12-24-2030
Dear Mom,
We are deployed all over Northern Russia. These commies are giving everything they got. Basically what I wanted to say is, I’m not going to make it home for Christmas this year. I love you mom.
Your Daughter,
Sam Marx
Two Weeks Later
1-12-2031
There was gunfire everywhere. I had just watched my commanding officer get killed. In that moment my whole life flashed before my eyes. I had spent way too much time watching movies. My last mag had just been used, and the Russians were advancing. My brain made a split-second decision to run and ran until the gunfire and explosions were gone.
When I reached the safe house, I banged on the door and yelled, “It’s Sam! Let me in!”
“Tell me something that no one else would know!” yelled Ty, a friend of mine I had met in basic training. He’s nineteen, a year older than me, and has brown hair and brown eyes.
“You have rainbow boxer-shorts that are hand-me-downs from your sister!” I yelled in response.
“Yup. It’s you.”
When he let me in, he hugged me. Then I noticed something was wrong. It was too quiet. Too empty.
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“Where is everyone?”
“They’re all gone.”
“Gone how? Missing or…” I hesitated.
Ty’s voice choked. “They’re all dead. Everyone from my squad.”
“What happened exactly?”
“Our humvee was hit by an RPG. We clawed ourselves out of the wreckage. But that’s when the barrage of grenades came raining down on top of us, picking us off one by one. Well those not already dead. The only reason I survived is because my leg got trapped when the RPG exploded. The Russians never checked the humvees for survivors, thank goodness. What about your squad? What happened to them?”
“Dead. Every last one as far as I know. Major Sims too.” Shock flashed across Ty’s face. “I know. I wouldn’t believe it either if I hadn’t been there. If I hadn’t seen it.” Sadness, fear, and mostly anger flowed through me at the same time.
“Was there anything you could’ve done?”
“The bullet hit her in the shoulder. She would’ve survived if it hadn’t clipped her brachial artery. There was nothing I could do. All the medical supplies were gone, and it was just the two of us left, completely surrounded. I’m sorry, Ty.”
He pulled out a picture from his back pocket. Major Sims holding him as a baby. He gripped his dog tags so tightly I figured that they would snap in half. He stared at the name on them: “Tyrone Sims.”
“So, we are all that’s left?” Ty asked. “One nineteen year old boy and one eighteen year old girl out of the three-thousand men and women. Why did it have to be us? Out of all those people that had way more experience than us. Why us?”
That’s the toughest question that I had ever been asked. Why had I survived instead of Kyle or Lee or Sims or Alex? Why did I have to watch my friends die and then have to live with the memories of their deaths seared into my brain?
“Maybe we survived because we were supposed to do something.”
“Like what, Sam?! What could we possibly do?!” he yelled at me.
“I don’t know, Ty! I don’t know.”
On that note, I went to bed. I knew that if I didn’t get any sleep soon that I was going to lose my mind. Personally,I didn’t like how Ty and I left things, but we were starting to sound like an old married couple. Which is not a pleasant thought when you are just best friends. Where was I? Oh yeah, so I just didn’t like fighting with Ty.