The first thought to enter my head was this puzzlement as to why the world was upside down.

It didn't make any sense. Why was the light coming out of the ground? Then I realized that I was slung over someone's shoulder and we were going over a very rough spot. My eyes snapped fully open when my head bounced up and collided with the corner of something undeniably hard.

I groaned. "You people have horribly lax pillow standards."

I heard a snort then, "LT, she's awake." I didn't recognize the voice off hand and I didn't exactly have a stellar angle of the man. I heard a small click and then he asked, "You feel any better?"

I tried to shrug, which was weird upside down, "Yeah, I guess so, you know, aside from the sky sprouting trees and all."

He seemed to smile again, "I'll put you down as soon as Doc gives me the okay. No offense intended but you're not exactly in the right shape for a two day marathon."

"I'd become indubitably aware of the fact, too." I yawned suddenly and asked, "How long have I been out?"

"Couple of hours. You could've used some more but…" He sounded concerned about me which was an encouraging change.

I noticed the pack he had on. It looked heavy and I could tell he had a weapon in his hands as well. I cleared my throat a bit, "I'm sorry you have to carry me along with all your other stuff. I can walk now if you want."

He firmly shook his head, "Nope. Not until Doc or Kendricks gives the go ahead. You're not heavy so don't worry about it…ummm, what's your name again?"

"Jessicka. Who're you?"

For some reason, my bluntness seemed to amuse him again. He snickered a bit before answering, "Slo. Hey, I was going to ask. Why did you go through all this just to get the kid home?"

I frowned in disbelief. How could he not know? I thought it had been obvious. I answered him, vaguely registering a slight click before I began, "I couldn't just leave him there to die in Yolingo… He's innocent and he deserved to see his family. He's just a kid. I couldn't abandon him."

"Yeah, but you could've just made your way to an embassy and let them deal with him."

"No I couldn't! I wouldn't leave him with strangers who don't know anything about him. They would've just shoved him out the door. He needed to go home. What kind of person would just leave him?!" I was angry about the whole subject now. What kind of person did Slo think I was? But then I sighed, "I failed the rest of those kids; I couldn't fail him too…"

I heard that clicking again right before he said soothingly, "Hey, I'm not criticizing you. It was really brave what you did. You saved that kid's life. Not bad for a teacher and there was nothing you could have done for the rest. Trust me. It doesn't make it feel any better, but you couldn't have done anything."

What remained of my anger cooled, "Oh... thanks." It was about then that I looked up and saw another familiar face. I smiled, "Hi Dr. Kendricks."

The Italian woman smiled back at me. Her black hair swayed in her ponytail as she walked up. "Hi Jessicka. How many times do I have to tell you to just call me by my first name? If you insist on being Jessicka then I'm just Lena."

Slo seemed surprised, "You two know each other now?"

Lena nodded, "Jessicka came to the mission to pick up Ngozi and some other children to take them to school. Could you put her down for a moment, please?" Slo nodded and he effortlessly got me up, over his shoulder and then onto the ground. Lena was in front of me, looking at my eyes. "Are you hurt?"

I shook my head, "No, just tired. I can walk." I was already tired of being the invalid.

But the motion of my neck seemed to capture her attention. She put a finger under my chin and tilted my head back. I heard her suck in a sympathetic breath. "What in God's name happened, Jessicka?" Her fingers brushed over the skin on my neck and it was sore but I expected that. All of me was sore.

I frowned, having no idea what she was talking about. "Umm, nothing. Why?"

Slo had knelt next to her by then and his eyes widened a bit, "Shit! Who the fuck did that?"

"What are you guys talking about?" I was still at a complete loss here.

Lena and Slo exchanged a look and they both looked uncomfortable before turning back to me. Lena began slowly, diffidently, "Did anything happen to you, Jessicka?"

I slowly shook my head, "Nothing aside from being shot at, attacked, and chased through the jungle. What's wrong?" I lifted a self-conscious hand up to try and figure out what they were looking at.

Slo rummaged around in his pack for a bit before pulling out something shiny and semi-reflective. I didn't know what it was but I didn't care once he held it up to my neck. Huge purple and blue bruises completely covered my neck. There were very distinct finger marks that were a darker, nastier shade than the rest. I blinked at my own reflection a few times. I managed to clear my throat, "Wow. That explains why my throat is so sore…"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lake walk past. He froze and stared for a long moment once he noticed what the big deal was about. I saw this look of complete self-loathing cross his face immediately. After seeing me looking, he swung around and kept walking the way he had been. I winced on the inside for him. He felt guilty. He thought he'd done it.

I then understood what Lena and Slo were getting at. They thought that somebody had done something very bad while holding me down by the neck. I firmly shook my head. "That did not happen. I promise." I decided that was enough elucidation. I didn't want to go into it and that answered their question.

Slowly both of them began to nod. Lena smiled a bit, "Good. I'm glad you're all right." She stood and held out a hand for me. When she saw that I didn't immediately collapse she looked to Slo, "She's good to go if you can find her some food."

"That I can do." He was talking into his little speaker within a few seconds.

I sat back down as Lena walked back to some of the others and Slo went about getting me breakfast. I sighed before pushing myself up a few minutes later. Five feet eight inches is usually not such an unmanageable elevation. But standing up right then made me sway just as badly as before. I was on my way down again when a familiar hand grabbed my arm.

I looked up to see Lake. I smiled gratefully, "Thanks."

He just nodded, "No problem. You all right?" He sent a dark, guilty look toward my neck.

I nodded to that and he walked away towards the front before I could get a word out. I frowned a bit. Okay, he was surprisingly cold. Did he have this weird switch he could just flip with his emotions or what? I puzzled over that while I slipped into the line. The refugees around me smiled and I nodded back with a smile but then we focused on the next step in front of us.

Were all soldiers this confusing or did I just not understand them?

It took me a good portion of what was probably an hour to figure it out. He had to be able to detach himself. He couldn't get emotional when he was in a foreign country that was trying to kill him. Your mind and reason judged things and needed to function differently when you were in life or death situations. I should have known that by then myself. And guilt about me wasn't something he needed hanging over his head.

With that figured out I actually looked around at the scenery. There was a fabulously excessive amount of green. When they say that you sweat your weight in the jungle they aren't kidding. It's humid almost to the point of being able to drink out of the air. I was in brown cargo pants and a light blue tank and I was still hot. The crazy thing was that I saw probably five or six monkeys in just a little while. It was like a walk-in zoo. It was cool…

That's it Jessicka. Stay optimistic.

And with my wonderfully wandering mind, I managed to land back at the church and my students and all those dead little kids that I wouldn't let Ngozi see… I was very quiet as I walked. He hadn't seen any of the bodies. I wouldn't let him. I had pressed his face into my shoulder and run as fast as I could into the alleys. Then I'd found the truck. Somebody had left the keys in it and I'd always been able to drive a stick so we were off, getting him home the only coherent thought in my shocked mind.

I was the one that saw the blood and bodies. I shivered even in the heat. I bit my lip trying to hold everything back. I jumped a foot in the air when I felt the hand on my shoulder. I let out a scream that I quickly muted with my hands before whipping around.

A soldier whose name I didn't know stood there with his hands up in surrender. He was holding a plastic bag in one hand. "Calm down, ma'am. I'm not gonna hurt ya. Slo and LT had me bring ya food."

I just nodded. My heartbeat hadn't quite gotten back down under five hundred yet.

He frowned at me a bit, "Ya all right, ma'am? Lake said ya were still tipsy earlier."

I took a deep breath and looked up at him, "Just jumpy." I tried to look convincing but he didn't buy it. Acting had never been something I was good at. Lying I could do if necessity called for it but pulling it off was always the hard part. This soldier could see right through me without any effort put out I was sure.

He didn't say anything though, "Ya sure, Miss Francis?" He handed me the bags as he said it.

I nodded, "Yeah. But if you want me to answer Jessicka will probably get you farther." I tried to get the plastic open. Didn't work that well.

He took them back and pulled out a knife, "I'm Red." He handed my food back.

"Thanks." I tried to smile gratefully. The whole smile mechanism was still going through a convalescence stage.

"No problem." As we walked and I began to eat my peanut butter and crackers, he slid his gun back into his hands. These were hard core soldiers right here. They weren't comfortable unless they were armed.

I glanced at the weapon and then at him a few times before asking, "Ummm, how far away are they?"

"No idea what you're talking about." Red wouldn't look at me.

I frowned, slightly irritated he thought I was that clueless, "Everybody's quiet, none of you will put your guns down for anything, your LT interrogates me thinking I'm a spy and we're all in the middle of a religious genocide. Need I continue?"

My outburst was greeted with silence at first. I looked from him to the other soldiers and then back. When I got back to Red I found him looking very intently at me. I don't know what exactly it was he found in my face but I'm guessing it was probably fear. Even so he kind of pursed his lips and then muttered, "About an hour and they're a lot faster than we are."

I nodded and said nothing. Goodie, more unpleasant encounters with the fascist, blood-crazed militia. This would end well.

The optimism I was so desperately trying to create for myself jolted precariously for a few moments as I wished for one thing more than anything else in the entire world:

I wanted to go home!

I let my mind argue about it. I couldn't get home. I couldn't teleport. It wasn't going to happen so I was just going to have to suck it up and stay alive. Whining about it even to me—especially to myself—wasn't going to help anyone or the situation whatsoever. So, I was just going to stop. Home sucked anyway.

I looked up and saw that Red was still walking next to me. "Hey Red, you've been shot at and everything before, correct?"

He looked at me incredulously. I felt like a complete idiot under his gaze. He finally just shook his head with a bit of a smirk, "Jessicka, I'm a Navy SEAL. We've all been shot at before."

Wow. I hadn't known they were SEALs. I may not have known much about the military aside the fact that they carried guns, said sir and protected us but I knew who SEALs were. I knew that they were the elite. Now I felt even more ridiculous about my next question. "Ummm, any ideas on how to avoid that, the whole getting shot thing?"

Something like a smile seemed to form at his mouth. He actually laughed a bit before shaking his head. "Just keep your head down and do what we tell you."

"Oh, okay. I'll stick with that."

He smiled at me for real this time. "You'll be fine. And if you happen to find yourself alone, just remember to conserve ammo. Don't go Rambo on anybody's ass. It doesn't work."

I merely nodded again, pondering that and chewing on it as much as my crackers, "Okay… Hey Red, could you do something for me?" His nod signaled me to continue, "Could you tell Lake that my neck wasn't his fault. I got it before he caught up to us in the forest. It looked like he's been feeling bad about it and he doesn't need to…" Red clapped a hand on my shoulder with a smile before walking away.

But my cracker nibbling was cut short all too soon.

Not long after leaving me, Red ran away from the group, back towards where he said the rebels were coming after us. I knew it was weird since I had just met him but I really wanted him to be all right. I wanted all of these men and women to be all right. I didn't even know most of their names but I was worried about them.

Not fifteen minutes after he left, I heard explosions from behind us. I jumped in spite of myself. None of the other refugees did. I guess they didn't realize what it was right away. I thought I was imagining it but then I took a look at Lake. Again, it was weird since I'd known him less than six hours but I could read his face easier than the other soldiers. He looked back over his shoulder immediately after I jumped. There was something happening back there.

Another five minutes later, we were resting by a river and Red ran up from behind us. I was sitting by Ngozi, Lena, Patience, and, as I now knew, Arthur Azuka. Ngozi had thankfully not fully grasped the fact that we were being chased by evil people. He smiled when he saw Red run up. "Where's he been? What was he doing?"

Lena and Patience looked at each other, hesitating that one moment that kids always pick up on, but by now I was apparently better at lying to Ngozi than they were. I instantly smiled and explained, "He was spying on the other team. See today we're playing a special kind of tag. In this one, you have to get to base and the soldiers are taking us to base. And we have to stay away from the rebels because they're it. Red there, he went back to see where the rebels are so they can't tag us before we get to base."

Ngozi thought about that for a second then nodded, "Okay. I understand. When do we get to be it?"

I grinned at him, "After we get to base, maybe."

We both looked up to see Lena and his mommy giving us some very odd looks. He began explaining to them how we played a game all the day before. While he did that I looked around, just in time to see Lake's eyes on me.

The soldiers were all in a circle at the front of the group, talking about something. I couldn't make out what, nor was I sure that I wanted to know. I looked up and he was looking straight at me. But then after not two seconds he turned back to his friends. I frowned. I was turning out to be confused a lot.

Their little meeting broke up a few moments after and we were all ordered up. I was getting much better with my footing and my equilibrium issues were considerably reduced… despite the fact that I was still exhausted.