Page 11 of Proof Of Life

I didn’t realize I’d asked the question out loud until he answers.

“It’s been a while.”

Brandt won’t look me in the eye when he talks to me. Instead, he busies himself with my comfort—grabbing for the remote on my bed to raise my head, adjusting my pillow, and holding the paper cup in front of me, as if I’m too weak to do it myself.

Though I am.

Now that I’m sitting up slightly, I can feel how stiff my neck is. Rolling my head from side to side, I try to loosen it, but it takes too much energy. Again with the cup in my face, and I manage a small sip without drooling on myself.

Even in the dim light, I can make out my surroundings, however blurred they still are, and realize I’m in a hospital, though I can’t recall what the fuck I did to land my ass here.

“Brandt, talk to me. I need some answers.”

My voice still sounds as if I swallowed broken shards of glass.

“The doctor should be here any minute.”

That’s a non-answer if I’ve ever heard one. I don’t want to talk to the doctor. I don’t know the doctor. I know Brandt. I trust Brandt. And I want him to look in my eyes and tell me why I’m here.

“Just tel–”

“There you are. It's good to finally meet you, Sergeant Wardell. I’m Doctor Müller.”

The doctor is tall and stocky, with shaggy brown hair, and a mustache that covers most of his top lip. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls a penlight from his white lab coat and clicks it on before warning me, “This is going to be bright, and I understand your eyes are sensitive right now, but please try not to blink.”

Once, early in my military career, I made the regrettable mistake of mouthing off to my drill sergeant. He made me stand outside in the pouring rain and mop the parking lot of my barracks. It was forty-two degrees outside that day with a stiff wind. That was easier than trying not to blink right now.

“Better. Much improved,” he declares, and I realize his speech is heavily accented with German. Where in the fuck am I?

I find Brandt with my useless fucking eyes and I feel a little bit like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz when I ask him, “We’re not in the desert anymore, are we?”

Of course we’re not.

There’s no hospital there besides the field hospital, which is really just a converted shipping container stocked with first aid supplies. As I look around, I finally take note of the state-of-the-art machines beeping and glowing with my vital statistics. Everything looks… newer, modern.

No, we’re not in the desert anymore.

Why is my mind so sluggish? It hasn’t even occurred to me until now to piece things together. I’m a fucking Sergeant First Class, a team leader, and yet I’m relying on others to inform me when I can damn well figure shit out for myself.

And still, Brandt won’t look me in the eye.

That tells me everything I need to know.

Out in the hall, the sound of someone dropping something, some sort of medical equipment or perhaps a food tray, explodes in the silence. The sound is a shock to my senses, and I jump as my body tenses, which makes everything fucking hurt.

And the sound I heard is echoed again, but this time inside my head. Much louder and in high definition. White light so bright that it’s blinding explodes behind my eyes, and I can see it and hear it inside my head. I can smell it. The chemical burn, the metallic iron of blood, the acrid smoke. They scream out at the top of their lungs and the sound ricochets inside my ears through my headset.

The sound of a building coming down around me, burying my body under its charred rubble.

The sound and smell of death.

I choke on a gasp of air so deep and sharp that it seizes my lungs momentarily, and in those few vital seconds, it all comes rushing back to me.

Feeling as if I’ve been shot through the heart with adrenaline, my heartbeat spikes, making the machines I’m hooked up to go crazy, and the increase in blood flow makes my head throb even harder. This time, when I look at Brandt, he reluctantly meets my eyes.

My answers are right there in front of me, written all over his face. It's in his guilty expression, his down-turned mouth. It’s the regret in his eyes.

Even in the darkness, I can see him plain as day. He can’t hide the truth from me any longer.

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