The Lights of Darkness

"In the essence of time, I've learned only one truth: Life is an endless turmoil of love, disappointment, and the unknown."-Unknown

A slight humming rose and fell amongst the battered ground. What once was a lush grassy meadow became barren and covered in smoke and dust. The ringing came after and for ten seconds all was quiet and ominous. I rose slowly assessing the situation, then realizing that neither my furry partner nor the rest of my unit were by my side, panic ensued. I heard a soft sneeze and about 50 yards ahead of me my military dog, Sandstorm, shook off his fur free from dirt and uprooted grass that had miraculously covered him while the triggered mines were going off. He had stopped when he sensed the first IED and crouched down digging into the ground preparing for the worst, knowing what he was signaling, I dropped down automatically and within seconds the ground came alive as they began to detonate. Everything came into focus as he and I crawled quickly towards each other. I looked behind me grateful when my unit smiled back and nodded, thanking me with quiet thumbs up. But that happiness quickly turned to distress as when we looked out into the distance ahead we saw what had caused the bombs to go off. A familiar MWD dragged herself forward. It was a most haunting sight for me, for that familiar dog began to whine horribly carrying her handlers tags around her neck, collapsing before me. I looked down horrified witnessing her eyes roll back, and realizing that from her waist down there was nothing there. I dared to look at her bloody trail where her insides lay scattered. Sandstorm nudged Ghost gently and looked out where she had come from.

“Gantez!”

“Yes, Chief?” Lieutenant Gantez crawled to my side quickly repositioning his helmet and rifle.

“Confirm with command if no other unit was supposed to go ahead of us. This is MWD Ghost from Team 56, they were supposed to be departing Pearl Harbor tomorrow.”

“Yes, Chief!” Gantez began radioing and within 5 minutes we received confirmation that Team 56 was indeed ahead of us. Due to the classified nature of our mission we were not advised. My heart dropped, and my unit crawled closer to me awaiting instructions. Holding back tears, I took in a shuddering breath before speaking.

“Listen up Team! Sandstorm and I will move forward looking for survivors. You will all stay back and hide amongst the treeline until we return, don't want to push our luck, is that understood?”

“No Chief, you will not go alone. We have your six!” They all yelled in unison.

“That’s an order team! It's not a matter of question…”

“Chief please, you have that title for a reason. We know why you want to go, your heart cannot understand the shock,” Smith spoke up suddenly, normally quiet, he cleared his throat and nodded showing respect, “and therefore it's something that we in our best conscience cannot let you deal with alone. Please let Jonah, Gantez, and I go with you, the rest of the nine can stay back with the radio.” The unit was uneasy, we preferred to stick together but it was for the best for us to split.

Sandstorm had become alerted as he sensed something amongst the bush, he rarely growled unless it was an animal, and what stood in the shadows of the bush looked like a very large animal indeed. Jonah grabbed me pushing me behind himself, before grabbing the rifle and shooting at the shadow, Gantez followed suit. I recalled Sandstorm to my side, positioned my rifle when suddenly I looked to the side where a familiar face stared lifeless at me. A frightful clicking type growl brought me back to the situation at hand. Gantez was down clearly in pain and suddenly he began to bleed out.

“Oh, shit! Gantez! Gantez! Fuck!” I rushed to his side to save his head from hitting the ground forcefully. Before I could say his name again, I checked for a pulse and sank down in dismay. He was gone.

“Run!” I looked up to see Jonah on his knees also bleeding out, as Smith yelled. “Go! Go! Go!” Smith grabbed me from the rifle strap and forced me back, almost dropping and dragging me along. I balanced my footing, spun around and we were in full sprint. As we reached the treeline and the safety of the shadows I looked back to see that whatever was lurking was now gone.

***

The action of that gruesome day had given birth to many of my most gruesome nightmares, many made up stories, and lies. The upper ranking officers began scrutinizing my every move with magnifying glasses without knowing the precinct of why I became who I was. Bitter, cold, and refused to admit any more people to my unit. I argued that I could not go through losing more souls so carelessly and that the act of replacing them almost immediately was bordered in disrespecting the dead. The military was something I thought would be my savior, but man! I was wrong. I always wanted to excel and be the best of the best, hence why I picked the toughest and the most classified position in the United States Navy that I could obtain as a freshly graduated high schooler with no life experience outside of North Long Beach. A challenge worth dying for. But I never imagined that it would come with a high cost of life other than my own. I lost my childhood love, and two of my closest comrades in a blink of an eye. Nineteen years apiece just blown to shit out in that field.

"It was a minefield, Nunfio. Nothing more. Damn dogs weren't working right..." My look made the Admiral before me cower. He and I knew that the words leaking from his mouth like black ooze, was bullshit. I also knew that me being a young Chief would not break rank and disrespect him. I took in a deep breath and let it out in an exasperated sigh.

“Yes, Admiral Curt, it may have been the dogs…” I stared deep into his eyes, “may I be excused?” I clenched my jaw, fighting back angry tears, but I knew that my face was already turning a crimson red.

“You may be excused, Chief Nunfio. '' We both stood up at the same time, saluted, and as I turned on my heel I felt a tear fell and ricocheted off of my label pin.

A week had passed since the incident. Smith had seen what Gantez and Jonah were shooting at, but before I could talk to him, I had gotten the news that he had gone on leave the following day following his psych evaluation. I had scheduled it after seeing him vomit and shaking violently when we reached base. I reassured him as best I could, for it was my due diligence to do so, although I was a mess myself.

He stared deep into my eyes and said coldly, “This was a set up.” I looked at him perplexed, thinking at first that he was blaming me for the deaths of our friends. Shandiah, our unit’s medic, came forward and took a knee beside us.

“She asked us to stay back, you cannot blame her.”

“No, no of course not! We agreed we would come and have her back. But this was a set up. I've never seen anything like it before, but I know it was a set up…” His eyes glazed over as they looked out into the distance.

“I will be setting up a psych eval for both of us when we return, Smith. PTSD is a bitch.” He nodded numbly in agreement. It was one of the things I had mentioned and engrained in the guy’s heads from day one. I didn't know the importance of mental health as I do now, but I made sure they were comfortable[...] talking about anything that lay in their minds, no matter how traumatic. We were open, we were safe amongst each other, and that's what made them closer than blood. Me being their Commanding Chief, it was hard for some of them to put their pride and misogynistic upbringing aside when I was assigned to their unit. But after our first tour together in Iraq, and Sandstorm's amazing tactical instincts, we returned to Hawai’i intact with few scratches and bruises and I’ve always been a fan of bonding over a good campfire, food, and couple beers.

As I sat staring in a vacant gaze to the Commanding Chief I asked him to fall silent, by simply raising my hand. I stood up and excused myself, MWD Sandstorm close at my heel. I looked down as I exited his office, and rubbed his soft ear.

They would blame the dogs, they always found someone, or something, to blame. Like blaming goddamn weather balloons to mediate the sole fact that they had fucked up, and they did fuck up. They always do. I stopped and walked into the common area where my unit was eating their lunch.

“I will be heading off base to take care of something, guys…”

“What did he say? What happened? Smith is gone, didn't even say bye or grab his things from our dorm…”

“What!?” This alarmed me, “I must find him!” I hurried out without missing a beat and went straight to the base psychologist trying to see if she knew where Smith was heading. She stated she didn't, but that she had reached out to someone in the Pentagon under Smith’s orders, and shortly after he was escorted by unknown men in black suits to the airport.

Holy shit! I mouthed and slowly held onto the side of the wall outside her office.

Memories flooded in as I suddenly understood what Smith was trying to tell me. I knew something was amiss the moment all of us did not want our fallen brother’s death to be for nothing. We stayed near the treeline and away from the meadow, Sandstorm leading the way sniffing for bombs and for whatever creature may have been lurking. About three miles in our search I saw my fiancée in the battlefield. I stopped breathing, as if I was being choked. Then an anger I've never felt before began to slowly build and develop as Sandstorm began to growl. From the shadows a long shimmering jet-black arm appeared and seemed to reach out towards her body.

“Leave her alone!” I yelled angrily and bolted forward, as I cleared the brush and was exposed, I heard the men yelling for me as if muffled and far away. A dark shadow leapt over me and took its place between me and the creature. I slid to a halt so hard I fell backwards almost on top of Sandstorm. I stared in shock at the large, blurry thing, as if a black cloud had descended from the heavens with four distinct legs to walk, yet transparent enough that I was able to see the creature quickly recede its arm and rush away.

The transparent mass did not hesitate and followed suit. I waited for a minute, paying attention to Sandstorm calm down enough for me to feel safe enough to jog towards Marcy, letting the tears well-up as I looked down at her lifeless and dismembered body. Sandstorm kept growling and refused to move within five feet of her which I found perplexing but didn't force him. It could be the horrible scent of charred flesh that was aggravating his sensitive nostrils. Grief took hold of me, pushing me down to my knees, all the while a terrible humming echoed in my ears with flashes of me killing the creature. I shook my head, confused, feeling emotions that were unnatural to me, and feeling feverish. Maybe it was just the sickening feeling that my love was gone and that around her distinct dinosaur-like footprints trailed in the blood soaked earth leading away from the scene and disappearing out of thin air. It couldn't be the same creature that was hiding in the shadows, this was another one.

*1 month later*

My unit and I never did hear from Smith again. It absolutely killed me when I lost my fiancée, like I had just lost a vital limb. Her death had remained a mystery, and the reason I went nearly insane and suicidal as PTSD consumed my body, watered the dark seed all over again. I tried to come to terms with what truly could have happened that day. Maybe it was the night before my unit and I were going to be deployed to South Korea while being stationed in Hawaii with three other units that were going to follow us into the war zone later as reinforcements. Master-at-Arms Martinez had sent me her MWD with a note that raised suspicions of our relationship. I remember my unit snickering and giggling as they caught sight of MWD Ghost's black nose peeking through the tent. Everyone recognized the dog, as much as they knew the handler. In just a couple of months, Marcy and I had ranked up quickly and effortlessly, and we didn't even need to sleep with higher ranking men in order to do so, hence making us two of the most recognized Spec Ops Officers in the base. We mainly were credited to having been blessed by our dogs who just coincidentally were siblings from the same litter. MWD Ghost, named for her ghost-like demeanor while working, and a palomino coat color, walked quietly in and nudged my hand gently giving me the note with her mouth. She nudged me until I got up, then nuzzled her brother a gentle 'hello.' I felt his tail gently wag as he repositioned himself belly up and fell right back to sleep. It was pitch black, but Ghost guided me effortlessly out of the tent, I, as usual, was nervous as fuck. I walked through the tent flap quietly to not awaken the, then, Commanding Officer sleeping in the tent a couple yards away.

"I'll be back guys!" I whispered.

"We got your six, Nunfio." Through the small light of the moon I saw all 30 of them raise their thumbs up.

"Love you guys, I won't be long." It was then that I turned around and heard someone running away. I jogged toward the direction where Ghost looked, but I decided to let it be. I was left a bit rattled, so I decided to return to the tent, grab my rifle, and quietly call my dog, that way I didn't have to come back to base alone. MWD Sandstorm let out a sigh, but didn't hesitate a second to come to my side, did a quick stretch and a quick shake ready to go, I tensed up then immediately relaxed remembering that I always take off his collar before bed to minimize the noise while we all slept. I ventured out to the unusually warm dusty air with young MWD Sandstorm trailing me for safety, and MWD Ghost leading, nose on the ground doing what she was trained to do: sniffing for IEDs.

I fiddled around my back pocket finding the makeshift engagement ring made of reeds. My fiancée had given me the task of making one for her while we were deployed. Half a mile in I was ambushed with hugs and kisses. MWD Sandstorm broke from military conduct and bounded on Marcy, tail wagging and slapping a sitting-at-attention, and befuddled Ghost. I too was shocked at his reaction, but Marcy paid no mind and happily gave him a couple of hugs and kisses on his snout.

"Go ahead." She said and nodded, with a smile, and took a step back so that I could snap him back to attention. He did without missing a beat, tail still quivering trying to stop the wag.

"Good, pup, Sandy," I whispered his nickname and calmly rubbed his ears, "stand guard." With that he turned around and attuned his senses out into the night.

"Do you remember...?" Marcy's best stories always started like this.

She raised her hand up to the dazzling stars looking at the makeshift engagement ring I had quickly slipped on while she kissed me, with an undeniable admiration. "Do you remember the day we met? We had just turned 11, and out of the blue I told you that I was gonna marry you one day. You looked at me weird, and made me feel like a complete idiot." She said and began chuckling.

"I remember everything about you, and unfortunately," I cocked my head to the side, and shrugged my shoulders sarcastically, " you are gonna be bugging me like a pesky fly for the rest of my life." I said and began laughing so hard that I began coughing.

"You are so mean!" She playfully punched my shoulder and maneuvered her body to sit on my thighs. She faced me and stared gently into my eyes. "Do you remember when Rain did a body slam on my grandma's masa while she was doing tamales?" She laughed quietly as I nodded trying to keep it down.

"My, God! Yes! I remember she called me pissed off and threatened to make an empanada out of her, because she was such a bad dog that she wasn't even worthy of becoming a tamale!" Rain was our first dog as a couple. We shared the responsibility for all her needs. She was also my dream dog, a Golden Retriever. For about another hour we exchanged stories like this, and reluctantly parted ways heading back to our camps. We were a month away from heading home and getting married for summer leave. Then the unthinkable happened as I brushed my teeth with an unnerving feeling in my gut as I watched Sandstorm pace back and forth in his crate the following morning. We had just been left by the Blackhawk 30 minutes ago, they had rushed us to the point that none of us had slept, and being in that helicopter with the thundering rotating blades along with anxiety of why the urgency with little to no briefing made sleep elusive.

Then I'm back to that dreadful day.

Whoever had ran away that night before I met with Marcy must have been some sort of spy, that was all I could assume led to one of the worst catastrophes in my book. I felt it when it happened. My chest had begun to hurt, but that didn't keep me from pushing through my unit as they looked to the horizon seeing the sky turn gray with smoke, toothbrush still in my mouth. We began hearing the rifles go off, and the yelling and screaming of our comrades, until it went completely silent. No one moved, except me, I had already rushed back, released Sandstorm from the crate, grabbed my rifle, along with a couple hand grenades, and ran toward the smoke and fire. My unit yelled for me, but I didn't hear them. All I heard was Marcy's laughter echoing in my head. MWD Sandstorm passed me without me having to tell him what we were running towards. That's when everyone in my unit geared up without further questions, and followed.

I closed my eyes remembering shit that seemed like it happened yesterday. Ghost coming towards me, the shadow, Marcy torn to shreds, my men, what the fuck happened to Smith? All in her unit, including MWD Ghost, where KIA...at least that's what the report said. I held Marcy's upper torso in my arms, as she held one of Ghost's dismembered, and already cold paw in her hand. She told me some of the most disturbing things I had ever heard before placing her tags in the palm of my hand. Yet she spoke. That's when Sandstorm, who refused to get close began to uncharacteristically bark angrily. A guttural growl like he had done earlier when he saw the alien-like monster.

"They need your help. Don't believe everything they tell you. You must run away from here...now. Salt water...that will expose them...salt water..." Then as fleeting as I had met her, she was gone.

Gone with my heart, and with questions that I will never know. Salt water? Expose them? What did she mean to tell me with all of that? The event in itself was considered highly classified. It left me with an unsettling heart to have had to lie to her family, my family, why it had to be a closed casket. Her injuries couldn't be from a bomb blast. I had learned that during A-school when we were taught about different injuries, in case one of our comrades was injured. The injury that Marcy had inflicted was that of a savage animal. Her lower half was completely gone, and what remained, I remember, were bloody tracks of what seemed similar to a carnivorous dinosaur.

I fled after her hand that caressed my face one last time fell lifeless to the ground as she took her last breath, as she had told me to do. With a heavy heart, I left MWD Sandstorm back at base with another capable handler whose dog had been sent back due to medical reasons. I would not see him again for another six years.

I ended up in Hawai'i where Joe received the news of Marcy a couple hours after it happened and rushed to the hotel that I had booked with no intent to check out alive. Why sugar coat it? Thankfully Joe had managed to talk me out of it, but I forswore to never see him again after the funeral. I felt like, not only an imposter, but also absolutely ashamed. I felt nothing but guilt. If it wasn't for me she would have never joined the military. If it wasn't for me, she would've been alive. After her funeral, I decided to desert my unit all together and stay in California.

I continued to get flashes of memories. The good, the bad, and of those eerie bloody footprints.

But what kept replaying in my head was when she said 'they need your help.' Her voice would echo in my mind at the most randomest of times. I became a complete introvert, knowing that no one could possibly understand what I was going through. Since then I feel like I've been running, from everything. From people, places, events, music, absolutely everything. The deafening explosion left my ears ringing well after a week. In a split second I learned what grief and loss was. Death was bliss compared to continuing living well after being deemed a survivor of a great tragedy. There is no honor being categorized a 'survivor' when the only thing that kept me coming back home was her. She kept me afloat when everyone around me wanted to let me drown. My childhood friend, my partner in crime, my fiancee was suddenly nothing but a memory in a millisecond. Wedding plans were replaced with the wake and funeral. At nineteen all I wanted to do was die. I had been through bullying, degradation (by both family and those I thought were my friends), tragedy, and loss. All that led to depression, numerous suicide attempts, PTSD, and anxiety. It was hell just breathing. Marcy meant so much to me, and I never doubted for a second that we would be together until the end. She was everything I will never even come close to being. Quite frankly, if we switched roles and I was the one who died, I know she would be doing a helluva lot better and more accomplished than I. But unfortunately, the universe didn't work out that way for us.

“Did they ever find the rest of her body?” Joe asked me over the phone a couple days after the funeral as I scrambled to get everything important from the storage to my car. He insisted on keeping in contact with me. Yes, he would not be able to see me, but he at least wanted to hear my voice. I was on the run.

“No, they never did. Just as she was dismembered, all in her unit were also scattered all over their base site. Maybe her other half was there, but with so many body parts to look through, they decided to focus on bringing back upper torsos, the rest were incinerated on the spot. Despite constant pleas, letters, and physical appearances from me, they would not budge with their reason for why all of this happened. Why her whole unit was bombarded without warning. Why all the other MWDs assigned to their unit were found a couple miles away with bullet wounds to the chest and skulls, all except MWD Ghost who had also been ripped to shreds. All except one made it back to base. Limping and clinging to life, and even then he was immediately euthanized instead of given a chance. Despite my high profile, they turned me down regardless. I deserted specifically for this, after realizing that no true information was going to be disclosed to me. One thing was for sure, however, her death was no accident. It was then that I vowed that I was going to find out one way or another how she really died." I wiped the tears from my eyes and closed my hand over her tags.

Joe sniffled and slowly, while choking on his words, “ I know you will. You deserve to let your heart rest, and the only way you will be able to do it is by finding out the truth."

"It would put both of our hearts to rest, Joe. I won't call you until it's safe. I have to get out of the states. Let’s go girl!" Rain emerged from the very back of the storage unit wagging her tail. I smiled that no guard noticed that there was a dog here. Without saying goodbye we hung up our phones immediately in case our calls were being traced. As I hung up the phone, I turned and my hip accidentally dropped a small black bag to the concrete floor. Looking inside I was hit with a sudden nauseous grief. It was Marcy’s plans for our wedding, along with the rings I had already bought and the makeshift one made out of reeds, tainted with her dry blood. I tied up the bag and placed it in the very back, covered by the boxes of books. Something in my gut began to warn me to hurry up, so I quickly rolled down the door, let out a sigh, catching one last glimpse of what was my life in a 16x16x64 storage unit and locked it. As I exited the storage place, I turned off the cloaking device that I had enabled to distort the camera recordings. Per the surveillance, I was never there.

These past couple days I had begun to wake up in a cold sweat, and the pain in my back vibrated my very core. I missed her. I was left in agony that no one could possibly understand, and it had left me tired of trying to explain myself to countless people. Then the anger came. For me, being angry came rarely, but it has become a constant occurrence now. Especially after that shadow emerged from within me. I couldn't really be mad with anyone that didn't understand what surviving a huge tragedy was like, so I turned all that anger into myself, making me full of immense anxiety. The lack of being able to talk to anyone about what happened that day started haunting me at night. I had suppressed my emotions and did everything in secrecy these past days. The only one who knew what I was planning to do was Joe, but talking to him at the moment became a liability considering that he was also being heavily watched due to his classified work with the Marines. I rolled down the door to the storage unit

That's about the time I saw it in the corner of my eye, as I drove away. A most familiar yet unnerving sight. I took in a deep breath, knowing that all that I hid within was about to manifest yet again.