Melanie yawned dully getting up from her matt, she glanced around looking sleepy. Her classes wouldn’t start until maybe half hour, so she thought she had enough time to waltz about at base camp.
She had been asleep since the last raid attacks seemed to grow more and more frequent as the unknown troops started crossing the boarders, she wasn’t exactly sure what their intentions were but killing innocent civilians was enough reason for her to shoot them back.
Groggily she stood up straightening
out her uniform looking around her tent eying her assault rifle that sat just
beside her matt. She didn’t feel like using it today at all though every
feeling in her body as always told her she was always going to fight a war that
wasn’t theirs at all, besides the fact that the Canadian Military were
peacekeepers not just a primary defensive force currently set up in Nova
Scotia. Everything seemed wrong nowadays Americans and their battle in
Melanie sighed softly peeked
outside her tent glancing around at the empty wilderness of one of the few
remaining forest that still vaguely existed in
“What I am doing here…?”
She walked out of her tent stretching her arms out before sneaking outside to the camp being careful not to wake anyone else up; careful so her own teammates don’t mistake her for an enemy and shoot her instead.
Quietly she came to a tree and leaned on it, she had sneaked her way to the edge of the forest and could see the bright sun rising in the distance above the Atlantic seas.
“Who… where am I? This is a dream…”
“Hey,” someone whispered behind her, she turned around smiling.
“Couldn’t sleep either eh, Brad?” Melanie giggled quietly.
“Nope couldn’t resist coming out to see the sun rise, looks almost the same as it did back in those days” The man said with a half smile. He wore the same colors and stripes as Melanie and a little taller than her.
“Yes… its beautiful” she leaned on the tree sighing dreamily, “When will it all end, I want to go back home.”
“Soon I think, shouldn’t be long I suppose unless something happens, your brain’s practically the only thing keeping us alive.”
Somehow Melanie felt he meant something else, not just about her strategy when in battle but he meant something different. Could he possibly know? She questioned herself until she glanced over to the sea again without another word.
“Know
what? What did I know?” she echoed the question in her own head frustrated.
“Hey!
Wake up!”
“Wake up!”
The voice echoed in her mind and she stirred softly, reluctantly opening her eyes again. She felt weak again, very weak. She opened her eyes slowly the bright light above her almost blinding her, she forced her eyelids open and turned away from the light, staring at the wall. She was on the floor again a hard, cold metal floor with bars, she was in a cell, but there were two other people with her. She saw their shadows without much difficulty and turned very slowly.
“You’re awake…” It was a woman probably as young as Melanie herself, the woman was kneeling beside her, with her hands on Melanie’s shoulder.
Again Melanie felt her tongue well up and she couldn’t say anything to the real world only in dreams she seemed to speak fully and clearly.
She looked up slowly, there was a man standing just outside the bars armed with a pistol, with his arms crossed over his chest waiting impatiently.
The woman in front of her glanced over her own shoulder at the guard and beckoned him to go away, “If I need you I’ll call you.”
The guard complied and left not without a shrug and sigh.
“Okay it’s just me now, nothing to worry about” the woman projected with such a very comforting tone, Melanie could of guessed she was either a psychiatrist or a doctor. “Can you tell me your name?”
She couldn’t speak still and she didn’t want to try so she only shook her head and weakly pointed at her own name plate on her uniform.
“Melanie Johnson… well Melanie, don’t be scared okay? You’re in good hands.” For some reason Melanie thought that was more sarcastic than comforting considering she was in a jail cell rather than a medical ward.
The woman stood up dusting herself off to get something. Melanie couldn’t see from where she was laying down then the woman turned around with a bowl and bent down again.
“Here eat this, you haven’t had nearly enough supplements for a long time.” the doctor gingerly handed her the bowl.
She took it with a nod, it was filled with liquid, but she trusted the other woman so with both hands she started drinking up the contents. Melanie realized it was chicken soup and she slurped it up hungrily it was then she found out just how hungry she was, back on the ship fear over took that feeling. Her stomach grumbled almost instantly to the soup. She had never felt or remembered ever being so hungry.
When she was done, Melanie looked up; the woman who had given the soup was turned around writing on a notepad. So she just noted the woman, the woman wore a plain light brown uniform probably suited for the Navy, but peculiarly she didn’t exactly dress a doctor would. Melanie found out just by watching for a time, the woman was a field medic just by looking at the red cross adjacent to her ranking signet. Which strangely enough Melanie recognized and could distinguish, the girl’s a sergeant, she thought but that was only to her understanding, a sergeant was the appropriate term in the Army or Marine Corps… but not the Navy…
“Oh, you’re done? Good” again the medic talked in a friendly voice which made Melanie a little uneasy but at the same time relieved.
She noted the medic’s name tag, like her own it was written in the same way “CPO Kathryn E. Wilson” it stated the person as, she didn’t know what the CPO stood for only that it was high enough to tell a standard guard what to do.
“Melanie, can you speak?” Kathryn reflected.
Melanie could only answer by shaking her head, she didn’t feel like talking anywhere and there was still the little sore in her throat that prevented her from saying anything anyway.
“Well that’s okay; do you now where you are?”
Again she shook her head.
“Well,” Kathryn continued “you’re on a ship called the Hornet”
The name didn’t seem that recognizable, only she knew where the name came from…
“My name is Kathryn, I’m part of the medical staff here if you need anything, anything at all, just press the button on this pager,” she took out a small black device with a red button, and she pressed the button to test it out. A small buzzing sound came from a speaker on Kathryn’s belt. She placed the pager in Melanie’s hands then stood up, “Oh and if that guard causes you trouble just give me a bad look and point at him so I can slap him.”
Kathryn winked then exited the cell closing the barred doors, “Sorry you have to be in there for awhile… we need to settle something first… I am sorry.”
She left quietly, leaving Melanie there in a cold dark cell.
Melanie could only just stare blankly at the thing in her hand, all she could think about was her dreams she couldn’t understand anymore… her life had turned into a huge jigsaw puzzle she had to solve quickly or else she had a feeling things may never be the same again.
