The Face of an Angel

A fluorescent light burned very dimly above me in a dark room, and I was on a bed in a patient's gown. I tried to move, but I couldn't and I realized I hurt all over. Almost instantly, a door in the corner of the room opened up, and in came two people in scrubs; a man and a woman. They talked quietly for a moment before I adjusted to better see them.

The two stopped and the two shadows looked toward me. After a brief silence, the woman said; "Look Who's Awake Again!"

"Again?" Had I been awake before? The last thing I remembered was staring down that communist fuck, begging for death before my few minutes in the white place. The words entered my brain again, and I wondered where I heard that voice before. As that thought flashed, the dim light above turned brighter and the woman stepped forward. I looked, then studied her for a moment as she inched a few steps closer.

The woman grew a smile across her face, and there she was, Nurse Alyssa... Confused and feeling a tear well up in my eye, I asked myself "How the Hell is this possible?"

The man stayed by the door, and upon being close enough to touch me, she gently rested a hand on my arm with the IV, smiled again, and the tear fell.

Oh, my God, I couldn't believe it was actually her. The memories of that conspiracy nut entered my brain and my face turned to panic at the thought of being in a time loop at Montreal when more tears fell at the sight of that woman. She very quickly put that absurd worry out of my mind when she touched my arm again and said, "You didn't quite make a headline again, but you did take a good beat down." She laughed, "Just like the last time. Right, David?"

I fell to pieces. Having felt like I was shot, slashed, whacked, and killed only minutes ago, she gave me time to recover as she whispered to the doctor who I was to her. I wanted to hug and even kiss the only friendly person I met in Montreal, but that fucking doctor stood there far longer than he should've... I had no idea what all happened to me despite remembering every detail of that battle, and Nurse Alyssa knew it.

The whirlwind of emotions took a long time to overcome, and that incredible woman stood right beside me the entire time. She just let me hold her in an embrace for so long that the doctor with her left, and I still wouldn't dare let go. So much was passing through my head about everything that happened in those moments of battle, and every image from LM-5 to the start of Montreal. As the minutes drifted by, I eventually felt safe. The kind of safe feeling wasn't like the one I had upon arrival at LM-5, this was the feeling of safety in the presence of someone you loved but couldn't quite explain why.

After a while, I was able to speak coherently... The first real question I asked her was brought about by the memory of how short the time felt between the battle, to that dream, and waking up in the hospital. I asked plainly, "How long was I out?" and she told me that I was brought in three days ago.

With little in the way of detail, I sat there to collect myself again. The thoughts went on from recent moment to moment as she said consoling words knowing I was still on the verge of hysterics. Recalling those moments on a loop, I found myself thinking about my friends.

Not knowing how to correlate the horror event with my friends and where I currently was, I wiped another memory-filled tear and asked, "What happened at LM-5?"

Unlike when I met her years ago, all she could say was, "I don't know the details, all I remember is you being brought into our care."

Instantly, I asked," What about my friends? Who survived?... Where am I?"

She adjusted next to my bedside, pulled up a layout of the hospital and care list, studying it for a moment before saying in a teasing tone, "'Sergeant First Class Levin'... Hmmm. Rose a few ranks since I was last changing your bedpans?"

I wanted to reminisce, but that "Dream" put me on edge, and my lack of knowledge about my friends was getting to me. I said, sternly, "Alyssa… I have to know what happened to my guys…"

She placed a hand on my arm again and smiled, responding, "It's okay David. All I know is that the Chinese overwhelmed you guys, and..." She paused, withholding something before adding, "Here, take this..."

She held out her list and with the hospital floor's layout and gave it to me. The complex paper was dotted with tiny names all across it and I looked it over while she continued, "You're in the Juneau General Hospital. All I heard about what happened to your unit is that a few dozen guys from 'Task Force Steel' were deployed to the area for a mop up after some big ambush near LM-5. You were one of the unconscious brought in after that. I know you spent the first few days in surgery before being moved to my care, so sorry I don't know more."

As I looked over the list of soldiers being treated, I noticed the top of the sheet said, "ICU", and found the room I was in with my name at the bottom and a note reading "Observation." After going over every name in the packed hospital wing, I found the names of about 7 total troops from my company being treated, myself included. I didn't even see the other names on the paper unless I knew them from my unit. Of those seven, three of my friends, Andrews, Collins, and Savaren were on the list.

Upon finding all the names that stood out and seeing some of the names of people I loved, I asked, "What about the others? Are my friends okay? What's their condition?"

Her face sunk as she said, "There weren't too many on that list from your regiment. I heard you're actually the highest-ranking survivor from LM-5. I still don't know all that happened that day, but a good number of the mechanized guys were brought in after that fight as well."

I thought hard about the few names I recognized and asked about some of the others I hadn't seen on the list. Thinking out loud, I said, "What about Captain Mosby? Reed? What about Lt. Royce?"

She shook her head and her face sunk a bit lower as she responded, "If they aren't on that list, they're in the morgue."

I had to sit there in silence for another long moment as the wonderful nurse looked at and held my arm in sympathy. I didn't know what sympathy was even though I could see it on her face, but I was lost in quiet confusion... It may sound strange: "Wouldn't you expect this to happen?" I did and didn't, but the confusing thing was being able to process what happened in the time that felt so recent and so short. The few minutes since waking and being in conflict made me realize:

I lost almost all of my friends, and everyone I ever commanded or took orders from in a single afternoon. All but three of the people I spent years with in Montréal were killed in a random attack at the place we thought was completely safe. Despite the two years of safety, isolation from the world, and a decade long front that moved further and further by the day, the attack still happened.

I sat there and thought back to those moments of the attack, all of which had been in the back of my mind since waking. That sudden end to the peace of LM-5 continued that looping series of thoughts as I recalled the faces brought about by the instant world of conflict that hit us. All those faces and all those thoughts in our minds amidst the roar of gunfire asked that same question: "How could this be happening here?!"

I finally asked the nurse, "Do, you know where they came from?"

After thinking a moment, she responded, "I don't know the exact details. But, I think I've overheard enough to know that the Chinese who attacked LM-5 were linked to the garrison at Fairbanks. The reports showed that a lot of the Chinese groups dispersed and been raiding American outposts in the past weeks. LM-5 was much larger scale than any of the other attacks." I sat there thinking, but she tried to lighten the mood by adding, "Still though, those Commies were no match for our Mechanized boys!"

As much as I wanted to feel the kind of cheer she was able to bring out in me years prior, I simply couldn't feel it in those moments. She saw that in my face, and I couldn't stop thinking about all the mistakes, regret, and death that led to the few minutes of carnage. "Linked to the garrison at Fairbanks." Of course, that was the case. The kind of news we heard about long ago, the kind of news that we intentionally shut out to focus on the nonsensical was exactly what had ended so many. Perhaps you could call it pride, but we were proud to no longer have to worry about the world outside LM-5. However rehabilitating LM-5 was to our minds that spent so long in Montreal, the kind of ease was exactly what ended almost all of my friends.

I don't know if there was a lesson in what happened, or if it was all due to some higher power's will, fate, whatever, but as I thought about everything, I found myself wondering: Why was I spared? That thought would stay with me forever, and long after I believed I forgot it...

I was safe and sound in the Juneau Hospital and felt too weak or unable to stand because my pelvis was utterly shattered. I later learned that the couple days in surgery were to fix other injuries I sustained during the battle, but the docs weren't able to do too much about my pelvis that required special treatment. In surgery, my ribs were fixed, but I could still feel where the bullets hit, and my chest had many stitches holding the long scar across it together. Upon waking and after eventually being able to talk with Alyssa somewhat normally, the next three days were spent in physical therapy. After a few days of being awake, adjusting to the immediate hospital procedures, and despite wanting to see what's left of my friends, I had one real question in the back of my mind. The question all tied into the question of why exactly I was one of those who awoke after LM-5:

"When I'm all better, what will happen to me?"

Over the days of treatment, I found myself cooling off and being around Alyssa in ways like back in Montreal. She really was a great person to talk to, and I would've discussed the miraculous nature of waking up to her care earlier if what happened wasn't such a blindside. So, I told her how the transition from Montreal to the lumber mill was incredible, and she talked about her movement out of the city as well. A year or two after she took care of me the first time, the civilian aid team she was part of was sent all over the Canadian Front. She saw to the wounded in safe zones across Toronto, Quebec City, and numerous FOBs across the northern territories. A little more than a year prior to me finding her again, she was transferred to Juneau for the Army's increasing efforts in the Yukon campaign. It was great catching up with her, we had plenty to say about the odd coincidence of crossing paths again, and then countless hours of talk about everything else that happened over the years. Discussing the last time I was under her care and getting lost in how well we hit it off, I always recalled the ending of that time at the Montreal Medical HQ. I remembered how I so enjoyed her company and friendship only to be released back into the toxic world of the Red Zone with more memories of pleasantness that would haunt me. Those memories circled back to the same thought that always sat beneath the others:

"When I'm all better, what will happen to me?"

After maybe a week of the strict treatment plan, I was released from observation and had the freedom to go to and from the common areas in my personal wheelchair. I immediately seized the new freedom to find my few surviving friends. Savaren was on the western wing of the ICU, and still under intense treatment. I had to talk my way past the doctors to see Savaren, but explaining my relationship to the guy was enough for the army docs that had a soft spot for those who'd been in the thick of things (And made it out with the proper wounds). When I opened Savaren's divider in his room, I was breathless. My best friend through basic and all of Montréal laid there in his bed just connected to all kinds of machinery. His right leg was cut off at the shin, and his torso was all wrapped up like he'd been in front of an explosion. I tried talking to the man, but he was too doped up on pain meds and barely conscious enough to converse or even tell if I was actually there. The doctors said he would live and that the amputation wasn't that bad. Apparently, his worst injury was the torso one. The doc told me that Savaren's lower right abdomen was pulverized by shrapnel and his body would have to adjust to the bits unable to be surgically removed.

I then found my team medic, Andrews. He had broken arms, but was still up and walking around. He seemed surprisingly happy considering his arms were stuck in castes making him resemble a "T." I was happy for him, but something appeared to be different about him. I said that he seemed surprisingly happy for a reason, and that reason came from every memory of him as a relatively bleak and quiet person. Not anymore, upon seeing Andrews for the first time since the LM-5 chow hall the morning of the attack, he sprung up to try and give me a hug made impossible by his arm casts. He still had treatments throughout the day, the same as me, but he also had a lot of freedom throughout the day to go to the community rooms. Upon settling the guy down, we headed to the community room and talked all about Savaren, and everything that happened. As I said, the man never really spoke that often for the entire time I'd known him, but talking with him after LM-5 was like talking to a new person. I couldn't shut the guy up. I say that lovingly, but eventually I had to ask what exactly happened to him.

Andrews was always a great guy with good spirits, even though he was a quiet man, but when asking where his new liveliness came from, he almost refused to answer. He talked about where he was in the battle and how he first got hit in the left wrist. Then, another stray bullet hit him in the right wrist as he was floored in pain. He said how his position in the saw building was then hit by a missile that exploded one of the machines upon impact. The explosion sent shrapnel and debris ricochetting all over the place and both his arms were pinned to the wall he was leaning next to. He said how he lost consciousness shortly after that due to blood loss, but that never explained the personality shift. Both of us were knocked out at one point, but I didn't ask if he experienced anything mostly because I didn't want to explain my own dream.

So, I started visiting Andrews in the common room frequently whenever our treatments weren't in effect, but that first day of freedom had me visit Collins as well. I actually didn't have to visit him because he visited Andrews and I sometime after we were talking away. Collins walked up with a slim back brace, crutches, and wrapped legs but was probably the least injured of everyone at LM-5. He was still in the hospital for a reason though. Collins took a few shots to the chest like me, but thank god for body armor. since his ribs were largely restored by the first days of treatment. As for the crutches and leg casts, Collins explained that through his reluctant input on that last day at LM-5.

I don't know where Collins was during the battle, and he refused to say, but he didn't have to say anything since his face explained most of it. There wasn't much that any of us had to say about how unprepared we were for the attack. Although, Collins did explain enough to answer his brace and chest wrap. All he really said about his legs is that a single bullet passed through his feet or ankles shattering them both in an instant. He too passed out not long after since critical bullet wounds and rapid blood loss have a way of removing you from the conscious world.

As for me, I still didn't know what was going to happen to me. Even after meeting the other two survivors from our unit, none of us who'd been at LM-5 could really explain what happened or what was next. It was good to see what was left of my friends and the two survivors, both of whom were from Reed's platoon, but our entire company was reduced to a handful of injured people who couldn't quite come to terms with the transition between LM-5 to arriving in Juneau. I still had to roll around in a wheelchair to my treatment rooms, day after day. Treating the pelvis was difficult even with modern advances in medicine. The days drifted by in that medical facility, but all the while I was still tossing around that question in my head:

"When I'm all better, what will happen to me?"