What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.

~Charles Bukowski

Chapter 1: Alone

The first thought that came to me as I regained consciousness was along the lines of, it is far too cold to be mid-day in a desert. Followed shortly by: Jesus fuck, my head hurts.

Wary of this development, I slowly opened my eyes, gripping my C8 carbine all the tighter, confirming with my thumb that it was on safe and therefore readied. The first thing I saw was colour. Not yellow or grey, but green. Not only that, but multiple shades of it; from the veridian grass below me to the darker greens of the tree canopy overhead.

I wasn't in a forest by any stretch of the imagination, but I also wasn’t on the plains of Saskatchewan. Behind me lay a deciduous forest that traveled from horizon to horizon in an unnaturally straight line, while in front of me was scrubland for as far as the eye could see. For the first time since I was deployed, I was glad I was never issued my desert camo and was still wearing the trademark green CADPAT of the Canadian Forces.

Do your drills, I thought, in a vain attempt to keep myself from questioning reality too much. Subconsciously, I looked at both the ground near me as well as the ground in-depth using the C79 optical scope attached to my C8 assault carbine.

Scan right to left, check for differences in light and unnatural shadows, be wary of movement...

Only one thing seemed out of place; the fact that I was no longer in the middle of a never ending desert. Bird calls graced my ears while a gentle wind blew through the trees; crickets chirped in the gentle noon sunshine. These noises had become foreign to me during my tour. Oddly enough, it had the double effect of both calming me and setting my hairs on end.

Cover.

Glancing over my shoulder, I slowly backed into the tree line, carbine not quite parallel to the ground in the ready position. After I had moved about ten meters into the woodland, I found a conveniently placed log and placed my ass on it rather heavily. My very short day quickly ran through my mind, visions of a sandstorm at the forefront.

"What the fuck..." I muttered to myself in disbelief. "I clearly died in the sandstorm and went to hell." Chuckling wearily at the common misfortune of everyone who has ever been to CFB Wainwright, I let out a weary sigh.

Well now what... I thought. I'm in what looks to be a nice place, I only have two days worth of food, no clue if the territory is hostile or not, and a very sudden insatiable urge for someone to issue a command decision...

And then I glanced at the mouth piece on my helmet. Mentally facepalming, I grabbed for the activation tab on my tactical vest. "Zero, this is One-One-Alpha, message, over." After fifteen seconds of waiting for a response, I repeated the transmission. After another fifteen seconds of radio silence, I called in a radio check. Again, silence.

"All call-signs, this is One-One-Alpha, radio check, over." My heart rate had picked up at this point, and in a sudden slip of professionalism, the fear leaked through my mask, into the radio.

Fuck... I thought dejectedly, before another brilliant idea floated into my head; GPS. Looking down to my Defence Advanced GPS Receiver, or DAGR, I noticed a rather glaring lack of signal to any overhead satellites. Fucking piece of shit.

I could feel my self assurance fading by the second.

Deciding to partake in the infantry ritual of combat meditation, I controlled my breathing and observed my surroundings. I had stumbled into a small clearing during my panicked withdrawal. The branches of the trees were swaying in the breeze, shielding the clearing from the bulk of the sun while still letting small streams of light through. A green lichen painted the northern side of most of the trees in the clearing, giving me at least a small sense of direction. The only sound that could be heard was rustling leaves.

In a sudden bout of adrenaline induced clarity, I realized that the only time that there is no noise in a wooded area is when there are predators around.

Fuck. My eye twitched while I pulled off my helmet before rapidly removing the radio headset and placing my brain bucket back on my head. The quick release on my cumbersome CADPAT rucksack was the next thing to go. I adopted a crouched position from where I sat, scanning the treeline over my rifle.

A twig snapped, and my eyes were drawn immediately to the the area the noise originated from. I took an instinctive step back before my training kicked in and I took another two steps back, adopting a kneeling position behind my sitting log. Checking to make sure my weapon was still on safe, I slowly changed the tab from safe to repetition in an attempt to minimize the noise of the mechanism swapping positions.

Obviously since I was trying to be stealthy, my stealth skills were found lacking and a rather large lion jumped out of the foliage, scaring and confusing the hell out of me.

How did I not see a bright yellow lion in a green backdrop? Why in the fucking Fuck does it have Bat wings? Why is it just hovering in the air, not moving?

Taking advantage of a still confusing situation, to which the creature looked just as confused as I, I shot it three times in the forehead. The first two rounds burned a dark phosphorescent red and singed the fur of the creature as they entered, while the third round just tore into it’s skull. I would have shot it more, but a sudden, feminine scream to my right drew my attention. There, just standing in the trees, was an incredibly pink unicorn.

Screaming like a girl.

I looked between the miniature pink horse, the now deceased winged lion, and my dropped rucksack before rolling my eyes and thinking to myself, sure, why not. After several seconds, the screaming stopped and the pink horse galloped away into what I assumed were LSD infused dreams.

New theory; those fucking infantry fucks drugged my breakfast, and I just passed out in the middle of a fucking sandstorm, and awoke in the land of 'Fuck you', and... Ah Fuck it.

After grimacing to myself in confusion for several seconds, I walked over to my rucksack, put the straps back together, and shouldered the bag, clipping all the chest and waist supports over my tacvest. I then stuck the radio headset through the rightmost strap on my tacvest. Right. Need to find somewhere to unfuck myself.

Deciding on the only logical course of action, at least according to the logic the Army didn’t teach me, I went west, going to the left of the moss, in the hopes of finding either civilization or a cure for some illegal narcotics.
----

Night fell rapidly as I pushed through the woods, stepping over underbrush where I could, stepping through it when I couldn't. The urge to eat was strong, but I suppressed it by promising myself a nice tasty meal when I set up my camp.

After coming across a suitable looking cluster of trees, I detached the radio headset and dropped my rucksack before I did a quick area reconnaissance, making sure there was nothing dangerous in my immediate vicinity.

After I confirmed that I was as safe as I was going to get, I proceeded to build the ‘standard-issue’ one man tent of the CF. When I was done hooking my groundsheet up to the various trees and throwing sticks and other forest detritus on top of it, it looked far more like a hill that was dug out on one side than the olive drab slab of plastic it started as.

Lean-to complete, I thought with a grimace, time to try the radio again. I felt my decidedly neutral mood turning rapidly into fear and depression while my training and discipline was hard pressed to keep my face stolid.

"All call signs, this is One-One-Alpha. Radio check, over." Silence. I repeated the call again. Probably just the forest canopy... Why didn't I think of that before? Grabbing the metal antenna from the radio pack, I proceeded to replace the admittedly shitty floppy antenna. Once the 6 foot metal rod was in place I radioed in again, hope blossoming in my core.

That hope was dashed rather quickly when there was no answer over the means. Sighing, I decided to do a kit check before I went to bed, as well as re-bombing the magazine I used.

My C8FTHB carbine with Elcan C67 scope; ten magazines with 200 rounds of 5.56mm ball and 80 rounds of 5.56mm tracer; 419 rounds of 5.56mm ball in fourteen boxes; 118 rounds of 5.56mm tracer in four boxes; four grenades, two frags, one yellow smoke, and one white smoke; one bayonet; one multitool; and two SRAAW-L rocket launchers strapped to the side of the ruck.

One extra CADPAT shirt and pants, as well as a pair of black combat boots, three extra pairs of olive drab shirts, three extra pairs of socks, one CF issue CADPAT floppy hat, and one CADPAT fleece shirt.

My CADPAT tactical vest, one CADPAT Fragmentation Protection Vest with Bullet Resistant Plates, one pair of CADPAT combat gloves, one olive drab gas mask with two filters, and my helmet with CADPAT cover.

In the pockets of my tacvest, I had one pre-treated antibiotic field dressing in a hermetically sealed, sterile package; one bottle of military issue bug juice that you aren’t allowed to apply to your skin; a tube each of light green, dark green, and brown CamPaint; one green ballistic glasses carrier with clear lenses inside; one Advil bottle with 200mg caffeine pills, Ibuprofen 400, and a few super strength Advil; one aluminum canteen cup that I’ve never used; one miniature CADPAT maglight; and one pair of mortar gloves.

Two breakfast, three lunch, and two supper Individual Meal Packages.

One waterproof CADPAT bivy bag, one olive drab ‘self inflating’ air-mattress, one olive drab sleeping bag inner, one CADPAT ranger blanket, and one CADPAT compression sac.

One 3L CADPAT camelback, one olive drab 2L soft water canteen, and one olive drab 1L hard canteen.

One AN/PRC-522 radio, one nonfunctioning DAGR, one mapping kit which included a C9 protractor, Suunto Compass, and a map of the Kandahar region.

About a kilometer of olive drab ‘seven string’ paracord, one roll of green guntape, one olive drab field sewing kit, one weapon cleaning kit with an extra large bottle of CLP, one roll of toilet paper sealed in a ziplock bag, ten metal tent pegs, five of which were being used on the groundsheet lean-to, and one CADPAT daybag which was buckled to the rucksack.

Packing all of my belongings back into their respective spots on my heavy ass rucksack, I unfurled my air mattress and placed my ranger blanket on top of it. It was gonna be an early morning, followed by another long and arduous forced march. Hopefully I would get at least a little closer to my unknown destination.

Reaching back into my rucksack, I pulled out one of my IMPs and sighed as I read the label. Mushroom omelette; breakfast. Might as well get it out of the way now... At the very least the omelette was too bland to taste. Definitely not the worst meal to have before bed, but not the best either.

After digging a hole with my hands and burying the now empty plastic casing for the omelette, I placed the remains of the breakfast IMP in my ruck where it would remain ready for further consumption. I then made-safe my C8, removed my boots, and crawled under my ranger blanket before the night got cold.

What the fuck even happened... I could feel a tear starting to work its way to my eye as I looked back on the day, finally allowing it to catch up with me.

I was separated from my unit.

I was lost.

I was alone.

I held my C8 close to my body the way only a soldier can and clutched my dog tags over my heart. Alone. That one word repeated in my head, reminding me just how alone I really was. Dark thoughts of the future haunted me until the cold embrace of sleep claimed me.

Alone.

Author's Notes:

Spoiler alert: There will be ponies soon.