Aiden grabs a drink as they both laugh; the look on Rhys's face tells me I'm going to hear all the gory details.
I look behind the rock as the enemy begins to walk closer to us, with their weapons out.
“You know we can’t hide here for much longer; they have more men around us,” Rhys whispers.
It’s a never-ending cycle; we spend years fighting one terror organization, and before we can recover from that hell, another cell starts up, and we’re fighting again.
The Faction start a war with anyone that doesn’t share the same values as them, killing people that refuse to join them. They believe that everyone should become a part of The Faction. I mean, what type of fucked up shit is that? They have one mission: world domination, and they don’t care who they have to kill to obtain it. Their attitude is comply or die.
From what The CIA has learned about The Faction, they’re capturing American soldiers, torturing and brainwashing their captives to become terrorists: to turn on their country. Before we were all sent out for this mission, we had a briefing; we were informed that The Faction is another ingenious terror organization; they want to turn American soldiers to kill American people. Attack from within. Infiltrate the enemy, silently. They want them to bring a war to American soil, using American soldiers. The Faction spend months brainwashing those they capture, trying to flip them. I’ve only heard of one soldier they broke; the others kill themselves when they think no-one is coming to rescue them. We’re all briefed that the United States government does not negotiate with terrorists, under any conditions.
I remember thinking during that briefing that it must be torture when you’ve been split up from your team, and there’s no-one there to tell you that you will go home, or that you’ll get to see your family again, or your friends. In the military, you have to trust your team, trust they will find you, that they will come to rescue you. I didn’t know what happens when they capture you, then, but I knew that for our men to kill themselves, to finish the torture, it had to be hell.
We’ve lost contact with our team: we had a plan. Our Captain made the call and things got chaotic; the three of us were ambushed. Bullets started flying through the air. Captain Andrews made the call that we needed to do something, get them off our trail, out-play them. So, he split the group up. Some of the group went north, he thought if they could get behind the enemy, maybe pull a Braveheart, we could surround them. So, the three of us went south. Captain Andrews had to make a choice, there was no time to get the go-ahead from base. It’s not an easy decision to split the team in half, but he did what he thought was best for the mission; he wanted us to have the upper hand, but it fucking backfired on us. Now we're waiting for reinforcements, or death. I’m not sure which I want to come first. The only place that we have found to be safe for a while, until our team finds us, is behind a large set of rocks. I hear The Faction men talking to each other, but I have no idea what they are saying as it’s in their home language, Dari.
We got taught a little in training, and I’ve picked up a few extra words because I’ve been here so long, but not enough to tell what they’re saying. They’re not scared of us hearing them, they’re talking loud enough to show us we’re outnumbered.
I turn to Aiden and Rhys as I wipe the sweat away from my face; they are getting their rifles ready, as I look around to see if there is anything that I can use to create a distraction to give us some time. The only thing around is dirt and rocks, small ones, big ones, rocks that are stuck in the fucking ground. Between the three of us, we won’t have enough ammo to fight the group of men coming for us. If we start firing, all three of us will be dead.
So, now we’re hiding behind a set of large rocks waiting for our team to find us. This mission is FUBAR.
“I’m thinking,” I tell them.
There must be a way out; I need a moment to think.
"I wanna say, if this is our last day alive, I'm happy that it's with you two." Aiden pats my back.
“No one is dying today,” I tell him.
One of us has to surrender, so the other two can contact our team.
"We don’t leave our people behind, right?" I look back at them; grabbing my small periscope, I take a quick look over the rocks to see the enemy, as they leave their cover and begin to approach us.
“Atlas, I don’t know what you’re thinking-”
"Never leave our people behind!" I shout the words to them, before they can stop me, I raise my hands up, and walk out.
I’ll give myself up and hope the others can make a run for it. I don’t know what’s taken over me, but I pray that they don’t want to kill me, that they take me hostage, instead. That they try to brainwash me to be part of their organization, instead of the thing we all know they do when they kill someone but none of us want to admit out loud.
“Atlas!” I hear Rhys shouting behind me, right before Aiden muffles him – he must have covered his mouth with his hand – so their position isn’t given away; if they hear him and can pinpoint his location, all this will have been for nothing. They’ll either take all of us, so nobody can contact base, or they’ll kill us all where we stand.
I continue to walk towards the enemy, real slow. I watch as the men shout something at me. It’s hard to hear what they’re saying, they have their faces covered with only their eyes visible, plus – I don’t speak the language. We’re only ever given a few key phrases to learn in whatever language of whatever country we’re shipped to. It’s unlikely we’d ever need more than the basics. Their combat uniforms aren’t that far off of what I’m wearing; it doesn’t look like they’ve got as much protection, but they’re similar. As I get close, despite my hands being raised, I'm hit in the face with the back of an assault rifle and everything goes black.
I refill my mug with coffee; it's not even six in the morning, but the past came back to haunt me in my sleep. The army can fuck a person up but being captured is even worse. And I went through it to save my unit. My brothers.
The pain still lingers in my skin, in every scar on my body, the torment consumes my soul.
Lucy was the first person that was able to sooth the nightmares enough for me to even think about going back to sleep; her touch had a way of making me feel safe. She got me to sleep a full night, without the past creeping up on me; I will admit that it wasn’t peaceful every night, but a few nights’ sleep were better than none. She looked past the scars, past the haunting memories that showed through my eyes, of all the people I killed in the line of duty.
I always hated the nights that Lucy woke up; even though I tried to stay quiet, she still knew I was awake. I hated that she saw me scared and broken, that she saw a man who couldn’t fight his demons.
I always told Lucy that whatever woke me up was a dream, and I always went for a run to clear my head. I hated thinking about my time in the war, but the thought of talking about it, saying what I saw out loud, made me sick to my stomach. One night when I came back from my run, Lucy was standing by the window with her back to me. I knew then I needed to tell her something, about my time in the war, and what was keeping me awake at night. I wasn’t sure how much longer she was going to just stay quiet about my nightmares, and I didn’t want to lose her. My nightmares were a part of my life, just as much as she was, and she needed to know a little about my demons. I’d never told her what happened the day I surrendered to help my team. Fuck, that stuff should never be spoken about, ever.