Chapter 5
The midnight drill was unannounced, catching the barracks in a deep, heavy slumber. The harsh wail of the siren cut through the dark like a butcher's knife, sending recruits scrambling out of their bunks in a blind panic. Boots hit the floor with frantic thuds, belts were buckled with fumbling fingers, and helmets were slammed onto heads as the red emergency lights bathed the room in an apocalyptic glow.
"Fall out! Full gear in three minutes!" Vance’s voice bellowed from the hallway, sounding entirely too awake for someone who had supposedly been asleep an hour prior.
Miller grabbed his rucksack, heavy with sandbags, and flung it over his shoulders. The straps bit sharply into his collarbones, pressing directly against the bruises from the previous day's obstacle course. He sprinted out the door and into the freezing darkness of the quad, where the rest of the squad was already forming up in jagged, disorganized lines.
The moon was hidden behind a thick ceiling of clouds, casting the training area into near-total obscurity. Vance stood at the front, holding a heavy tactical map illuminated by the faint red glow of a penlight.
"You are cut off behind enemy lines," Vance announced, his voice dropping to a low, intense register that forced the recruits to lean in to hear. "Your radio is dead. You have two miles of swamp and hostile territory between you and the extraction point. If you use lights, you're dead. If you make noise, you're dead. Move as a unit or don't move at all."
Without another word, he pointed toward the gaping maw of the dense pine forest that bordered the base. The trees rose like jagged black teeth against the night sky.
Miller found himself at the front of the column, flanked by Elena on his left and Davies on his right. They stepped off the gravel path and into the suffocating gloom of the woods. The ground immediately turned treacherous—a spongy labyrinth of decaying roots, hidden sinkholes, and stagnant water that sucked at their combat boots with every step.
Visibility was practically zero. Miller had to rely entirely on the faint shadow of Elena moving directly ahead of him, her boots making almost no sound on the wet mulch. Every snap of a twig sounded like a gunshot in the dead silence of the forest.
After a mile of grueling navigation, the terrain dropped steeply into a marshy creek. The water was waist-deep, freezing cold, and smelled strongly of iron and rot. Davies hesitated at the edge, his breathing turning shallow and fast. Panic was beginning to grip the younger recruit; his chest heaved as he stared into the black water.
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Elena stopped instantly, turning back to grab Davies by the shoulder. "Look at me," she whispered fiercely, her face inches from his in the dark. "Breathe with me. In for four. Hold for four. Out for four."
Miller stood guard beside them, his rifle raised into the shadows, scanning the tree line for an enemy that only existed in their minds, but felt entirely real.
