DesertDoc [https://em.wattpad.com/0aa0897f50885790f97e7c9525b05cdf8bbed27d/68747470733a2f2f36382e6d656469612e74756d626c722e636f6d2f31383332386534343130306336353934353764353266643466346539303031622f74756d626c725f6f7468687972735a544d31777661726d326f315f3530302e6a7067?s=fit&h=360&w=720&q=80]
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"How do you feel?"
"Shut up brat. This isn't the time to be playing doctor."
I was wounded. A bullet go through the iron barricade my corp set up and it just ripped through the tendon in my arm. This was in a country in which I can't name due to classified information. But I do know we're in the middle of a f**king desert. Geh!...No good. The pain is numbing. The blood won't stop. In the end, I might be another KIA statistic.
I hate it... just when my sis gave birth to my nephew last week. I only had to wait 6 more weeks, 6 more weeks before we get back home for mandatory R&R. Under these circumstances, I definitely don't want this 8 year old kid touching my bleeding arm.
"Seriously kid, this is a quarantine zone. You should have been evacuated!"
"Stop moving. The more your make any excessive fidgeting, the blood will keep pumping out of your wounds. We need to put pressure, here, hold this."
"Wh-what is this? Your lunch box?"
"No. It's my medical kit. I'm a doctor."
This 8 year old? This little girl covered from head to toe in dust and filth was a doctor?... No good, I've lost too much blood. I must be hallucinating.
"Wake up."
"GAH! WH-why the f**k did you hit me!?"
"If you passed out now, crossing the line of fire to reach you would have been all for nothing. I still have more patients to help on the battlefield so please cooperate."
"I said don't touch me pee-wee."
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"I said stop moving! Are you the type of person who joined the war just to die!?"
I hated this. I hate this situation from the bottom of my heart. This wasn't even my war, it was the civil war of another country. Yet my country dispatched our battalion in this wasteland. It wasn't worth it, but the politicians sitting back home in their AC-filled offices had other ideas. Winning this impossible fight will raise their election points. @ssholes.
"Wake up."
"STOP HITTING MY FACE!--GAAAAH!"
"There, this binding should do to keep you from bleeding out. Just in time, otherwise I would have to drag you 25 miles to the nearest Red Cross site to order a blood transfusion."
This girl said she was a doctor. She wasn't even higher than my waist. And she looked like a local yet her English was spot on. Who was she to think she could be a doctor.
"Get out of here, kid. The bad guys are coming in once they've worn down our front lines. They've already targeted half our artillery crew. It's only a matter of time before they take over this outpost. Go home."
"... I don't have a home."
"What?"
"This battlefield... to keep people from dying... it's the only place in this world I can call home."
"..............."
I didn't understand a word this girl was saying. But whatever she injected into me, it felt relaxing.
"This will slow down your heart to keep you from bleeding. It also doubles as anesthetic as I need to do some surgery to get the bullet out of your shoulder or the gunpowder will infect the joints. At that point, I can't help you keep your arm."
"... Who are you?"
"I never had a name, but the Foreign doctor who took me in called me Pippy. He said I was strong like a girl in a children's book he once read."
"Do you go by Longstocking and hold a horse above your head?"
"Are you making fun of me?"
At this point, my mind no longer carried about the guns shooting people outside, or reacting to the roaring of my fellow marines in combat. This was bad...I just wanted to sleep now.
"Wake up."
"Just stop hitting my face already. I have dignity."
My mind was wearing out, my body was limping. Either the injection was working or the blood loss was too much to keep my body stable. But I had to ask this question.
"Where's this doctor that took you in?"
"..............................................."
The girl didn't answer. Not because she was focused or angry. She merely pointed at a pile of rubble that was next to me. I could see a body pinned down under slabs of brick wall. He looked like a foreigner, the ID badge reading from a Danish surgeon company. Actually, he wasn't pin. He lost his entire lower half. Mortar round, I've seen too many to know the telltale details.
".................. Do you want to become a doctor?"
"I have no other outlet in life... This is the only thing that keeps me alive.... So... please stay with me."
"................................................................ Don't draw on my face while I'm out kid."
"I'll be honest, I'm still a child at heart. Please don't give me such dangerous ideas."
"Son of a b—"
I blacked out.