Soldier's Story : Chapter 1

Then Mark grabs my chin with his big right hand but gently, Mark then comes closer to me and kisses me. He kisses me for about ten seconds and pulls away. “You scare me” Mark says in a manly whisper. Mark then grunts quietly as he gets up and walks away. Mark leaves me there stunned while a million things pass through my head, I didn’t know what he meant about I scare him. Ten seconds later the sun rises and it hits me, I know what Mark meant. He’s scared of me because he feels something for me, he’s scared of me because he likes me, and he’s scared of me because I am probably the first guy he has ever felt feelings for.

As I walk down to the village all I kept thinking was “What the hell?” Mark likes me. A marine likes me, I have had relationships in the past but none ever work out. I then take a deep breath “This isn’t going to work out it’s just the heat of the moment” I tell myself. Before I reached the medical shed I came to the conclusion that Mark hasn’t had any sex for a while like any other Marine here and he will say or do anything to get into my pants. Usually that wouldn’t bother me, I would gladly sleep with a soldier just to show my “support” for them but I did just survive my first ambush and I am still shaken up. I then walk into the shed knowing that I would have to tell Mark that we should just be friends. I then see Mark sleeping on his stomach shirtless and my lust returns to me. I shake my head and walk by his side, I was about to shake him awake but I stopped. “Ill tell him later” I say in my head. I turn but before I took a step Mark holds my hand “Stay with me” Mark says in a manly whisper.

I was about to leave but I got a stretcher/bed from the other side of the shed and placed it next to Mark. I lay on my back kind of nervous; I look up at the ceiling for a while. I then feel Mark’s hand grab mine, I turn and look at him but he has his eyes closed. Mark then takes my hand and places it on the side of his chin, his hand is on top of mine and the back of my hand is on the side of his chin. My fingers then slide from side to side feeling what little hair he has on his cheek. I then take a deep breath to calm down and close my eyes, both of us stayed in the same position until it was noon. I heard my step brother walk in and quickly took my hand away from Mark. “You’ve been here this whole time?” Alan asks. I nod and Alan goes on organizing what little supplies he has medically. For the rest of the afternoon Mark and I laid on our beds talking, we would make each other laugh. Alan would sometimes join in on our conversations from time to time. I could also see that Mark was looking at me, it’s hard to describe but his eyes never left mine. It’s almost as if Mark was staring into my soul, I could tell that he was noticing everything about me. I knew he was paying attention to every detail on how I talked, my lips moving, my eyes sparkled when I talked to him, how I would move my hands when I talked, and I was also noticing things about him too.

About a week later I have gotten to known almost every soldier in the village. All of them joked, teased and just laughed. I guess it helped pass the time and it keeps everyone at ease, Mark and I were still talking but hadn’t touched each other again. The sun was setting and I knew where Mark shed was and so I decided to pay him a little visit. My hands were sweating because I convinced myself that today I am going to kiss Mark. I walk in and to my surprise Mark is putting on a shirt so I got to see his beautiful pecks, six pack and that V shaped that goes down the waist. We were alone so I stood close to him but he was looking down at his feet. “What’s wrong?” I say while moving my hand to one of his cheeks. Mark then takes a step back and then looks at me. “I can’t do this…I just can’t” he says while looking at me straight in the eye. My sympathy then turns to hatred “How dare you?” I say almost in a whisper. “HOW DARE YOU” I say again louder almost shouting the words. “How dare you make me feel something for you” I say taking a step forward to him. “How fucking dare you?” I say while I push Mark but he is a lot stronger and bigger than me that I push myself back.

Mark then takes a step forward trying to hug me but I slap his hands away. “Don’t touch me Mark….Don’t you ever touch me again” I say while breathing deeply. I then turn and walked away, somehow I knew this would happen I knew Mark would back down. It’s just my luck that a hot marine was just playing with me, that’s the thing that I hate the most, people playing with my emotions. I was on the verge of crying when I see a group of marines around a campfire. I quickly wiped whatever tears I had and joined the group, I sat next to Alan and everyone was sharing their favorite stories about back home. Ten minutes later I was starting to feel better when Mark joins the group, I look at him and he looks at me. I quickly look away and laugh along with Alan pretending that I heard his joke. My arms then started shaking it was night already and it was getting colder by the second, “You alright there little Davis” Jose tells me across from the fire. “Yeah I am good…thanks” I say back while hugging my stomach for warmth. Everyone was having a good time but my arms kept shaking but I didn’t really say anything to anyone. “Here” Jose says while getting up and taking off his jacket. “No I am fine Jose really” I say trying to push the jacket away. “To late little Davis” Jose says while wrapping his jacket over me. Jose is a lot bigger than everyone else here, he has dark skin, almost bald black hair, has gotee that splits into two below his nose and everyone knows him as the gently giant. His jacket came all the way down to my knees and everyone including Jose laughed. I then look at Mark and he wasn’t laughing but he did have an expression of jealousy on his face. I just rolled my eyes and listen to everyone’s story. “So little Davis I have a question for you” Mike says, just another Marine.

I then look at him from across the fire, “You kind of handled yourself pretty well during the ambush a few weeks ago” Mike says. Other Marines begin to nod and smile, it’s almost as if they were expecting me to fall down and cry like a girl during the ambush. “Thanks…I can candle myself pretty good under pressure” I say kind of not knowing where this was going. “Yeah you can…so why not join an army branch?” Mike asks me while everyone turns and looks at me. I knew the answer to that question but I never really said it out loud. It’s not that I was ashamed of the answer but I felt more like a coward, it’s an answer that no would should hear. I just shrug my shoulders and shake my head, “Is it because of your parents?” Mike asks innocently. That question hit me by surprise I just looked up at Mike’s eyes with shock written all over my face. It’s not a day I liked to remember; after all I was there when my parents died. My heart starts to race and my palms become sweaty. All I can think about now is that day and nothing more; it’s like every detail of what happen comes back to me. A memory that I wished I could just erase but it’s always there, it’s always in the back of my head.

At this point I didn’t realize that I hadn’t said anything and everyone is still waiting for me to answer Mike’s question. I then hear Alan clear his throat and someone else changes the subject. “You alright?” Alan asks me while leaning in. “Yeah fine” I say forcing a smile across my face. “I am going to bed” I say while standing up “Good night gents” I say while turning away from them. The last person I see is Mark his face tells me that he wants to comfort me, typical straight guy acting passionate one minute then breaking you the next. I walk away from the fire with watery eyes, good thing no one was in the shed when I got in because I cried myself to sleep that night.

I take a deep breath in as I am waking up; I am on my back hands to the side and feeling a lot better from yesterday’s disappointments. I then feel something moving on my chest, I move my fingers just to make sure where my arms are. Both of my hands are at my side and yet I feel something moving on my chest. I open my eyes and look down and my eyes widen. On my chest I see a big brown spider I scream and brush the spider off of me. The spider lands on the ground and I quickly grab Alan’s shoe and start hitting it. As I am hitting the spider over and over again I didn’t realize that I woke everyone in the shed and some soldiers that heard my scream came running in. The weird thing is that all of the guys grabbed their gun, as I finished I stand up and look at my work. There was nothing left but a huge stain on the ground, all of the guys are looking at me as if I am crazy. Alan is the first one that starts laughing and then everyone followed him. As the adrenaline and fright begin to ware off I too start laughing, “Afraid of spiders little Davis” Jose says. All I could do is shake my head and continue laughing; I then throw the shoe as Alan takes a look at the bottom of it.

There is literally nothing left of that spider on the floor or on Alan’s shoe. I then quickly remembered that I didn’t give Jose’s jacket back to him so I quickly get it and head outside of the shed. I yell for Jose who is only a few feet away from the shed, I then throw the jacket to him and thanked him. “You alright?” Mark says coming from behind me, I quickly glance at him and then head back to the shed. Later that afternoon Alan and some other Marines where going to head out into the hills. Something about how they would routinely check the hill side for any activity from the enemy, I decided to tag along hearing that nothing ever happened. We were about a good two miles away from the village; there really is nothing to see just trees, rocks and a bunch of hills. Mike is the one who starts to walk next to me, “Hey Davis listen about last night…” Mike begins to say “It’s okay Mike you don’t have to explain no damage done” I say. Mike nods and smiles at me, Mike was about to say something when several gunshots go off in the distance. I quickly hit the ground while the other soldiers begin to fire at the direction the gunshots came from. Everyone was paying attention at the direction where the gunshots were coming from except for two people. Alan would sometimes look back me just to make sure I was okay, while Mark looked back at me as well. At one point the gunfire was getting bad that Alan threw a small gun at me just in case someone got the idea to take me for a hostage again.

 Some soldiers moved up the small path towards the gunfire I stayed behind squatting next to a tree. Then all of a sudden the gunfire ended and I can hear Alan’s voice calling my name in the distance. I quickly get up and run to where Alan is calling me, Alan is on top of someone putting pressure on a soldier’s chest. I had the medical backpack on me but before I could take it off I see who the solider on the ground is. Mike is bleeding heavily from his chest; it looks like a bullet manages to go threw his vest. I see blood coming out if his chest and it paralyzes me, all I can think of is my father. I think of that day when my parents died it always paralyses me. I start breathing heavy and I can see Alan yelling at me but I can’t hear his or even move. Then slowly Alan’s voice starts to process through my head and I am back to reality, I then move closer to Alan and take off the back pack. I see some of the soldier looking at me weird and to top it off I have watery eyes and I am still breathing heavy. I see Alan working on Mike but his wounds are too extensive and it doesn’t look good. After about five minutes Alan’s efforts are not working and Mike dies on that dirt road.

I still have watery eyes and my breathing hasn’t improved; I then take a few steps forward to the nearest tree kind of far from where everyone else is. I just put my hand on the tree trying to catch my breath and calm my tears, the images of my father begin to fade and I start to calm down. I then hear Alan’s voice telling me to come back to where the squad is, I didn’t notice but I was a good twenty feet away from everyone. I then take a deep breath and turn around; as I turn around I hear a gunshot and it’s almost as if someone pushed me forward. I fall to the ground face first I then put my right arm to my left shoulder and I find blood. Then bullets start to fly above me as the gunfire resumes again, I can see Alan running towards me but is stopped my some of the soldiers. I try to crawl towards the soldiers but they are just too far and the pain is excruciating. I had no choice but to turn around and lay on my back, bullets are flying everywhere now and I am in the middle of it. I have my hand on top of my shoulder but I am loosing too much blood. I then look to my right and see that two men in robes are sprinting towards me, all I can do is watch as they get closer to me.

They are going to take me away again and make me their prisoner, my eyes start to cry and the blood keeps on coming out. Then both of the men drop dead about five feet away, I turn to my left and Mark is on one knee with his gun pointed at the two men. The gunfire dies down and I just look into Mark’s eyes, fear is written all over them. I then turn to my right again and Alan is by my side putting more pressure on my shoulder. Alan is saying something to me but I can’t hear all I can do is watch his mouth move. I then look over Alan’s shoulder and I can see my parents standing behind Alan, both of them are looking down at me. My eyes widen and I start to panic for some reason this scares the hell out of me. I know that the village is far from here, I know that my wound may have hit an artery; I know that Alan may not be able to save me, and I know that I may die here on this dirt road. My eyes then feel heavy and I start to close them wondering if I made a mistake coming to the frontlines of the war.

Chapter 2 coming soon…