The Soldier Next Door

It has been a few good days since our standoff in Fallujah. Much to my protest, but happy to himself, Gibbs is up and running again. He is most definitely running around with the nurse, which I know him; he fully won’t continue the relationship once we are back at base. But I will let the man have his fun; I somehow doubt that it shall interfere with his capability to word, for unlike the rest of us here, he won’t feel the slight bit frustrated at all.

And let us hope that he got it all and even a bit extra, for we are taking ourselves a bit further into the city than last time. Now I am not going to say a routine run anymore, for the shit does seem to hit harder. Today we will be three Humvees, one squad, and one team in a Stryker. Yes, the big ass truck that Ana is shooting me with when I get home, the woman has still not forgiven me for that. Best she does not hear what we are doing with an M1A2.

Besides the point, we are ready to head out. We soon find our way winding through the city streets, which by comparison to last time, is fairly busy with children running around and their very cautious parents sitting nearby. Now, as with all things around here, you do not know which of them holds a gun in their hands or, even far worse, are making our arrival known. But chances that we have to take and a chance as we are soon taking as we get to our destination and filtering out the Humvees to start making our approach on foot. It is time to search and clear again.

But the problem this time being, these are not old buildings and they are not all empty. As the resistance moved in, the offices cleared out with the workers, but the civilians made their way in for shelter. Shelter which is sometimes only granted by doing a favor for the group that occupies this area. So clearing is far more difficult and dangerous.

And with this, we enter the very first of our buildings. Williams is covering the roof for it is easy access to escape from here. We, as always, are not splitting up at this stage. Lining off on the left and right, Matthews signals to enter, “Go, go, go.”

We filter in, guns pointing straight ahead of us, ready to rip off your head at the sight of a gun. We spin. Left. Right. Clear. Next room. In. Left. Right. Clear. And so we go, with great ease, but as we hit the next, there is a family huddled in the corner. They have either just been instructed not to say a word, or they heard word that we are coming. Not causing any further alarm, we move along. But the corridor splits from left to right. Gibbs and two teams go left, and I, with mine, go right.

With the next room, same routine, but as everyone filters and move on, I take it at one pace to slow. Within as little of a second of a second, I feel a blow against my chest so hard that it knocks me off my feet. I find myself being dragged by the collar and lifted from the floor. I see one rather large man hovering over my body with a godawful smile on his face. At his attempt to pull me from the floor, I grab him by his shirt with so much force that it rips from his body, the buttons pop off one by one and drop like little peas to the floor. He immediately spins around and rids himself from his now shredded. He is now from mid to top bare in front of me.

But one would think that this man shall stop and realize his foolish mistake, I am somewhat sadly mistaken. He only but advances for me again; this time, though, he is moving rather slow, ominous, he is taunting me. He knows what will drive me, and it seem like he wants to play a little game; well, by all means, let us do.

“You sure you want to do this?” I laugh at him from deep in my belly, “You won’t be leaving here alive.”

He only but grunts at me; it only falls on ears that are not about to listen. The time for listening has passed, not after a blatant attack of war was made to my face. He shifts his feet at an incredible pace towards mine and reached his claw for my face. With one snap of his arm, he smashes his fist into my cheek. He retracts his arm to launch at me once again, but I grab it in midair. I twist it behind his back; I step closer.

“You are going to regret that.”

My grip goes firmer, and I push him off from his feet; he slides across the length of the room and crashes over the side with a loud thud on the floor.

I make my way to where he finds himself and yank him up by the shoulder; with utmost ease, I lift him in the air and toss his body to the other side of the room.

He rises to his feet and reaches me in less than an inch of the second; as he looks to the side for a brief second, he fools me to do as well. Then he slams his hands around my shoulders and tosses me into the hallway.

I expose my knife from my belt in pure elegance, and slowly and with the utmost dept, do I drag it down his chest. He screams out of horror, and he sees his skin is being split open slowly, bit by bit. Without even flinching, he draws one very same and tries to slam it into my stomach but only catching my side. Driving them in with utmost force, piercing deep, and as he slowly pulls them out again, he drives it back in even further. I look down and see his fingers that are soaked with my blood. And with soft little pitter-patter, it drops to the floor.

The agony makes me topple over in pain, but this is not a pain that I will show him. As I rise up, I rip him by his feet and rise his body in the air. Then I drop him and toss him toss him in his own pool of mess.

But the man is a fool, he rises from his feet, and he slams his fists in my chest. I recover from my stumble, but he gains control and drives my body straight into the far side wall, mere inches away from a pole of a chair that has been broken.

Then he looks at me and laughs at me rather proudly, “I could have killed you so easily there.”

My laughter vibrates back into his face as I say, “It is not that easy to kill me. But it is easy to kill you.”

I close my hand around his throat one by one and grip as hard as I can. I snap him off his feet and spin his body around. I drive him into the very pole that I just but missed inches ago.

Next, I softly whisper, “Told you that I could.”

As I catch up to the rest of the boys, they all look at me as if to say, “What the fuck?”

“Hey, he came after me; I only taught the man a lesson. Then he started to play dirty and pull out his knife; I pause for a few seconds, “Okay, I pulled out my knife, but he was bound to do it sooner or later.”

They only shake their shoulders and laugh at me. Then Gibbs goes to point at my side and softly chuckles to himself, “You always have to have yourself beaten up. Ana is going to have a fit.”

“She won’t know.”

“Yeah, like the big green tank gun.”

I only but shrug my shoulders, and we continue to clear the rest of the floor. And so we do once again, floor by floor, trying not to get into another confrontation again. Well, I think they mean rather me than them. But we get through without any further incident and soon find ourselves heading back to camp.

As I go to get looked at in the nurse’s tent, the nurse only gives me one look and shakes her head, “Are you and Gibbs going to be a problem?”

“Don’t you start to, just stitch me up and don’t tell me that I am not allowed to go out for a few days because I am not going to listen?”

“I think I need Ana’s phone number. I think she might not hear about this one.”NôvelDrama.Org copyrighted © content.

“Not you too. Does everyone know about the green truck?”

She whispers something I do not understand and carries on to stitch me up. Next thing I have Lopez walking up to me, “If you are done here, we need you back in the battle ops tent; we have a problem.”