This is it. This is the end.
I am so proud of this work. I'm so proud of what I have written in the last, what, two months? It's been a wild ride, and an emotional one at that, but this ends on such a good note that I couldn't continue it any longer than this point.
Maybe someday I will write an epilog or something, but until that day comes, this is the end of the road.
of gunfire and bullet wounds
pt. 3 of 3
"Give it up, man," Gordo sighed heavily into the open night, though his voice was soft. "This isn't working."
"It's gonna work."
"We've been sitting here for what, two days?" Gordo shifted his weight to lay on his side. "Let it go."
"She's not there, Curtis."
At the sound of Forbes' voice, he stiffened. "She's there––"
Gordo huffed in exasperation. Forbes' gaze settled on his, completely at odds between his own feelings and those of his commanding officer. "How do you know?" Gordo suddenly asked.
"I just know," he said, and Gordo grunted in frustration. "I ain't lying!"
"Then why the hell aren't you down there?"
It wasn't a question meant to be offending, but being the situation at hand––being the cold, the hunger, the aggravation at himself for making the three of them come all the way to enemy lines just to see if the one he loved was actually alive––he took it all too personally. The anger boiled beneath him, seeming to replace the blood that pumped through his veins, and all of a sudden he was looming over Gordo with their faces just inches of one another.
"Because," he snarled, and fear sparked in Gordo's eyes, "I don't exactly have the fastest moving team in the whole goddamn world."
"Then let's go."
He looked up at Forbes, finding the man––who stood short of six feet tall––on his feet, strapping his gear on. "What?"
"I said let's go," he stated again as their gazes met. Blue met dark brown; shock resonated in both sets of eyes. "Before we're all down in the ditch with her."
The entire camp was deserted.
It was as if no one had settled there and, for a moment, that's exactly what they all thought. There was no way this place was used as a camp; most of their housing units were torn down, built out of logs and branches and even leaves. Not an imprint was made in the mud that led out somewhere else like the enemy knew that they were going to be here. There was nothing here to show any sign of life.
But when a scream came from the far end of the camp, startling all three men out of what happened to be a trance, something inside of him turned in on itself.
It was because of this something that he rushed towards the sound, Forbes and Gordo screaming at him to stop. It was because of this something that he leaped over logs, pushed through leaves and debris, and even threw off his gear in order to run faster. It was because of this something that he found himself in the middle of one of the seemingly intact housing units, his breathing catching in his throat at the sight before him.
A woman; a man. An act of cruelty, though it should've been pleasure. A quick and painless jolt from the woman, her face contracted in agony, in sickness, in disgust with herself and her perpetrator, and then the man rose from above her with a satisfied purr coming from his body.
That something inside of him finally let itself be known as he threw himself at the other man. Though the man was older, he could still throw good punches, and so the two of them grappled for a moment or two before he got the upper hand. He tackled the older man to the ground, knowing not what he was doing, and snapped his neck with an echoing crack that reached his bones.
He finally looked to the woman, finding her slowly collecting herself and her clothing. He rose, wiping the blood onto his army pants as he tried to step around her, but she grabbed his ankle and forced him to stop, to look back at her with pity and realize who, exactly, he was looking at.
The pain was all that resonated in her eyes, and when she blinked, that pain fell from her eyes in tears. "Don't," she said, her voice ragged. "Don't leave me here."
He dropped to his knees beside her and pulled her hair back to tuck it behind her ear, and that was when he saw it. He saw the unspoken words floating inside of her head, inside of her eyes, and his heart sank beneath the floor and fell to the pit of the Earth as he pulled her to him, her tears once again falling onto his hands and his face.
"I won't," he murmured against her skin, against the coldness of her body colliding with the warmth of his, against all that was about to come down on them in mere seconds as he heard people coming. "Not ever again."
And then her body was replaced with a gun bearing down on his chest, and her cries became nothing as he was hauled away.
For the remaining two hundred and forty days, he lay in hunger. He lay in cold. He lay in the wet and the dirt and his own body fluid.
He lay sheltered from the rest of them, and for every move made, a guard was whipping his head around and staring at him with cold, dead, defying eyes. Where Forbes and Gordo were allowed out of their "prisons" for only a half hour each day, he remained in his corner, reeking of feces and mud and sweat. At one point he stopped caring about water, stopped caring about where he did his business, and even stopped caring about his looks; there was nothing for him here.
Nothing for those two hundred and forty days.
And on the ninetieth day, after scarfing down what small portions of leftovers he actually could stomach, they took him out into the light and chained him, feet and hands and even his neck, to a wooden pole.
And on that day, in the hot white sun and before the dead-eyes civilians, he was lashed and beaten and thrown to the ground in such ways no man could ever imagine. He was thrown from all sorts of angles; punched in all sorts of places; dropped from all sorts of heights.
Talen was housed with the commander, where he could keep her locked in place as she watched them beat the only man she ever loved, watched them starve him until he was nothing but bones and a small, patching layer of skin. She could only stand and watch, the commander's eyes always on her, as he was dragged back to his unit each day getting weaker and weaker. Finally, on the ninetieth day, he was dragged away without any sort of fight left in him.
She snuck away each night to bring him something; anything she could round up. Each night, the stakes of her and of them getting caught together rose, but neither of them cared. Maybe he was too ready to die, or maybe she was too foolish and naive; either way, they cherished their time with one another, for it could always be their last.
"They're going to kill me."
"I won't let them do that."
"They'd have your head before you could even speak."
"To hell with them and their goddamn head-slaying. I'm not afraid of what happens to me."
"But you'd die for what they'll do to me?"
"Yes," she said, and he looked at her, his dark brown eyes almost black in the small candlelight that dully lit the space.
"You're crazy, Talen––"
"I might be," she cut him off, "But I'm also tough as shit and completely in love with you."
His eyes flickered in pain; in defeat, and, like the good soldier––the good boy––he was, he didn't argue with her. "You are tough as shit."
"Damn straight."
For a moment, it seemed like the conversation had veered from the impending death that awaited him. But then, his face fell, his eyes overcast, and his voice got soft. "I don't––"
She stopped him cold by climbing into his lap and kissing him wherever there was skin. "I want you to shut up about this sappy shit and get to the part where we have one last hoorah; one big 'fuck you' to these sons-a-bitches."
It wasn't long before the entirety of him was with her, completely, utterly, wholly, for one last hoorah. For one final moment, for one final time, and God, the fire that exploded inside of her was nothing she'd ever felt. She felt the heat flowing through her, taking her over, and she allowed herself to fall deeply into the pits and cracks of the scorching blaze, feeling––
And then all of a sudden, that fire turned into water, and she drowned with him in that colliding storm of heat and cool, of love and hate, of everything and nothing, for one final time.
On the ninety-ninth day, they stood before one another, him having to be held by two officers, while she stood on her own.
Today was his final day of life, and he was happy about it.
She had come to him that final evening together, and all he did was hold her as she sobbed against his skin. Nothing came over him; not grief, not anger, not humanity. He felt numb, completely shut off, his mind succumbing to itself and the dark thoughts that clouded his sleep.
Only now, as they stood on the same land but on two completely different sides, he felt everything.
And so when she looked him straight in the eye, a tear falling onto her skin, all he wanted to do was brush it away. He wanted nothing more than to hold her one last time, to feel her one last time, to kiss her and love her and be with her...
She raised the gun to his chest with a shaking hand, and behind her, the commander smiled ruefully.
He closed his eyes, waiting for the bullet to strike against him. And it was only when the bullet cried through the morning air but did not penetrate his body that he opened his eyes to find her lying on the ground with her blood pooling at his feet.
I remember nothing but falling to my knees and cradling her against my body for what felt like barely any time in the world.
I remember praying to God that he take me with her. I remember wanting nothing more than death; not to die, but to just see her and feel her and love her for all the days of my life again.
We were liberated from that shithole at two hundred and eighty days. They swarmed in like a pack of wolves, took all three of us, gave us clothes and food and warmth and anything else we needed, and then we were shipped out home again.
Coming home was both the best and worst part. I got to come home to my brothers; my own flesh and blood. I got to come home to Tulsa, to my actual home and felt even more alive than ever. I also came home to nightmares, to shakes, to an eventual diagnosis of PTSD, and seeing the one I loved be lowered six feet into the ground with the flag of the country she called home for nineteen years on top of her casket.
But despite that, I came home. I came home to see both of my brothers and even my friends find love. I came home to them and to watch Pony graduate high school. I came home to everything I could've asked for.
Five Years Later
It's the small pitter-patter of his feet falling on the floor that wakes me.
And I know why he's now climbing into the bed and sitting on my torso, shivering despite the hot Tulsa heat. I know why he's come to me at one in the morning, but I don't ever ask, for I'm scared he'll want to know too much at one time and I won't be able to give it all to him.
But despite my best efforts, the words fall into the night: "What's got you in here so late?"
"They're in my room again."
"They?"
"Mhm," he murmurs, his voice soft as any child would be. "Monsters."
I place my hand beneath his chin and force him to meet my eyes, where I raise an eyebrow in a joking manner. "You can't be serious. Monsters are in there?"
"Mhm." His voice shakes and his bottom lip trembles in fear. His eyes start to water, and I know that this can go two ways, and most of the time, it goes just like this.
"Don't bother with 'em. Just show those things who's boss, you hear?"
He doesn't respond for quite some time, and I'm certain he's asleep. But then, like an animal coming out from hiding, he comes back. "Like you did when you fought those bad guys?"
I smile at him fondly, proudly, and rest him against my chest with one of my hands stroking through his hair. "Exactly like that."
He sighs in something like content at my words, and within moments, he's out like a light. And it's within this moment of consciousness and sleep that I whisper to the sleeping body before me, "Goodnight, my little soldier."
And then, after a while, before sleep can claim me:
"Goodnight, my little Talonbird."
Thank you.
- Sunny