Second Chance War

First Nightmare

Thomas felt a warm gritty wind blowing across his body, he slowly opened his eyes. The harsh desert sun beat upon his brow, the taste of sand was gritty and hard. Unpleasant. Wait, how did he get here? He pinched himself, no this was real, as far as he knew. He was lying on a cot under some camouflage netting. He was in a town, the buildings were made of sand and stone. Sandstone? He sat up and looked around, the buildings were squat and short, barely ten feet tall, they were ugly but functional. He knew this place, but there was no one here? Slowly people came into focus round him, soldiers chatting up locals, jeeps driving here and there.

"Good morning private, how are you feeling today? Took quite the blow to the head yesterday, boy that was something to see." Thomas whipped his head around, there was a grizzled medic attending to the wounded, he had the white armband with the red cross on it. His insignia identified him as a Master Sergeant. He knew the man, Master Sergeant Callum, one of the finest medics he ever met. However, if Callum was here, then that meant he was in El Alamein. He remembered this fight, it was fierce and many of the soldiers here wouldn't live to see another day.

"Yes doc, I got surprised by that german scout, I guess he thought I was dead." Thomas rubbed his head as if it still pained him, even if this was a dream he still had to make it seem like he was a part of it.

"Well if you feel fine go ahead and return to your unit, you might have a slight concussion, but there's no lasting damage. Go on, get, I've got other patients to attend to." The doctor muttered under his breath as he turned to unwrap some bandages off a man's leg, or rather what was left of it. The rest of it was probably out there on the battlefield somewhere. Thomas left before all of the bandages came off. He knew where his unit was stationed, it was a house in the northeast quadrant, not too far from where the fighting broke out. In just a few hours the German Wehrmacht will arrive across the sands and there will be a fierce fight for this town.

He jogged across the town, it took about fifteen minutes and then he reached the building with his unit in it. He assumed that if he wanted to wake up, he would have to complete this...memory? He reached the door and he walked in from the bright blinding light to the cool cavernous darkness that is the house they were using.

"Hey Tommy! Welcome back!" As his eyes adjusted to the light, he was greeted by someone unfamiliar to him. Sitting in a chair at the center of the room surround by broken chairs, tables, and scattered papers, was a man who looked to be in his early thirties. He was clean shaven with short, shaggy hair. He had a wiry build and looked like he could handle his own, or at least that was the sort of confidence he oozed. He looked around, he saw his old unit lying this way and that at different angles and places, they were all dead. Slaughtered to a man, but there was no blood.

"Oh right, you haven't met me before. I'm Kincade, the other guy. Normally we don't get to see each other, but I made a special exception. See, you get the body, but I get the dreams. Every time you sleep I'm always there, it's amazing you haven't snapped and killed everyone, oh wait...oops." Kincade waved his hand and El Alamein disappeared, instead it was the hallway outside his quarters, the two guards were brutally murdered, blood splashed across the walls, they didn't stand a chance. He looked at his hands, they were covered in blood, not his own though, the guards? No, he wouldn't kill them.

Kincade walked out from the room, "like what you did to them? This isn't a dream anymore, you're awake, or are you?" Kincade waved his hand again and the scenery changed back to El Alamein, artillery shells were blowing up buildings, sending sandstone everywhere. Civilians were getting gunned down in cold blood, bullets exploding through their bodies creating a flower bloom like blood explosion. American soldiers were fighting back, their guns roaring with all the fury of thunder, British troops were also running around like crazy.

"Try to survive this Thomas, have fun hunting, the only way to survive is to kill." Kincade laughed and walked off, disappearing in front of Thomas. If Thomas wanted to survive, it was like Kincade said, the only way was to fight. He picked up the nearest gun to him, a British Sten Mk I sub-machine gun. Not as good as the Mk II, but it was usable. He checked the magazine, twelve bullets. He needed more, he rummaged around the area and came up with two full magazines and a half empty magazine. He thumbed the release on the magazine, it dropped and he quickly loaded the twelve bullets into the half magazine, twenty nine bullets, one short of a full mag. He quickly rammed it home and c****d the chamber, the sub-machine gun was ready to go.

No sooner had he loaded the gun was when a german squad ran around the corner, American they shouted and started opening fire. Thomas quickly jumped behind a corner as bullets whizzed by, sometimes striking the corner of the building and sending sandstone into his eyes, momentarily blinding and choking him. This was not good cover, he stuck his head around and noted their positions. Five men, each in the open slowly advancing to his position, in V-formation. Thomas quickly spun out of cover and unloaded his gun. Fifteen bullets later he had hosed down the squad with about sixty seven percent accuracy. One of the Germans took a bullet to the chin, the force destroying his brain and sending his jawbone flying in an explosion of blood and gore. Another two Germans took a shot to the chest and gut respectively, blood spurting from the chest wounds after their hearts got punctured. Of the last two Germans one got off lightly with a bullet directly to the forehead, the other got their Femoral artery clipped and they dropped to the ground quickly bleeding out in a lot of pain.

Thomas noted his magazine, fourteen bullets left. He ran across the town, he needed to group up with the retreat, he knew the town was lost, this time. He ran across a quarter of town before he stumbled into a German Panzer III. s**t! The Panzer Mk III noticed Thomas and its gun barrel rotated to track. Thomas quickly dove behind a house as the roar of the cannon went off. Half the house disappeared in an explosion of dirt and stone, at least the resulting cloud of dust obscured the tank's line of sight enough for Thomas to run to the cover of the next house. He kept running from house to house as the Panzer kept blowing up houses, and sometimes the houses had civilians, in which case the house would also explode with a stream of red going everywhere.

Suddenly the Panzer Mk III, exploded it a fiery blast of metal and parts, out between two house rumbled an American M3 Lee light-medium tank. It's gun had more power than the Panzer Mk III and could take a couple hits as well. Thomas kept running, gunning down Germans while keeping any eye on the situation. After another twenty minutes of dodging and firing, Thomas was down to his last magazine. He also had reached the evac point for the town, and grouped up with the remainder of the British-American coalition. He was assigned to a truck, and he climbed on with a few other soldiers. He leaned back and closed his eyes, time to head back to the real world.