If I hadn't been denying my body the very basic of needs for most of my life, I would have probably died living in the bunker hidden under the barren wasteland that was western Afghanistan. Living underground with no real source of light, a very minimal amount of army-issued food and one canteen full of unfiltered water was not an easy task and if my body wasn't used to such hostile conditions, I would have been dying by now.
I took refuge in the old bunker for four days because I needed to outlast the remainder of the storm without going back to the camp and I had to make sure that I gave the troop a decent amount of time to search for me, find my dog tags and declare me missing in action before I could risk coming out. There wasn't a way I could risk being seen. If I were caught trying to escape from the troop, there would, no doubt, be punishments waiting for me. There was no time to be punished; I was already too far behind.
John was out there somewhere waiting for me to come and rescue him from his captor and I had already left him to fend for himself for over two years. I couldn't begin to imagine what John must have been feeling. Alone, I assumed, terribly alone. That was something I was rather used to. I live most of my life alone and it was very difficult sometimes. For a normal person, it was probably unbearable. John trusted me with his life and that was why he left me these clues and up until now, I hadn't done enough to save him. There wasn't much I could do to change the past and, as I always said, there was little point in dwelling on the past. Looking back on history was merely a tool and nothing more. Learn from your mistakes, as some people might say.
Other emotions that I didn't fully grasp came to mind. When I was told that John had died, I felt sort of hopeless, as if, no matter what I did, in the end, I would be nothing but a failure. During the course of my life, I'd never really formed strong attachments to anyone but John and once he was gone, even though it truly wasn't his fault, a sense of abandonment enveloped what little bit of heart I possessed and sometimes I swore that my heart was slowing down, snuffed out right in the middle of my existence. Depression tried to set in over the last few years, but I never allowed it to set in. That was just an excuse for not living and doing nothing.
With my limited range of understanding the emotions I usually kept severed from myself, I could only assume that John was feeling all of the dread that I had been battling with, only I had to imagine that it was worse for him. There was always the chance that he believed I had just given up on him, or worse, that I simply didn't care. The only way I could comfort myself was praying to a God—an idea—that John hadn't given up on me, that at least a shred of the trust he used to put in me remained with him.
The troop would want to continue moving as quickly as they could, but they were going to search for me. I left my dog tags in a pretty obvious spot but most of the people I came in contact with were idiots, so there was really no telling how long it would take for them to find the trinkets, if they even did. Eventually they would get tired of searching for me and just declare me missing, but without some sort of evidence of my death, they would probably stick around longer than necessary. They weren't going to find me, I made sure of that. I didn't leave anything that would help them track me. Any traces I had left were destroyed by the storm and I always double-checked, just to be sure that no one could follow me.
I put my time in the bunker to good use. After overcoming the initial enthusiasm that John had left something for me, I took a step back to really look at my surroundings. Someone else had come into the bunker because they found John and took him. The overturned and broken tables were proof enough of a struggle. John had put up some sort of fight, which he obviously lost, since he never came home.
There really wasn't much in the bunker, besides the old and ruined furniture. It was simple enough to piece together the series of events during the fight; assuming that it started closer to the hatch and made it's way back. Being able to watch the tussle as if I had been present didn't really help me much. Being able to pick out past events without being present was an important tool to my work, but knowing how the row between John and his attacker really didn't help me, it just confirmed that John was probably alive when he was taken. More than likely, he was being kept alive and I was counting on that.
The only other solid evidence I found, aside from John's letters and his dog tags, of course, was a bit of ripped bit of coal-colored fabric. It was probably part of a jacket, definitely not military issued and it had a bit of what looked to be salt discoloring on it, leaving a grayish white ring on the fabric. By the taste, I confirmed that it was indeed a brand of road salt used in the winter to keep ice and snow from building up where automobiles needed to get through. However, if wasn't quite what we used in England. It was a specified blend and it would definitely help lead me to wherever John was being held, but I didn't have the right equipment to identify the unique properties of the salt. It was less intense than what was used in England and the states, a more environmentally friendly type. Several countries insisted on using such blends and if I was fortunate, this would be specific to one country.
In order to identify all of the separate components of the salt, I needed to get out of the bunker. I would probably need to get out of the country all together. Finding the proper lab equipment in Afghanistan wouldn't be easy and one way or another, I really did need to get out of this place. First, I needed to find some real food and more water. My body was definitely used to being underfed, but I hadn't been eating much as of late due to the fact that I spent all waking hours searching for clues in the storm that kept my troop grounded. All I had in the bunker were a few packets of army-issued indecent and insignificant amounts of food. It was hardly enough to keep me going. With the way I treated my body, it was used to being malnourished, but my stomach was currently in knots from not getting a proper meal in over a week.
John would have been so angry with me for doing this to myself.
The only reason I decided that it was safe to leave the bunker was because the night before, a few soldiers from the troop—one of them being Anderson—had shown up. None of them were observant enough to notice the hatch to the bunker hidden in the sand and I could hear them talking, just barely, but I could make out what they were saying.
"Anderson, I don't think we're going to find Cooper," an unimportant soldier had said. I didn't really take the time to learn the names of all of the people I was serving with because they're names didn't matter. Why would I waste that kind of space on my hard drive? The only reason I knew Anderson's name was because he was just as annoying as Lestrade's Anderson.
"So what, we're just going to leave him? What if he's not dead? He's just supposed to wander around here until he really does die?" Anderson replied, sounding almost panicked. He didn't really care about me, surely? I was always so rude towards him. I thought I made it perfectly clear that I didn't like him but sometimes people just weren't repelled by my anti-social and cruel behavior. Look at John, Molly, Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson. They all accepted me for what I was and even tried to understand it but I didn't ever give Anderson a reason to like me…
"Anderson, we found his dog tags buried in the sand closer to camp a few hours ago. They were smeared with his blood. The Sarg said that if he isn't actually dead or hasn't been captured, that he ran away and he's not worth looking for. We don't have a choice. We can keep looking for tonight, but we're not going to be able to keep this up forever. Now that the storm has passed, we're leaving first thing in the morning. It's almost nightfall… Anderson, we're not going to find him. He's gone," the other soldier said. He sounded like he was trying to be comforting and understand but secretly he was judging Anderson for being so… emotional about my disappearance. It was strange, since my Anderson would have been ecstatic to find out that I was dead or missing. At least the other soldier seemed like a decent person, logical and not an idiot. Why couldn't he have been the one to hang around me all the time? It would have been a lot less tedious.
"So that's it then?" Anderson asked, sighing and sounding defeated.
"That's it… He's gone and there's not much point in looking for him anymore. I mean, he left all of his stuff behind… He was probably killed by the storm and if not, he was probably taken as a prisoner of war… I know it's unsettling, since he's the first of our troop to be lost and it's hard for the rest of us, but we just have to accept it. This is war, after all," the other man said and the conversation died away.
I didn't leave the bunker then because it was almost nightfall, just as the soldier said. I wouldn't be able to make it to the nearest city with the limited amount of daylight that was left and I also couldn't risk being seen by the lingering soldiers that were still out looking for me. Leaving in the morning just made sense, it was safer and it would ensure that I would have enough daylight to get to Anar Darreh.
When morning came, I finally immerged from the bunker. There wasn't a single person in sight and I used the mental map I had created to lead me in the appropriate direction of the city. My senses were always open, always alert in case there happened to be any obstacles or threats, but I left my uniform in the bunker, stripped down to a tank, my trousers and my boots. Nothing really made me stand out except for my obnoxiously pale skin, which I could feel burning under the intense rays of the sun. I was not made to walk around in unfiltered sunlight for hours.
My trip went smoothly. I had about nine kilometers to walk and it didn't take a terribly long time, but I was a bit slow. I was pushing myself into a week with almost no food, very little water and very limited sleep and I was sluggish. As much as I hated to cave to my body's physical needs, I really just needed a decent meal and a night of real rest. A shower would have been nice to, but if I could just freshen myself up, I would be pleased.
Once I actually reached town, I was stumbling a little. I was really malnourished and I needed rest, but getting a decent set of clothing, food and a place to stay was a top priority. The city wasn't the most inviting place in the world, to be quite blunt, it was rather run down and if I had another choice, I would not have stayed there. It wasn't a place I really felt safe in, but I proved on numerous occasions that I was able to take care of myself and others.
There was a small marketplace where I was able to gather decent portions of food that were probably edible and a few articles of clothing for next to nothing. I was also able to find a run down, family owned inn. It was kind of on the side of disgusting, but it got me out of the open and gave me a place to sleep without drawing much attention to myself. Once I got out of this rejected excuse for a country, I was definitely going to need to disinfect myself.