//------------------------------// // The Survivor // Story: The Walking Wounded // by Another Army Brony //------------------------------// The days dragged on and on, and I counted a full week's passage since my arrival in the ward. Nurse Candlelight had become a frequent visitor, stopping in several times per day to chat and generally just see how I was doing. The annoyance I'd felt at her constant presence was beginning to fade, serving now more as a distraction than a bother. Having exhausted her questions about my life and its every detail, the questions invariably turned towards her. I found it simultaneously amusing and strange that this mare would ask a question to herself in the third pony, and then proceed to answer it. Strange as it was, it served its purpose. Her questions and answers were moderately interesting, and they prompted me to ask questions of my own, on occasion. Partially, this was because I was genuinely curious about some aspect of her life, but more importantly, it served to keep the boredom at bay. Her father was a branch manager at a bank in Manehattan, and her mother was a district manager at a competing bank. The way that she'd told the story, you'd think it was some sort of romanticized cloak-and-dagger affair out of a cheesy romance novel, instead of a couple adults meeting for lunch. Overblown and overwrought, but I'll be damned if it wasn't interesting. She'd wanted to be a nurse since she was little, bandaging her stuffed animals and treating their "wounds". Through high school and then college, she had taken every bit of medical training she could get, becoming one of only a dozen or so ponies in her class to graduate as a fully certified nurse. She was the youngest of two, with her brother being about five years older than she. He had joined six years ago, eager to do great things for his country and his Princesses. Three years ago, when he was only a month away from the end of his deployment, his platoon was manning a COP in the mountains when it was overrun. They had fought tooth and nail to drive the invaders back, but their success came with a terrible cost. Nearly a quarter of the platoon had died, her brother among them. I'd heard about this ambush in what came to be known as death valley. I'd read the articles in the papers, and I had the good fortune to meet one of the survivors. Every soldier had fought heroically, and those who had died had died as heroes. To nurse Candlelight, he'd always been a hero. She didn't need a newspaper or a medal to prove that to her. She had loved her brother immensely, and she carried a picture of him around her neck inside of a small golden locket. When she pulled it out and showed it to me, I felt strangely honored. This locket was her most prized possession, and I didn't need her to tell me to figure it out. On the one side of the locket was a photo of her brother in his dress uniform, looking sharp and every bit as professional as you would expect him to. On the other side of the locket, there was a small piece of paper, crumpled and tattered behind the glass. My curiosity getting the best of me, I couldn't help but ask what it was that was deemed worthy of sharing a locket with her brother. "Nurse? What's that scrap of paper in there?" She stiffened right up at that, and I sensed I might have hit a raw nerve. Taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly, she calmed herself before she answered. "It's not a scrap, it is very important to me... It's the last letter he wrote to me before he died. He sent me a beautiful pair of jade earrings in a cardboard box he saved from his meal, with this inside of it. All it says is 'I thought you might like these. I love you, and I'll be home soon.' And he was, just like he said he would be. Only... he was in a box with a flag draped over it." "I'm sorry. I didn't know..." "I know you didn't, it's okay. It's a sensitive subject for me, and I tend to react strongly whenever it comes up. I think he would have liked you, you're every bit as stubborn as he was." I met her with a deadpan expression. "I'm not stubborn, I just know when I'm right." She grinned at me, a gesture I met with a frown. This mare frustrated me more than I cared to admit, and I still found her pretty annoying with her constant questions and stories and such... and yet, I almost felt sad whenever she left. It was probably due to the fact that, as much as I liked to be alone, I was getting sick and tired of being alone in here. Yeah, that was it. It had to be. The conversation was halting, advancing in short bursts as she told a story, though it invariably was met by silence. After Candlelight left that day, I found myself lost in memories that I usually kept locked up tight, afraid of where they might lead. I remembered the day I'd met the survivor of the death valley massacre, so vividly that I could feel the heat and smell the exhaust fumes... I was only an hour into my shift in the strongpoint, monitoring comms as one of our patrols conducted dismounted operations in a nearby village. There was a burst of static on the net, followed by the unmistakable sound of gunfire. "ANY STATION THIS NET, ANY STATION THIS NET, THIS IS COMANCHE TWO-CHARLIE AT COP THURGOOD! WE ARE TAKING HEAVY CONTACT FROM ALL SIDES, REQUEST IMMEDIATE AIR SUPPORT! I SAY AGAIN, WE ARE TAKING HEAVY CONTACT FROM ALL SIDES, REQUEST IMMEDIATE AIRSUPPORT! SEND IN AN AIR WEAPONS TEAM, WE'RE BEING OVERRUN!" Another burst of static and the net went quiet. I sat in the sudden quiet for a second as the gravity of the situation sunk in. Our sister company Comanche was stationed at Thurgood, and they were being overrun. A second later I was on the net, calling up the command element to relay the message. "Headhunter X-ray, this is Destroyer two-bravo! I have an urgent message, over!" "Two-bravo, this is X-ray. Send it, over." "X-ray, two-bravo. We have an urgent request for support from COP Thurgood, break. They're requesting an alpha-whiskey-tango, time now, break. Say they're being overrun. How copy? Over." "Two-bravo, this is X-ray. Did you say being overrun? Over." "X-ray, two-bravo. Roger, over." "Two-bravo, roger, winding up the QRF time: now. Air support will be underway in ten mikes, estimated thirty mikes time on target. How copy? Over." "X-ray, two-bravo. Good copy, I'll try and raise them on the net again, over." "Two-bravo, roger, what freq did they hail on? Over." "X-ray, two-bravo. Freq is seven niner fife, how copy? Over." "Two-bravo, I copy seven niner fife, over." "X-ray, two-bravo. Good copy, over." "Roger two-bravo. Radio in any updates. X-ray out." As soon as the command element terminated the call, I was right back on the net as I recalled the patrol to the strongpoint. The next fifteen minutes were passed in agonizing silence as I looked toward the general location of Thurgood. In twenty five minutes, those colts would have all of the firepower they needed. An air weapons team was a wing of heavily armed and armored pegasi, sporting mechanical augmentation that allowed them to fly faster and with more payload. Generally, this payload was about three thousand rounds of enchanted APIAP, or armor-piercing-incendiary-anti-pony rounds, as well as two dozen rockets. All they needed to do was hold on for twenty five minutes, and they would be able to turn the tide. Ten minutes into the silence, the radio chirped again; what came from the static made my blood run cold. "NOVEMBER NOVEMBER NOVEMBER! WE ARE OVERRUN, I SAY AGAIN WE ARE OVERRUN! BREAKING CONTACT AND MOVING TO RALLYPOINT DELT--" The transmission was severed abruptly by a burst of static, and nothing but static laden silence answered my hail. The air support arrived five minutes earlier than expected due to a tailwind, but they were still too late. They reported a large number of enemy soldiers moving across the mountainside, who were engaged and destroyed. Seeing no sign of the guards who'd been protecting the COP, the air weapons team returned to base to refuel and refit. The next hours passed in somber silence, each of us sending our prayers to the Princesses for those that died and praying that we'd not meet the same fate. The silence was broken again near the end of my shift, a static filled transmission piercing the air. "Any station this net, any station this net: this is Comanche one-delta, please respond, over." I snatched up the mike, my hooves shaking as I keyed up. "Comanche one-delta, this is Destroyer two-bravo. Send it, over." "Roger two-delta, I have a nine-line medivac request, over." I scrambled for a scrap of paper and a pencil to copy with, hopping back on the net as soon as I did. "Roger, send it." The request was pretty standard for the first two lines, just location and call sign. The third line, while anticipated, still made me sick to hear. "Line tree: fife bravo, one eight charlie, seven echo, break." Line three was for the number of patients by category, with brevity codes for the severity. Translated, this meant five urgent surgical, eighteen priority, and seven convenience. Urgent surgical was loss of life, limb or eyesight within two hours, priority was within four hours, and convenience was basically saying "pick us up whenever possible". As the medevac request was concluded and I briefed back what I'd copied, I asked why there were seven echo priorities. The response was one I should have seen coming. "They aren't getting any deader." The next five hours were a blur of activity as choppers flew in and out of our COP as the dead and wounded were gathered, stabilized, and readied for transport. I spoke with Comanche one-delta, who was none other than Staff Sergeant Deadshot, one of our batallion's best shots. When I asked him about what had happened, he replied with a haunted look as he described the bedlam that had come down upon them. Mortars, rockets, grenades, sniper fire, and heavy crew-served weapons had been brought to bear in a highly coordinated complex attack against the COP. His guards had fought valiantly, repelling wave after wave of enemy forces. Despite being shot numerous times, peppered by shrapnel and concussed by the explosions, they fought bravely on. As the COP was being overrun, the enemy had tried to drag away some of the dead or wounded. One guard, Sergeant Candlelight, had charged the three enemy with nothing but a sidearm and a knife across ten meters of open ground. He killed the three enemies and then dragged their would-be trophy back across the kill zone, taking heavy fire as he did so. Mortally wounded, he still managed to return to cover with the dead guard before he succumbed to his own wounds. Over the next week, more and more reports came through about the heroism of all involved in the attacks. One guard threw himself on top of a grenade, saving his entire team from the blast at the cost of his own life. Another had picked up a grenade and lobbed it back by hoof, losing most of his arm as the grenade exploded just after release. A guard had manned the heavy machine gun in the turret of his vehicle without regard for the hail of bullets cracking off the armor around him as he laid down withering suppressive fire. I remembered the reports of heroism and bravery under fire, and the way they inspired and humbled me. I remember wishing to the stars and then vowing to myself that if ever my mettle were tested in such a fashion, that I would respond with the same level of commitment to my brethren as those brave souls had. It was as these memories played in my mind that I found sleep, mercifully devoid of dreams. ---------- The morning came as peacefully as any I could remember, with not even a trace of a nightmare lingering in my mind. I had not been chased from the realms of slumber by vivid memories of death and dying, but rather by the click of the door latch as it opened, admitting nurse Candlelight and a tray of food. "Good morning, Blaze. How did you sleep?" Perhaps it was the fact that I'd slept better than I had in years, or maybe I was actually learning how to tolerate being around ponies again. Regardless of the cause, the effect was that I found myself actually smiling at the mare before I caught myself and scowled. "Bah. I've had worse." Any effect that my scowl might have had was thoroughly outmatched by my smile prior. Nurse Candle rump had seen a crack in my armor, and that was all she needed. She smiled at me with an almost predatory air as she tried to draw me out from behind my grumpy facade. In half an hour's time, she'd succeeded in not only making me smile, but in making me laugh as well. The feeling of laughter was an alien one to me, and it was cut off prematurely as the awkwardness stuck me. My reticence was short lived however, and Candlelight soon had me laughing again. A host of strange emotions were in turmoil within me. Aside from the odd feeling of my own laughter, there was another sensation that I could not quite place, one that grew stronger when I was near Candlelight. The days wore on and on, and it was rapidly approaching a month since I'd been hospitalized. The combination of regular meals, medication, counseling, and friendly conversation was bringing about a strong change within me. More often than not, I would sleep peacefully throughout the night in a dreamless slumber. On a few occasions, I had even had pleasant dreams, something I'd thought I'd lost forever on a mountaintop half a world away. As my mind started to wander back to that nightmarish canyon of death and chaos, my pulse picked up and my breathing got shallow. I knew enough to know that there was a flashback coming on, and that it would be a bad one. I could almost feel the roar of the artillery as it tore through the skies, bearing down on me with the intent of reducing me to paste where I stood. The roar was growing louder in my mind, so loud that there was no way that I was the only one to hear it, the scream of the reaper as he bore down to collect the damned, to collect me... I felt a gentle hoof come to rest on my right wrist, and my head swiveled with frightening speed to identify it as friend or foe. The pale hoof did not recoil in the slightest at my sudden movement, and I recognized it immediately. With that one touch, Nurse Candlelight set off a series of events within me. First and most importantly, she brought my mind back from that blasted hellscape it had wandered into. The rest of the events were subtler, but no less important. My pulse continued to pound as my breathing stayed rapid, but the dryness in my throat and the heat on my face was new. My mind was going a thousand clicks an hour and there was a feeling in my chest that was both intimately familiar and entirely alien at the same time. Panic had my heart in an icy grip, but I couldn't figure out why as my mind pulled itself in a hundred directions at once. Looking up from the hoof, I felt myself being pulled into a trap as my eyes made their way up the nurse's scrubs to meet Candlelight's own. Our eyes met, and that was the end of it. An unseen but undeniable bolt of energy arced between us, short circuiting my brain and banishing all thought. In the space that was usually occupied by thoughts and calculations, there was a vacuum waiting to be filled. Impressions and half formed musings flowed in, filling the void with disjointed images and feelings. The void was dominated by the same golden orbs that created it, those magnificent eyes that sparkled with the light of the morning as is filtered past the curtains. I felt a warmth spreading throughout me, driving away a cold I hadn't known existed. Contented feelings welled up within me only to be smote by warring facets of hope and fear. Fear, my constant companion for many years, was under brutal assault from hope, a feeling that I had beat down whenever it dared to show its face. Hope had once been my armor against the world, allowing me to make it through the dark patches in my life. Now, it was nothing to me but a gateway to disappointment, whereas fear had kept me alert and alive. A knock on the door drew away the golden gaze that had captivated me, and a flood of thought surged through my mind and carried away all of the feelings and impressions, save for two. The enchanting golden stare that had me spellbound and a feeling of confusion as to the meaning of the battle between hope and fear were all that remained. The door opened as the two large orderlies stepped through, ushering me to yet another meeting with the shrink. As we made our way through the halls, I was on autopilot while my mind focused on other things, things that happened to be radiant and golden. I was brought back to reality quite abruptly as I tried to make the turn to the shrink's office and was met by the shoulder of one of my escorts, redirecting me down an unfamiliar corridor. My questions were met with stony silence, further disconcerting me. Turning the corner, I caught a glimpse of a pale shade of a pony trailing us. Wherever we were headed, Candlelight was bringing up the rear; the caboose on this crazy train. The next twenty minutes were a blur of papers and ponies, from which I gathered that I was being released back into the civilian population as I signed waiver after waiver. Two glass doors and a lobby later, and I was blinking in the sunlight and feeling the breeze tousle my mane. The openness of the street immediately hit me, reminding me that I was too far away from cover or concealment. As I began to back up to get closer to the building, I was interrupted by a body colliding with mine. Whirling about in shock, I was just in time to see Candlelight go sprawling to the cobblestones from the impact. Her expression clearly indicated that she hadn't expected my sudden reversal, and I was suddenly ashamed that I'd knocked her over. Extending a hoof to help her off the ground, I almost recoiled as her hoof brushed mine. That same unseen energy arced between us once more, fading just as quickly as it had come. The event was over in a split second, and she seemed not to notice the jolt as she grasped my hoof and allowed herself to be pulled upright. I marveled at how light she was and how soft her hooves were for the perhaps half a second that it took for her to regain her upright position. She coughed a little awkwardly and brushed herself off before looking up at me and favoring me with a bashful smile. "Thanks for the hoof" was all she said. Still feeling embarrassed for knocking her over, I mumbled an apology and rubbed my neck before being struck by a thought. "So, what are you doing out here? I figured you'd be working inside or something." She smiled and nodded. "Nope, not today. I was filling in for a friend of mine for a couple hours, but she's here now so I'm available now." Something about the way she said the word "available" struck me as strange, but I paid it no heed. Musing over what I was going to do on my first day of freedom, I mumbled a distracted "oh, that's cool." Not one to be so easily put off, Candlelight asked a question eerily similar to the one I'd just asked myself. "So, Tim. What are our plans for today?" Caught off guard as I was, I merely mumbled the first thing that came to my mind, which just happened to be the truth. "Well, I'm going to need to buy food and alcohol." Though she scowled somewhat at the alcohol bit, her eyes lit up with joy. "Oh, excellent! Mind if I join you? I need to stop at the market too, and maybe we can grab lunch together?" Her inquisitive tone was masking something, and whatever it was took apparent delight skirting the edges of my comprehension. When I nodded, she clapped her hooves together with a decidedly feminine squeal, smiling broadly. As we set off to the market, she fell into place at my side and immediately launched into conversation. I was abruptly struck by exactly how much I had changed as I realized that I no longer found her constant chatter to be grating on my nerves as it once did. In fact, if I was entirely honest with myself, I somewhat enjoyed her banter. I smiled to myself as we strode into the market. ---------- Two weeks. It had been two weeks since I'd left the Facility, and in that time a great many things had happened. Things were the same, but different. For one, Nurse Candlelight and I were spending a good amount of time together, just as we had towards the end of my stay in the Facility. What had changed about it was the way she now insisted I call her by her first name, Grace. She, in turn, addressed me as Timber, or more commonly, Tim. While I had to admit that I was somewhat pleased at this, it was still awkward at first as I tried to adjust to the new name. But, adjust I did, and soon her name felt more natural than my own first name. We began to spend a bit more time together, occasionally sharing meals at Grace's house or at a restaurant in the market. To support the increased intake of food, we found ourselves making more frequent trips to the market. Being around high concentrations of ponies made the flashbacks worse, but with Grace by my side I was able to manage them. Whenever something would start to trigger one she would see the change in me, and with a gentle nudge or a whispered word, she would calm my fears. Everything went well, and I hadn't had an episode in the market since my release. I was actually beginning to remember what "normal" was, not that I was anywhere near what could be considered normal. But at least I had a point of reference now, which was more than I'd had in years. Yeah, I guess you could say that things were finally starting to look up, taking a turn for the better. For the first two weeks, anyway.