Page 4 of Promises in the Dark

Chapter 2

_______________________

Darkness swallowed me whole.

The pain in my head was crushing, and my eyes couldn’t make out a damn thing beyond the gloom. My mind kept slipping, fading into the abyss. I had to fight to stay conscious, but it felt like a losing battle.

I’d been run over by a tank, or so it seemed, with a weird pressure around my neck, like someone had me in a chokehold. My head throbbed like a motherfucker, the sharp, metallic tang of blood triggering scattered memories of violence and excruciating pain.

Then it hit me—I was still alive.

The sounds around me were a garbled mess, voices too incoherent to make out. Loud footsteps reverberated down a corridor as someone dragged me somewhere unknown. Fucking fantastic.

Suddenly, I was tossed onto a cold, hard table. The bite of the icy surface sent shockwaves through my wounded flesh. I could feel the trickle of blood, the faint whisper of life draining from me. A voice, distant but sharp, pierced through the haze.

“He’s bad... really bad.”

I tried to focus, but each pulse in my head was like a hammer to my skull. Snippets of conversation reached me through the fog.

“We don’t have enough doctors... It’s a massacre out there!” The words bounced around in my skull, but I couldn’t make sense of them. I felt myself drifting, ready to embrace the darkness again.

“I know this hurts, but I need to check the extent of the damage to your skull.” The voice was soft, feminine, soothing. It pulled me back, dragging me out of the black void.

My skull pounded, each beat a fresh wave of agony. As I opened my eyes, the sterile, white walls of a medical room greeted me. The place reeked of antiseptic and fear, cold and impersonal, like a morgue. A guy in a white coat hovered over me. For a second, I thought I was back in Afghanistan, but this wasn’t some roadside bomb aftermath.

“Where am I?” I croaked, my throat raw and dry.

“Easy, soldier,” someone said, calm and reassuring, like an angel from above. But I wasn’t a soldier anymore, just a fucking ghost.

I tried to sit up, but the world spun like a carnival ride gone wrong. My head felt like it had been split in two. When my vision cleared, I noticed bandages, needles—medical shit everywhere. The room pulsed with a fucked-up energy, the steady beep of machines only adding to the unease.

Around me, chaos reigned. Doctors and nurses rushed back and forth, barely keeping up with the carnage. I glimpsed the broken bodies of soldiers, their hollow eyes staring back at me, filled with the horror of war.

Their limbs twisted, flesh torn apart. We were strangers, thrown into this hellhole together. Identity didn’t mean shit anymore. We were all faceless fucks, just pawns in this endless game of war.

“If you stop moving, it’ll hurt less,” the doctor muttered, frustration edging into their voice. Her hands moved over me, poking and prodding like I was some kind of science project.

“I’m sorry,” I snickered, “did you expect me to stay still while you butcher me?” It took everything in me not to launch myself off that table and deck her.

I gritted my teeth, trying to hold back the rising fury. Doc sighed, shaking her head, her expression hardened.

“You’ve been butchered by your enemies. I’m trying to save your life,” she snapped, her voice even but sharp.

“You think you’re doing me a favor?” I shot back, sarcasm lacing my words. “Just let me fucking die.”

“I’m doing my job,” Doc said, her tone unwavering. “Suck it up.”

I chuckled bitterly. “My job is killing people,” I muttered. “Seems like we’re both in the wrong line of work.”

The cold bite of surgical tools sent a shiver down my spine as they pressed against my skin. Painkillers dulled the edges, but I could still feel the pinch of tweezers as they dug out the fragments of metal embedded in my flesh. The strange, detached sensation should’ve been unbearable, but instead, I welcomed it.

The steady hum of medical instruments was interrupted by the sharp sound of fabric tearing. I cracked open my eyes. Doc’s hands were drenched in my blood as they cut away the soaked cloth covering my wound.

“This will hurt,” she warned flatly.

Before I could react, Doc tore the fabric from the wound, exposing raw, torn skin. Pain shot through me, goosebumps rising across my body. I bit my lip hard, fighting the urge to scream as the agony ran through me.

“Dammit...” I muttered, barely able to keep my eyes open.

---