Chapter 4: The Fire on My Arm

After Danny died, I wasn’t the same. Losing Larkson had left a hole in me, but losing Danny felt like the earth had shifted beneath my feet. I was the last of the Three Musketeers. The silence in our barracks was deafening without his jokes, and every patrol felt like I was carrying both of them with me. But I couldn’t quit—not yet. I had a promise to keep. Danny’s letter said I had to live for both of them, so I stayed. I fought. I survived.

The mission that left the fire on my arm happened about a year after Danny’s death. We were tasked with clearing out a known insurgent stronghold—a cluster of abandoned buildings in the middle of nowhere. The intel said they were stockpiling weapons, but no one mentioned the traps.

The firefight started the moment we breached the perimeter. Bullets tore through the air, ricocheting off the crumbling stone walls. My squad was pinned down, unable to move forward, so I flanked left, leading a small team to break the stalemate. Every step felt like I was walking into a hornet’s nest, the adrenaline dulling my fear, sharpening my focus.

Then I saw it—a grenade rolling toward us. I barely had time to shout “Grenade!” before diving for cover. The explosion ripped through the room, and the blast wave threw me into a pile of debris. My arm caught fire instantly. The heat was searing, the flames licking up the sleeve of my uniform. I scrambled to put it out, but the pain was blinding. All I could think about in that moment was Danny and Larkson—how they would have yelled at me to get up, to keep moving, to survive.

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I grabbed a discarded tarp and smothered the flames, my mind racing as the smell of burning fabric and skin filled the air. The firefight wasn’t over, and I couldn’t stop. The medics would have to wait.

We pushed through and cleared the building, neutralizing the last of the insurgents. Only then did my squad leader notice the state of my arm. The sleeve was gone, and the skin underneath was a charred, blackened mess. “You’re insane, James,” he said, shaking his head. “Get to the medevac. Now.”

The recovery was slow and brutal. The burns were deep, leaving thick scars that would never fully heal. At night, I’d lie awake in the medical tent, staring at the ceiling, thinking about Danny and Larkson. The fire on my arm felt like a metaphor for what I was carrying—this weight, this pain that seemed to burn from the inside out.

But I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. The scars on my arm were a constant reminder that I was still here, that I had survived when so many others hadn’t. They were proof that Danny and Larkson’s legacy lived on in me.

Even now, I can still feel the fire sometimes, as if the scars are more than skin deep. But instead of letting it consume me, I use it to keep moving forward. Because no matter how much it hurts, I know they’d want me to keep going.