A Step Ahead.

Wide Awake.

With my clearing vision, I came to find that I am in a black-walled, one table room, with a yellow light hanging above me. I blink and a gate comes to my attention. I sit upright and my vision fails me, blinking myself through it, I walk to the heavy gate. With a loud bang I open the door. I hear echoes coming from above the stairs, the only way out. They do not bring me glad tidings.

Searching for another way out, I hear a loud boom somewhere far from this cellar. The sound of a pipe bomb, with damage capacity of minimum sixty nine to maximum one thousand twenty one feet. Reflexively, I bar the door and look around to make sense of the situation.

The door opens. A person wearing clothes resembling a uniform enters. I stand Stationary and outface. He grips my hand and pulls me outside. I don’t understand why he couldn’t do so, even after looking like a physically strong entity.

“Follow me”

After the brief introduction of two words he runs upstairs. Leaving me no other choice; I quickly take a look at the room, just to make sure no things go unnoticed.

On the last stair, I crawl on knees and swiftly hide behind the big rock placed just right at the end of the stairs. This rock is blocking my whole vision, but I would have a death wish if I walk out now. Looking back, the room finally resembles something I know, but I would rather not know that it was a bunker.

I am in a war zone.

I hear more gunshots coming from far north. The big rock protects me, but I don’t think it will for too long. One more pipe bomb or an emulsion explosive #2 can blow my life, if in right proximity. I peek northwards. The whole ground is marked, that means that this war has been going on for some weeks and the intensity of seriousness is growing. This army seems to have rock near every bunker, a rather bad architecture.

Taking a deep breath, I dash to the next bunker, which is about two to three feet away. My speed is incredible. My back to a rock, ears straining to hear gunshots or bomb sounds; I hear voices from the bunker, thinking them to be people of the uniformed man that told me to follow him and then vanished, I run downstairs.

On almost 50 gun points, with raised hands, I am ready to fight; I don’t know where this confidence comes from though. But no one comes forward to shoot. Realizing them gathered around something, I try to peek through. In that instant of silence, I hear the sound of the launch of a bunker buster, designed to penetrate hardened targets like…. military bunkers. 

I lean on the wall.

“I guess we should run”, calmly speaking.

Someone in the crowd makes a mocking sound.

That’s when a VHF radio cracks, informing them I am correct. After the news is ruffled; the person who came to recruit me, explains the situation. In the next ten minutes we all are dashing to somewhere safe, I suppose.

Out of breath, I partially sit on the table, waiting for the rest of them to arrive. That is because they know this place, better than me.

Almost half of the militants are dead or hurt. There are only a bunch of them left safe, but can no longer keep fighting. This is a lost war.

I look around; this does not seem to be the safe place. The person, who came to me, seems to be the captain. He lays some kind of map on the table, and says to his team that they need to reach to a place in around five minutes or they all lose their lives here. Spoken like a rude captain.

 All of us prepare to run again.