Sorry ahead of time if any of my translations are not accurate. I do not speak Russian, so I am relying on google. I wanted to make it more authentic and have a lack of understanding, just like the characters would have.

I hope you enjoy it! I love reading all your comments.

Chapter 29

Pain.

This was the first thing that flashed into Clay's mind and took over all his thoughts as he lay there trying to open his eyes and wiggle a finger. But nothing was cooperating with his body. The only thing that was working was his nerve endings as they shot every ounce of pain into his brain and took over his world. As he lay there trying to figure out what part of his body he did not feel any searing pain in and coming up short, he slowly gained control of his other senses. He could feel something wet and squishy along his cheek, a cold sensation in both legs below his knees, and cold droplets on his exposed skin.

As Clay tried to shift his outstretched limbs, he cried in pain. Everything felt bruised and stiff. He tried one more time; this time, he could lift his head and soak in his surroundings; mud, rocks, water, and trees. Now the big question was where was he and how did he get here? The pain coursing through his body gave him a hint of how he got here; flashbacks slowly played in his mind as he lowered his head, not very gracefully losing all strength he mustered up. Hitting his head back into the mud triggered his brain to work correctly and process other emotions, feelings and thoughts other than pain. As he closed his eyes, living through his flashbacks, he was welcomed with a flash of searing pain shooting into his chest and side, ok he must have gotten shot. And then feeling his body slip and free fall and then searing pain in his shoulder and head as everything went black. Slowly putting things together and recalling things further back in the day, he opened up his eyes, determined to at least flip over since he knew getting up was very low on the list right now of things his body would let happen. He needed to turn over, give himself a one-over, and figure out where he was. It was starting to get light out as he looked up at the sky and was welcomed with the dawn, so wherever he was, he had been here for a few hours as the last time he remembered was being with the team in the middle of the night trying to make it back to the border.

With a huge breath, he tried to push back as much pain as possible and gather all his strength to take his right arm, push off the ground, and try to roll over as much as possible. As he braced himself and started this task, he screamed out in pain and ended up laying on his left side, and after one more big breath, he winced, took his arm, and made one final push to bring himself over to complete the full 180-degree turn. He needed to see where all this pain was coming from, but he soon crashed down and felt dizzy and unable to move or focus as he was overtaken by the black surrounding his vision.

…..

2 hours later

Clay took a deep breath wincing in pain as he groaned, returning back to reality. With one low grunt, he used all his strength to lift himself to try and get into a sitting position as much as possible, looking around and noticing a bit more. Piecing together his elements, he realized he was sitting along a riverbank, legs still lying in the water as his body seemed to sink slightly into the mud running along the edge of the water. On the count of three, he reached back with his right arm and tried to drag himself back out of the water towards a large rock he could use as a prop and start assessing his injuries. He was not going anywhere without seeing what was preventing him from moving.

After an excruciating feat, he finally made it to the rock, propping himself up and taking in slow, steady breaths as he tried not to lose any of his stomach contents. But after a few moments, he failed and leaned over, puking the last remaining things from his stomach. With a few deep breaths, he stabilized his stomach and leaned back, ready to assess his situation.

He went through a mental checklist starting from top to bottom. Feeling dizzy and nauseous- was this from a concussion or pain? Clay lifted his right hand and felt his head slowly, noticing a large gash on the left side of his temple. And a headache that made him think his head was about to split in two. It had to be a concussion. Next, he went down to his left side, knowing this was the leading cause of the searing pain. He could not pinpoint any exact spot of pain as his whole left side ached. After he took off his glove, he poked around, wincing in pain and coming up with a long list of injuries. Great! Was all he could think as he checked off each body part on his mental list.

Dislocated shoulder, probably from falling over the cliff and maybe hitting the side of the cliff or the water. What ever caused this injury also must have caused his concussion and bruised the ribs on his left side. Now for the blood. As he moved around his body and pushed his wet clothes aside, he saw the cause of the shooting pain that caused him to fall over. Along the top of his vest in his left pectoral muscle, he had one bullet wound, with no exit wound causing him to curse out loud, knowing he would have to go fishing for a bullet if he had any hope to stop the bleeding and not cause any more pain. And lower down along his side, he had a deep gash from a graze wound where his vest only wrapped around his body with straps and no metal plates. As he opened up his vest to move around more freely underneath, he noticed a rip in the fabric along the center. Good thing this vest did its job as he saw the silver end of a bullet sticking out. That would be the cause of more bruised ribs and some difficulties in breathing. Wonderful. As he could not move his left side at all, he just glanced down along his right side and took it as a good sign he did not see any pooling blood on the ground or dripping on his skin and that he was able to move that arm freely. Ok, one positive, he thought to himself, his right side is ok, and he has one working arm. Check.

Ok, time to move below the belt. He could wiggle the toes on both legs and slowly wiggle the calves and thighs. Ok, Nothing is broken; check. No obvious rips or blood in his thighs or left leg. Perfect. So his only problem was some bruises and stuffed muscles, but who would not have that falling over a cliff into a river? And then his gaze focused on his right calf. He started at it for a moment, trying to assess when and how this injury occurred as he saw a soaking wet bandage hardly held onto his skin with damp tape. So he got this earlier? Hmmmmm. Damn, this concussion was all he could think about as he was having a hard time telling what was up and down, where he was and when. His memory had so many holes, and it was starting to piss him off. As he reached down, hissing in pain as his ribs objected, he pulled off the bandage that was now hanging on by a thread just like his patience and noticed a large gash that was pissed off, hot and red. Awesome. There was no 'easy' for him today, was there?

As Clay stared at his wounds, he focused back on reality, realizing he needed to do something about them. Was the concussion making him this slow, or was there something else? Was it to early for a fever to set in from the nasty wound on his leg? His thoughts sucked back his attention as he tried to process why he was not in the right frame of mind. With his luck and his mind already in the negatives and low on hope, all he could think was- yeah, probably an infection; why not add a fever into the mix?

He did like a challenge, right?

Assessing more of his surroundings and taking at this point the fourth glance around since he could not gather all information or retain what he saw, he started looking for his rifle, ruck and med pack. Coming up short, he cursed and patted his legs, trying to check his pockets and coming up with a small roll of tape and a small handful of gauze patches. Well, this is as good as it's going to get; at least he can somewhat slow down the bleeding, as there was no way he had enough to have enough gauze and pressure to stop the bleeding completely. Something is better than nothing. He had nothing to fish out the bullet from his chest, which would cause some problems down the road. But, in the end, he had been bleeding for hours, so he did not have an overly optimistic view of the rest of his day.

Taking his time, he slowly shimmied out of his vest, breathing a big breath of relief, losing the extra weight from his chest and ribs. He then moved his clothing around enough to expose skin and attempted to tape some gauze patches onto his wounds one-handed. After he got through his two torso wounds and repatched his legs, he reached for one last gauze pad to cover his head gash and came up empty. Good thing he has a mop of curls on his head to help slow the blood from seeping into his eyes. After a moment, it finally set in; he does not have his helmet, and his comms and phone are waterlogged, so there is no hope for any form of communication, and he has been sitting here for a few hours already trying to patch himself up and no sign of his team. So his only solid conclusion at this point was that he was fucked and alone. He had to return by himself, which was a good thought but was it plausible?

As Clay leaned his head back, taking a moment to try and recollect his fuzzy thoughts, he looked around one more time, trying to find his rifle. He came up short again, cursing at himself as he slowly remembered he did not have it or his ruck or Helmut.

"Нам нужно вернуться назад, вторая команда не зарегистрировалась после того, как они пошли осматривать более высокое русло реки." (We have to double back, team two did not check in after they went to scope out the higher river bed.)

With the sudden gruff noise entering his thoughts, Clay froze, shifting his eyes, trying to track the noise without any movement as he had the rock helping him with some cover. As he peeked over the rock, he heard more mumbled voices he could not understand but picked up enough broken words to grasp it was in Russian, and they were heading his way. With that, he pushed all his pain aside, tapping into his snipper tactics to forget his body's needs and scrambled up onto his knees, looking like an awkward baby with the lack of strength and one side of his body. Still, he managed to get up on his knees, leaning into the rock to support his weight on his right side as he pulled his legs under him and pushed up with all his might to stand. Once settling himself from a wobble trying to regain the proper use and coordination of his limbs, he looked around at the trees trying to gauge the noise's location and came up short. So he took a gamble and ran through the mud into the middle of the forest, hoping his instincts would lead him to safety.

After he got a few minutes away, he stopped to grab this shoulder and try and stabilize it from swinging loosely at this side by looping his hand and wrist into the side of his vest.

"FUCK." Clay yelled out way too loud. He forgot his vest on the ground after taking it off when he was bandaging himself up, and, leaving in a fuzzy rush, he did not grab it. Well, there goes any hope of his comms magically working as well as one of his larger knives and a PowerBar. Good thing he moved his phone and flashlight into his pants pocket earlier in the day when they were getting the General, and he had one hunting knife in his boot. It was not regulation, but he had a gut feeling when he was parking his ruck earlier. Sometimes his instincts were a godsend, and it scared him and his team how accurate they were. Today was one of those perfect examples. He had at least that going for him.

"Смотри, отпечатки ног. Здесь был один из них. Это не наш протектор." (Look, footprints. There was one of them here. That is not our boot tread.)

"Сюда." (This way.)

Clay looked down as he noted their voices directed towards him, and he used some of his very poor Russian and noted them following his boot treads. They were tacking him, and he could not get them off his trail in this condition. His only hope was to keep moving and try to outrun them, keep the distance he already held, and follow the river's path, staying in the trees and praying it led him to the border. That would be his only salvation as there is no way they would risk armed soldiers stepping foot over the country or shooting and killing someone standing in another country. They would not want a world war based on one low, lonely person they have not even concluded was in the military. The Mongolian border had daily patrols of drones monitoring all forests, and this would be his one ticket out of there. Hoping his team was waiting for him somewhere and could come to get him and bring him home.

With one sharp breath, Clay stood as straight up as possible and hissed as he started to take a slow step hoping he could rely on his limited source of adrenaline and started his faster-than-comfortable pace along the river, hoping he had enough of a lead to keep him just out of sight from the Russian troops.