I'm shuffling through my pockets, desperately trying to find something.
I've lost it, I kept thinking to myself.
I reach into my left cargo pocket on my ACU trousers, and pull out a familiar object. A small plastic zip lock bag.
“There you are,” I say to myself.
I promptly moved the bag to my left breast pocket just as the plane comes to a screeching halt on the runway. Not a moment after I exit the plane I am greeted by an officer.
“Sergeant Ackerman, Second Lieutenant Redford, Second Infantry Division.”
“Second to None sir!” I boldly exclaim the 2ID motto as I salute him.
“Fight Tonight sergeant!” he says as he returns the salute.
“Welcome to Korea Sergeant,” he extends his hand.
“Thank you sir.” I shake his hand.
“I assume you have been briefed on the situation sergeant?”
“Yes I have sir.”
“Good. You will be assigned to 2-9 Infantry, Manchus. They are the first line of defense, so needless to say you will be seeing some action.” He said it as if it was a warning, like I wasn't used to combat.
“Sir, with all due respect, I've seen more than my fair share of combat in Afghanistan. I can more than handle myself.” I said, not realizing just how wrong I was.
The scene starts to change, like someone hit the fast-forward button.
I'm taking cover behind a downed HWMMV. The sound of gunfire and explosions bombard my eardrums. I look to my right, at the radioman. PFC Jenkins was his name. Never knew when to shut up, but a damn good soldier none-the-less.
“JENKINS! RADIO IN FOR CLOSE AIR SUPPORT PRONTO!”
“ROGER SERGEANT!” he keyed in the mic “HUNTER TWO-FOUR, THIS IS DEMON SIX-NINER! REQUESTING ONE-ZERO-FIFE HEAT ON LAZED TARGET, DANGER CLOSE!”
I popped up and took a few more pot-shots at the enemy. I heard the response from the AC-130 gunship above me over the net.
“Roger that. One-zero-fife HEAT, danger close. Awaiting laser designation.”
“LAZE THE TARGET!” I screamed to my squad taking cover behind a downed Abrams.
I popped up and started to provide cover fire for the SOFLAM operator.
“Target acquired, firing.”
The three T-90's then erupted in a multitude of fiery explosions. The rain of high explosives ceased, and the smoke cloud started to dissipate.
“Tangos neutralized, have a nice day six-niner,” the AC-130 radio operator said.
The scene changes again, only this time it was like someone just hit skip.
I'm on my knees, tears in my eyes and streaming down my face. I look at the gruesome sight before me. All around me are bodies, the bodies of my friends, my buddies, my brothers, my soldiers.
I look down. I am holding up the head of my dying friend, PFC Jenkins. He's been shot in the chest and stomach so many times that I lost count. I had carried him for a mile and a half to the exfil sight. The choppers were in sight, not even 50 meters in front of us, but something was wrong. There weren't any pilots to greet us, no rangers providing security, and nobody from my squad to help us on board.
There were bodies. Bodies of the pilots, bodies of the rangers, and bodies of my squad. I looked on in horror as I came to a grim realization.
It's a trap.
Not a moment after the thought crossed my mind did I stand in shock as the two Chinooks were engulfed in flames right in front of us.
“No...” was all I could manage.
I dropped to my knees, too weak to stand.
“We aren't gonna make it, are we?” Jenkins asked.
“I'm afraid not kid...”
I then proceeded to do something I had not done in a very long time. Something I thought I would never do again.
I cried.
It started out slow, a sob here and there, and grew into a full-on fit of tears.
As Jenkins lay before me taking his last breath, he said something that would've made me fall flat on my face were it not for me being an emotional wreck.
“I'm sorry.”
“Wha- what for?” I asked between sobs.
“I wouldn't have gotten shot if I had stayed in cover like you told me to. And for that I'm sorry.”
His body went limp just as he finished. I was speechless. Why was he sorry? If he hadn't jumped out of cover to grab PVT Collins, he would be dead.
He IS dead. I reminded myself.
I heard footsteps behind me, and I faced about to meet them, M4 at the ready.
“WOAH! BLUE ON BLUE! FRIENDLY!” the man exclaimed.
“Who the fuck are you, and what the fuck do you want?” I spat, still holding my weapon at the ready.
“Major Clint, 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta. You can address me by my call-sign, Blaze.”
My mind flashed to an image of the Wonderbolts for a split second. I quickly got back to the situation at hand.
“What do you want?” I asked, lowering my M4.
“The same thing you do.”
“And what is that?”
“You wanna get off this God forsaken peninsula. And me and what's left of my squad have a plan to do so. Unless you wanna stay and end up like them.” he pointed to the bodies littering the tarmac.
I just about had it with this asshole. I raised my M4 to muzzle-thump him. The events which followed happened in a matter of seconds. As I pulled back to strike, I heard the magazine of my M4 hit the ground. I thrust forward, only to find myself empty-handed.
“I wouldn't try that if I were you.” a voice behind me stated, cold and callus as death itself.
“Cool it, Frost.” Blaze said.
I looked behind me, and I almost instantly found out why he called this guy Frost. His eyes looked like they could scare the shit out of Lucifer himself. His skin was pale, almost to the point of being albino. Quite frankly, he looked like death.
“Like what you see, pretty boy?” he said, colder than before.
I shuddered.
“Frost!” Blaze said in a harsh but collected tone.
Frost backed off, glaring icy daggers at me.
“Back to business. I have an open spot after my weapons sergeant got killed in the first assault. I would be more than happy for you to fill said spot.”
“I'm just a tank mechanic. I don’t know the first thing about being infantry, much less Delta...”
“Look, I saw you, the way you fought, the way you ran a mile and a half carrying the dead weight of your friend there without stopping. You've got it in you, and I can help you bring it out. I can provide you with not only a means to get off this rock, but a way of avenging your squad.”
“How can I trust you?”
“You can't. But what have you got to lose?”
I contemplated this for a second.
“A means of escape and a way of avenging my soldiers?”
Blaze nodded.
“Count me in.”
“Welcome to Delta Force.” Blaze concluded with a cocky smirk.
My life is put on fast-forward again.
I am in a boxing ring. Standing in front of me is Rapidfire, the squads' expert on close combat and knife fighting.
“Alright, here are the rules,” Blaze started “rule one, there are no rules. Now go to your corners, come out fighting, and finish bloody as fuck!” he concluded as he struck the bell.
I turned around just in time to see the fist flying at my face. I promptly blocked it, countering with a punch of my own. Strike after strike, block after block. Neither of us were getting any decent hits on the other. Blaze was determined to change that.
He tossed in two knives. Not plastic, not wood. Sharp, semi-serrated, 8-inch metal knives.
I scrambled for the nearest one. Rapidfire beat me to both. He came at me with a knife in each hand, and I struggled to dodge and block each strike. He repeatedly sliced my forearms until my ACU sleeves were a dark shade of red. I stumbled, dazed from both the lightning speed of his flurry, and the amount of blood I was losing. He then slashed at my heart.
I narrowly escaped the blade but soon fell to my knees. I felt the cold steel of the blade being pushed up against my jugular.
“Check and mate. Rapidfire wins.” Blaze stated as he entered the ring.
“What have we here?”
I looked to see what Blaze was walking towards.
It was my plastic bag. It must have fallen out when Rapidfire slashed at my heart. Blaze bent down to pick it up. He opened it and emptied it of its contents.
“Is this you're family?” he asked, holding the picture up.
“Yes. Yes it is.”
“Hmm. Do you miss them?”
“Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
“Okay, fine. I miss them with all my heart and I can't wait to get back to see them. Now can I have my bag back?”
“Not so fast.”
Blaze held up the patch of a cloud with a rainbow bolt coming out from the bottom. Rapidfire looked at the cutie mark patch, then to me.
He was smiling. I had never seen him smile outside of combat, so it kind of frightened me that he was smiling at me.
Great. He's gonna kill me. I thought fearfully to myself.
Blaze snapped me out of it.
“Huh. Looks like you two have a lot more in common than just your abilities in the ring.” Blaze stated “Wouldn't you agree, Rapid?”
Wait a sec. Did blaze just imply-
“I guess so.” Rapidfire replied “I'm still about twenty percent cooler than him, though.”
No. Fucking. WAY!
Rapidfire strolled up to me with an awkward smirk on his face. He stuck a fist out. For a second I thought he was going to hit me.
“Brohoof.”
I smile and raise my fist to meet his own...
“Ackerman”
“What was that?” I asked.
“What was what?” Blaze said.
“Ackerman!”
“THAT!”
“WHAT?!”
“ACKERMAN!!!!!”
My whole world starts to spin. The color and light start to blend together, spinning down into what could only be described as an invisible drain, darkness is left in its wake.
Wake. Wake. Awake. I need to wake up. I need to be awake.
I start to open my eyes.
1st to read, likely not 1st to comment but who cares. Great chapter as always
I like it here and why not this? Well like the work man keep it up.
Now I'm rather confused, and I think it's because of the story's plot structure. This chapter sticks out not only plot-wise in establishing background, but also because of how disruptive it felt to read. The Prologue and first chapter followed a chronological progression, and I understood what was going on. Then this chapter shattered the flow of both the overarching plot and the basic story. Straight out of the gate, the audience reading this will be expecting this to follow the plot from the end of Chapter 2, because that was the flow of the story thus far. Then we're given a series of short combat pieces with no explanation, preemption, or indication that this chapter is not congruent with the current place in the overall plot. I had to reread the first few paragraphs a few times, then crosscheck with the end of chapter 2, to make sure I was reading the correct story; only then did I realize that these were all flashbacks.
If you're going to do something like this, you need to indicate that this chapter will be special and NOT an immediate continuation from the previous chapter (which is what I and most other readers would be expecting). Having the flash-back text in Italics is the easiest way to convey that this section is different (and often used in displaying thoughts such as reminiscence), but considering that that would be a lot of Italicized text, a little prompt from current-time Ackerman at the beginning of the chapter as he thinks back on the past would establish the fact that these stories are his memories. Otherwise your story has a terrible disruption in plot flow, as your readers will be forced to figure out on their own that this chapter is chronologically different. A one-word chapter title is not enough.
And in terms of story-flow, this chapter felt really fast, almost to the point of rushed. I know it's kind of your current style and that these flashbacks are supposed to be short, but the combination of the two made each short story feel too short, like a series of bullet-point summary of Ackerman's background. We're told that some tanks are blown, that there's an ambush, and there's a knife-fight. But the audience isn't given time to relish in the moments and the fine details that create immersion and develop character, which ultimately piques reader interest. Instead, it feels like I'm watching an action movie where everything is fast-forwarded except for when there's an explosion on screen.
(And I didn't really care for the in-text fast-forward prompts. If this were a movie, it could work. But since this is a literary medium, the same effect isn't achieved in a non-visual medium and even comes off as a bit contrived. The commonly-accepted method is to use line-breaks.)
Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate this chapter, nor the story in general. It's just that this chapter in particular was so disruptive in its execution that I had to voice my concern. You're a decent writer with some good ideas (and surprisingly good grammar and spelling for a first fic), but you need to brush up on literary formatting and structure (e.g. plot structure, line breaks, indentations, and font styles).
With all that in mind, I'm curious to see how the story progresses.
1351169 tt-to m-m-many words!!!! *crawls into corner with head between my knees* make them stop!!! *head explodes*
1351899
If you're scared of too many words, maybe you shouldn't be hanging around a fanfiction site.
It's a lot harder to draw pictures of literary criticism. Trust me when I say it's easier this way.
1351169
I thank you for your criticism and for taking the time to read my fic despite the fact that it's a HiE fic.
Let me start off by saying that I am straying from chronological order for a reason, and that the next chapter will be taking a third-person perspective.
I understand that this and the next chapter, Royal Pains, will not make too much sense chronologically (although Royal Pains will make more sense than Memories). I can promise that the fifth chapter (I haven't thought of a name yet) will make complete sense of Memories.
Unfortunately, due to spoilers, I cannot reveal exactly how chapter five will make sense of it, just trust me when I say that it will. I can also promise that the fifth chapter will be posted the day after, if not the same day as Royal Pains.
As for the flashbacks being too short, I promise that Ackerman's background will become much more detailed as the story progresses; this is only the first of four chapters dedicated to bringing more detail to Ackerman's back story.
Again I thank you for your criticism and your willingness to read my fic. Army Brony signing off. HOOAH!
P.S. The ETA of Royal Pains (and most likely chapter five) is two days from now.
1352828 dude i was joking i read books about | | THAT THICK ( actual length) in an hour to a day depends on how interstid i am