watch the night before, and got very little sleep. There was something strange that enticed her about Private Jason Harris; ever since basic training. He constantly tore at her last nerve and slowly but effectively drove her insane, but she was always drawn back to him in one way or another. However after every conversation that turned frustrating, Mary would regret the desire to converse immensely. Already aggravated by the past two hours of tedious conversation in the truck, she decided to attempt conversation with the quietest Private Sparks.
He was a tall pensive man with very dark, honey toned skin. Even though he emitted very little, his rich coffee eyes gave off all forms of kindness.
"Hey Joseph," she said quietly, her tired eyelids also sliding shut, making her lashes rest peacefully against her cheekbones.
"Yea, Mary?" His deep voice reverberated against the walls, and his kind expression grazing over her sunken features.
"You know what I'm excited about?" Her tone was dead, but there was happiness in her midnight orbs. "Finally feeling the rush of being on the front line." Joseph gave her a quick, sharp look of disbelief. She noticed this and added, "Yea, I know it will be dangerous and terrifying then, but right now," she vaguely smiled, "I want to enjoy it."
"Are you insane?" Jason cut across their conversation. "You don't mean to say that you will be fighting?!" He looked truly horrified, his eyebrows quickly creeping up into his hairline. Mary actually laughed.
"Where have you been, Jason? Of course I'm fighting! What do you think I was training for in the past month?" She was still smiling in exasperation.
"You told me two months ago that you would be a field nurse! What happened to that?" Though the situation still seemed humorous to Mary that her fellow Private could have made such an outrageous assumption, there was no laughter in Jason's voice, nor light in his eyes.
"I got more interested in fighting than being a nurse, okay? What? What's wrong with that?" She was already getting irritated with him.
"N- nothing," he stuttered, "It's just," realizing too late that he was touching on a sensitive subject.
"It's just what?" Mary's eyes flashed dangerously, as if daring him to finish the sentence she knew was coming.
"It's just that girls usually nurse instead of fight," he said timidly, and she threw her arms up in disbelief. Jason saw Private Sparks shake his head dejectedly, as if saying 'oh, bad form, man'.
"Are you suggesting, Harris," her voice now deep, and quivering wildly, "that fighting is a man's job, and women should wait obediently for them to return?" The rumble of the truck slowed as the driver approached their destination. Joseph started gathering bags trying to remove himself quickly, before they exploded into the ferocious bickering that they were known for.
"N-no! Mary! That's not it!" She nodded sarcastically at this.
"Um, guys," Sparks said fearfully, afraid to get in the middle of their spat, "we're here." He hastily climbed down from the canvas enclosed bed of the truck, leaving his friends alone. Mary started gathering her own bags with an aloof expression written on her features.
"Honestly, Mary!" She ignored him and dismounted onto the first step before he caught her upper arm.
She was forced to turn to face him. "Look," he flailed desperately, his eyes full of remorse, "I just don't want to see you hurt, okay?" He kissed her with his eyes and it unnerved her. He had never looked at her that way before, and she wasn't quite sure if she liked that yet. She gave him a curt nod, which satisfied him enough to let her go. It was the last time she saw him that night.
A terrifying alarm awoke Mary sometime the next morning; at least she thought it was morning. There was nothing but eerie moonlight shining through the windows of her makeshift tent, and of course the ever present fog. It took her a moment to realize that the alarm was a distress that meant that they were under attack.
She leapt off her cot and plunged into her rucksack for her gear. The crunch of leaves around her told her that everyone was still waiting in quivering silence for something to happen. She was just in time. But one thought kept penetrating into her mind: Jason. After thinking for most of the night, she realized that she loved him, and his behavior towards her only proved that he loved her too. If only she could find him before that rookie went out and played the hero.
As if in a trance, she silently bolted from her tent as the explosion of guns erupted around her, shattering whatever tranquility remained. Loud bangs echoed everywhere and the metallic smell of gunpowder filled her nostrils. She should have been turning to fight the enemy that was unknown to her through the shroud of mist, but her thoughts were only on one man.
At long last, she spotted him taking aim from behind a knotted oak, and she practically threw herself down into the crevasse next to him. From their hiding place, bullets from unidentified shooters whizzed past their heads and shattered into their thick tree refuge. His eyes were wild with both fear and longing as they searched into her own.
"Jason, I just had to tell you," she forced out, breathing hard under the weight of her gear, "I love you." She smiled at how random and out of place it sounded. "I just had to let you know before it's too-" she was cut off by the incredible pressure of his lips against hers.
"Not the time!" another Private yelled at the two of them as he ran by, even though it only lasted a moment. Mary and Jason smiled goofily at each other, but were reminded of their surroundings as the knot on their tree was blasted apart, showering them with splinters.
"I have wanted to tell you that for months! I love you too!" He shouted through the chaos and took her hand while standing up. "Stay close to me and be careful, Mary!" She nodded, and slid behind a nearby tree.
After what seemed like hours of hardly being able to stay near Jason, Mary's sense of security was diminishing. Every so often, she would lose him all together in the dense grey, and terror would overcome her. As she dodged bullets and shrapnel, she began to remember that just the night before, she was excited for this. Adrenaline coursed through her fiery veins, though she kept a mechanical reaction to all attackers. As she fought, she watched in disbelief as her friends and allies dropped to the ground beside her, and she truly felt horrified that she was causing the same sort of tragedy to the other side. She was stealing someone else's friend…someone else's future.
It was about that time when she felt a piercing pain in her side. Pain like she'd never known before stabbed at her repeatedly and made her double over screaming. She had no choice but to sink to the mossy forest carpet, clutching her wound tightly. A terror overtook her so violently that she could hardly breathe. She looked down at her stomach, then wished she hadn't. The deepest of crimson blood soaked through her camouflage uniform and was forming a puddle in the moss beneath her. She quickly realized she would not recover from this. Only one thing entered her mind at that point; she was losing Jason with every shallow ragged breath she took.
Then, as suddenly as she thought of him, he was there by her side and painfully dragging her behind another large tree. She could barely hear him yelling her name across space and time, his hand on hers, and his tears dripping into her own, which hardly came now. She had but time for one last thing.
"I love you, Jas-" she forced a weak smile that she didn't feel, to let him know that she would be fine. She saw him say he loved her too, though she could no longer hear, then see, then feel. As the fighting tapered to an end, an eerie silence began to fill the spaces of the battlefield.
Private Jason Harris' sobs echoed across the landscape around him, as other soldiers carried the wounded and dead back to camp. He brushed her porcelain eyelids down slowly, and removed her dog tags, sliding them down his shirt near his heart. There, warm and still, they would be forever. He eventually followed suit, lifting her in his sturdy arms, only focusing on her face and falling in step beside the other soldiers. He slowly disappeared into the murkiness that surrounded the forest and his heart.