All the Cuts and Scars We Hide by Garry Michael
Twenty-Six: Wyatt
This Reality Was Worse Than Any Nightmare
The sound of beeping machines coupled with the chilliness of the room woke me from a deep sleep. My first attempt to open my eyes failed when a blinding light of yellow and white pierced through my retinas like pins and needles, causing them to shut involuntarily. My eyelids fluttered as I attempted to open them the second time around, slowly giving them time to adjust to the brightness of the room caused by the annoying fluorescent lights above. I found myself lying in a strange bed, with only white linen covering me.
I raised my right arm and followed the thin tube that ran from the top of my hand to the bag of clear solution. Liquid dripped through a small cylindrical chamber which was attached to the bottom of a clear bag and hanging on a thin metal rod. Another set of soft tubes were in my nostrils, hooked to the green oxygen tank over the headboard. ‘Military Treatment Hospital’ was where I was, according to the words painted on the wall. I was unable to think clearly from being disoriented. But why am I there? I thought to myself when every part of my body ached, my head was pounding so hard, the pain made me see spots. I finally shut my eyes and let sleep pull me back into oblivion.
Boom! An explosion rattled Kabul, causing tremors that could be felt for miles. I followed the direction of where our troops fired the grenade launcher, Afghani soldiers were in retreat and running away. My fellow marines scurried down the streets looking for survivors. I leaned forward to pull an injured marine from the street to get them to the convoy, but I wasn’t able to grab him. He reached out an arm, and my finger slid once again. Staff Sergeant Bennett grabbed the injured marine’s hand and pulled him up to his feet. Cries of agony escaped the injured soldier’s mouth when he put pressure on one of his legs. The Staff Sergeant was standing right in front of me, looking in my direction, but not seeing me.
“Where’s Martinez?” I asked, but he didn’t respond. “Staff Sergeant, have you seen Martinez?” I asked once again, my frustration growing. Stunned, he walked through me as if I were made of air. I was confused. I turned around and followed them, gazing at my hands with concern.
“Wyatt,” Martinez’s voice took me out of my stupor from what had just happened.
Smoke swirled around a cloud of debris and shadow materialized through the chaos. I recognized Jim, but before I could take a step toward him, a fellow marine pulled Jim up. Jim hung on to the guy as if he were a lifeline on a sinking ship. There was something familiar about the man assisting Jim, even though the guy was covered with black ash and dust like everyone else. From the way he moved to the way he knew how to calm a frantic Jim. Who could that be?
The familiar man put Jim’s arm around his shoulder and used his strength to pull them up. He said something to Jim who responded with a nod. The unknown soldier slowly lifted his head just when another plume of rancid smoke wafted around me. I narrowed my eyes to focus on the distorted shadows walking toward me. Their images broke through the billowing blackness that swirled around us and that's when I saw his face.
The man holding Jim was me.
I bored the heels of my palms into my eyes, trying to wipe the image I surely couldn’t be seeing. I opened them again, but there I was still holding Jim. My mind reeled. This didn’t make any sense. “Jim!” I yelled, but just like Staff Sergeant Bennet, neither he nor the other me acknowledged my call.
“IED,” someone yelled from a distance.
My heart raced and I hurried toward them, but before I could even get halfway there, an ear-splitting blast reverberated through me. Burnt fragments and chunks of detritus rained down on the area where the two men were moments before. A few feet away I saw where the other me had landed, but Jim was nowhere to be found. I squinted through the fresh smoke that stung my eyes to assess my wounds. When I patted my torso, I realized that I was unscathed.
The other me moved his arms one by one, then did the same with his legs.
I needed to find Jim and started combing the ground for any signs of him. Spotting Jim's boot through the rising dust and smoke, I rushed to his side. I wasn't ready for the gruesome fact that the leg wasn't attached to a body. Fuck. My stomach twisted in pain but I forced myself to keep looking. The horror gripped me when I took in the charred bits of body parts scattered over the blood-splattered ground. Jim had been blown to pieces and what was left was unrecognizable. My heart stopped and the bloody ground distorted.
I opened my mouth to scream but no sound came out when my soul ripped from my body.
I gasped for air like I had been submerged underwater for a moment too long and was taking my dying breath when I startled out of my nightmare. Flashes of the ambush and Jim’s body played continuously in my mind. Now I understood why I was in the make-shift military hospital.
Soft voices and shadows on the other side of the privacy curtain caught my attention, so I listened closely to their conversation. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up when I realized that they weren’t speaking English. No, they were speaking Arabic. Those motherfuckers were here to kill me.
I closed my eyes and relaxed my body, pretending to be asleep when their voices got closer. I counted to three before I opened my eyes, and lunged toward the man at the side of my bed. My suspicions had been right, he was one of the Afghani soldiers. I grabbed him by the throat, my force dropping us to the floor. I applied more pressure as I straddle him from above to incapacitate the man sent to finish me off. “I’m going to fucking kill you,” I barked as I put more pressure on the kill.
***
“Wyatt,” a breathy voice called.
Ignoring it, I continued to put more pressure on the enemy’s neck. I was going to break it, but I wanted to see him suffer first and look into the eyes of death before he took his last breath. I wouldn’t give him mercy, not for what he did to Jim.
“Wyatt, it’s me,” the voice called once again, a hand caressing my face. “It’s me, Kai.”
I blinked in confusion at the mention of Kai’s name. I looked around the room expecting to see a hospital bed in the military hospital. Instead, I was in a dark bedroom.
A muffled moan caused me to look down and I saw Kai pinned beneath me with my hands wrapped around his neck.
It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream, it’s just a dream.
Horror and shame hurdled me into a cruel reality. This was worse than any nightmare.
I released him from my hold so swiftly that it caused me to tumble to the floor and knocked the wind out of me.
“Wyatt,” Kai gasped before his shocked face appeared over the side of the bed. “Are you okay?”
I shook my head and looked at my shaking hands. Did I really just choke Kai?
Kai rubbing the red marks on his neck made my stomach curdle. “Wyatt?”
I averted my eyes. What if I hadn’t woken up? What if I had succeeded? My heart skipped before attempting to pound through my ribs. I covered my face to hide.
“Wyatt? Look at me please?” Kai begged after my extended silence. His voice was breaking. The covers rustled when he climbed off the bed. His fingers caressed my hands before he pried them open so he could look into my eyes. “I’m okay, see?”
I shook my head, afraid to utter a sound. My fear of becoming that guy was coming true.
“Please let me in,” Kai pleaded. When I didn’t respond, he continued, “Why won’t you let me in?”
I couldn’t tell him. He’d never understand, no one ever did. I’ve been alone for so long, I never thought I needed someone until that evening when he saw me crumbling. He wiped away my tears tenderly with his thumbs. I didn’t know I was crying. I wanted to have him, and I wanted to be his, but I was broken and dangerous.
“Talk to me,” he urged.
Too exhausted to fight, I took a deep breath and spoke, “Darkness is all I know, Kai, and the light you bring threatens to expose all the cuts and scars I hide. I don’t want you to wake up one day and only see the broken pieces of me.”