How Scary Was It?

I possessed a soldier from some post modern war who stood about five-foot-ten with dusty brown hair, hazel eyes and dirty pale skin. He wore a Special Ops U.S. brain basket, urban fatigues with Canadian flashers and worn out combat boots. The webbing was frayed barely holding the few extra clips and a smoke grenade close to the body and a beaten up aluminum canteen that sloshed with the remaining liquid inside. Around his waist a wide black belt supported a pouch a little larger than a cassette, four pistol clips and a worn out, flat gunmetal blue with pearl handled Colt .45. He carried a UMP .45 equipped with a night vision scope and flash suppressor.

The dream ALWAYS started the same.

Crouched, looking forward I and a team of five crept through a corridor with a gray cinderblock wall pocked with bullet holes to my left and a brown wooden fence to my right or what was left of it anyway. The ground was packed dirt stained with blood and strewn with fragments and remains from the last attempt to take this section of the city. Flashes of light broke through the smoke filled night sky as fighting continued elsewhere in the distance. A narrow ledge of concrete lifted me an extra foot that I might see over the ruined fencing and farther into the battlefield.

Reaching the corner I raised the submachine gun, pressing it firmly against my right shoulder and peered into the lit convex lens. It projected a grayscale image of the entire area to the last detail. I could see insects dodging burning embers that spiraled up from fiery debris. Imperfections in the landscape stood out from the calm of undisturbed foliage. Bodies littered the space between my position and the goal I felt driven to reach at all costs. Glancing to my left I could see other soldiers climbing through windows and poised just outside with their backs against the wall. Men from every nationality I knew formed the defensive perimeter.

Looking across the gap of only a few meters I began to examine every window, every crack large enough to put the barrel of a gun through. I watched for any signs of life, anything that might give the position of the enemy away. The fluttering fronds of a gillie or the warm breath of a hidden warrior, there was nothing.

A pat on my head signaled the advance I was reluctant to respond to. Hesitating for a magic moment when my colleagues entered my weapon’s field of view. My heart tried to smash its way through my chest and I could hear the foot steps of impatient comrades moving around me to press on with the others. A narrow space of darkness stretched like a rubber band tensing with each step of progress made by the line of brave men.

It started with a spark from the darkness as the first of many bullets streaked through the air impacting like being struck by a baseball, pushing the body of an advancing soldier back into the arm of the man behind him who clutched his gun under the other arm and returned fire pulling the wounded man away from harm.

The air was thick with the sounds of gunfire and the voices of those who fought tirelessly to hold their position. Wave after wave of men pressed the attack against a foe they could not see and wave after wave died.

I fired into the abyss picking my shots with carefully calculated accuracy at every dot of light that came from the other side. If I hit anything or not I didn’t know but I did what I could to protect my self and my men. Fragments of high velocity stone disintegrated against my helmet when my position was discovered and molten lead took chunks out of the limited protection I remained behind. Expending the thirty round magazine I released the clip allowing it to fall where it may and slammed a fresh one in its place. Another shot ricocheted off the corner of the building sent me prone with instinctive reflex. I fired rolling out of my hiding place then dragged my torso and legs as my elbows drove and tore at the grass dug into the blood soaked mud in an attempt to reach the line. The stench of death was unlike anything I had ever experienced. Entrails, bits of flesh and bone pressed and cut into my clothing. Crimson sweat stung my roadmap eyes its metallic taste sickened me as it lubricated my parched, cracked lips. The noise became deafening until suddenly it was silent. Not a sound, no screams of anguish, no cries for help, no calls to glory, no shot fired, no lights in the sky, absolutely silent.

I held my place for an eternity, petrified by the thought of someone finding me alive. The idea that my throat would be slit and my tongue pulled through it or beheading me with a knife for public display, caused my body to shiver uncontrollably. I felt cold yet the sweat continued to trickle down my face. Pulling a bloody pulp under my chest I slithered over the dead man inching my way into the unknown. It was all I wanted to do. If I could reach the other side enemy or not I would have better cover and a better chance to survive but I would not make it that far.

At the edge of the line a dyke of the dead and dyeing heaved and quivered like a single organism held back by an invisible force. A force so strong one would think it the largest army on Earth, an army without men with a reach of the most powerful weapon imaginable. Undaunted by persistent bombardment it pushed on the mass of bloodied bodies rolling them like a demented red pastry.

I struggled to keep from being buried alive refusing to turn back or give up the ground I had made. As if I were in a rolling sea I swam up the wave of limbs and torsos in an attempt to reach its crest. Clawing and scraping my arms and legs worked for all their worth until finally my battered soul gripped with fear stood atop looking into the nothingness that was death itself.

I awoke drenched in sweat screaming and yelling, shivering with cold fright. This reoccurring dream repeated itself for many weeks. It was so taxing that I talked to Doctors of all sorts most said, “That is a very out of character… for a kind hearted guy like you that’s very violent…” etc. The dreams finally stopped after almost two years of tormented sleep. On the eve I was diagnosed with bone Cancer due to an injury sustained plugging a stubborn power cord into the wall. My right scapula cracked and broke inward like a soup dish, the clavicle separated from the rotator cuff and the humorous broke like an egg leaving bone chips and damage throughout the shoulder. I am very lucky I still have it and my arm at all.

The message got through realizing it was the battle for my life I was witnessing through my sub consciousness. A battle I was losing…until I was made aware of it. They call it Multiple Myeloma, an incurable bone marrow cancer that would have eventually killed me in my sleep. Although there is no cure I am celebrating my 5th year of total remission. It’s been almost ten years since those terrible dreams but I know what to do if they ever come back and I hope that they never come back.

Peace all