• In four years time

    “In four years’ time, four years’ time…” The girl said to herself. Writing, as she spoke, onto paper. “In four years’ time, I will have a boyfriend and I will live with him after my studies, having met him in university.” The girl, Isabelle or Belle as she liked to be called, was writing her application for a scholarship for university. It had asked, ‘Where do you see yourself in four years’ time?’
    “We will fall in love,” She continued, “and we will have a family of three, me, him and our child.” She sighed happily “I will have graduated with a writing degree and will become a writer, writing books and, what I love most, poems. I will be well known, but not as famous as, no, no, no,” She scribbled out ‘as’ and ‘as’ and replace it with ‘so’ and ‘that’, “…not so famous that people will follow me around and stalk me. I will have some fans who are very loyal and some who only like a couple of my books. I will be happy and love life. I will never yell at my children when they are bad, only show them kindness when they are good. I will have another part time job in which I look after disabled children. I will be my own hero.” She sighed “Or at least I would want to be!” She added, even though she was pretty sure it would all happen, she had gotten everything she wanted before so why would it stop by the time she’d come out of university. Well nearly everything she had wanted, she had had to sign up for army duty, just like all of the people going for scholarships, it was a deal, the army would pay for you education as long as you signed up. She felt like she was scamming them for you only had to actually do something if war broke out. She could never see herself killing and fighting for her life, she just wasn’t that type of person.
    One year later world war broke out and many people were forced to join the army, including Isabelle herself. Isabelle, was sent to training and the finally to the field.
    Two years after that.
    “Izzy, we need you over here!” Bucky (Zackary Buckster) cried whilst bashing the end of his gun, which was out of bullets, onto an opposing soldiers head, immediately killing him. Izzy made her way over to him, killing people and surrendering them unconscious as she went. She didn’t realise at first why Bucky needed her, then it was clear, more of the enemies camps were at the bottom of the cliff, this cliff was a perfect lookout and she had time to look: they had cleared out this little area above it. “Oh sh**.” She said “Holy lord that’s a lot of Mother F***ers! What the He** is wrong with these people, will they ever learn to stop coming!” She bent down and picked up some ammo from the dead soldier, then turned to Bucky “You idiot, don’t ever forget to check for ammo!” She was captain of her platoon, and Bucky was her right hand man, and well, the rest of her platoon didn’t mean much to her. The only other person that mattered to her was…
    ”Sarge. I’ve got a problem!” Rookie (Barry Forger, a soldier new to the game.) said interrupting her train of thought. Izzy looked back and saw an enemy soldier grabbing onto Rook’s leg “Kill ‘im you idiot!” She cried. Rookie whimpered a little, Izzy rolled her eyes and walked over to him. She was just about to kill the Enemy when he said in a whisper “Mercy!” and then she realised, he was only a boy of 16 maybe. She sighed; she was at least 18 when she had entered the army and 19 by the time she had gone to battle. She sighed again, and then crushed the end of her gun into his head. The boy let go of Rookie as his arms had fallen limp. There was a flash of emotion that ran across Izzy’s face, it was regret and sorrow, but then she quickly shook it off. He’s on the bad side; she said to herself, he would have done just the same to you. Unfortunately another little voice inside her head said; what side is really bad. Is there a bad or good side? Of course, she retorted back, trying to suppress the voice. She shook herself out of it once again and the Rookie gave her a weird look, so she sneered at him. “You’d better warn the troops.” She said taking out her walkie and tossing it to Bucky. She looked back at Rookie and asked “Where are the rest of them?”
    “Of what?” Rookie asked back, carefully stepping over bodies.
    “My platoon!” She said angrily, she hated repeating herself.
    “Oh that, well um, they died ma’am!” Rookie looked to the ground.
    Izzy’s eyes widened, “You’ve got to be kidding me, they let themselves DIE!” she was getting angrier and angrier by the second, she was fuming! Her shoulders were heaving. Up and down, up and down, Rookies’ eyes were going along with them, in a trance. Bucky came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, instantly calming her down, “Come on Izz,” he said, “it wasn’t their faults.” Her eyes were struck with fear “Your right it was our faults! Oh God!” She put her hand to her mouth and sunk down into the masses of bodies. Bucky bent down and picked her up “It wasn’t your fault either Sarge. You did your best.”
    “I swear they were following us, or at least some of them.” Then some giggling came from some of the bodies below and from Rookie, 3 bodies popped up, all of them had been her men. “You idiots!” She said. She laughed it off a little too though. “Ok now we need to search the tents, for anymore people and for more supplies! K?”
    That night
    When the dark had come they had set up camp, a little ways in from the cliff side, they had started a small fire, and a bigger one where the camp had been, so as not to alert the camps below, of their partners’ deaths. The whole platoon was laughing, telling stories, and good jokes. Suddenly Izzy’s face went serious. “Ok guys, we got a new mission, tomorrow morning we’re going to head down the cliff side. I found a way down and told the General about it, he said we should continue. When I told him of our numbers, he said he would have back up there by that night, or the following day. He said that if any of us were injured he would be able to get us back.”
    “But Sarge.-” Her man stopped.
    “But what?” She asked raising her eyebrows.
    “Well, um, you told us that this was all we had to do. That was it then we’d go back to base.”
    “I’m sorry guys, orders, I know it’s a Sia Kang*, but we gotta do it.”
    After that all of their spirits were down, they all went to bed so that they could leave early tomorrow morning.
    That morning
    They all woke up early, just like Izzy had told them to. They packed up all of their stuff, along with their tents and supplies; each man was caring his own supplies and weapons.
    They headed to the place where Izzy had found the path, it was narrow and in some places no existent, but most of them would make it. “Ok, guys, listen to me and listen good, I’m going first, if I come to a crack in the path I will tell the person behind me, he will tell the person behind him and so on until it reaches Bucky.” She was shouting over the strong wind, it was too windy to climb down and she knew it but the Back-up troop would be waiting for them. “You will have your face to wall. Cling on with all of your might.” She headed down, and started walking. Rookie followed, and the other three after him and then finally Bucky. She walked over a crack in the path and said to Rookie “Crack.” Rookie stared laughing at the other meaning for it. She hit him. They both suddenly stopped laughing as she lost her balance, but then regained it. That could have been her life. Rookie didn’t laugh again.
    They were making good time and finding it more enjoyable than killing, until one of the men fell, to his immediate doom. She sucked in a sharp breath so as not to cry, and continued going, they weren’t far from the end now, and they would get the body after they reached the bottom. Rookie was now whimpering the whole way. When they finally reached the bottom, he was still whimpering, she slapped him and said “Snap out of it, be glad it wasn’t you!” He stopped but you could see he hadn’t taken what she said into account, his eyes were still sad.
    They went immediately to get the body so that so enemies would be alerted that they were here. Izzy checked over to get any ammo he had. There was none. “Does anyone know if he had ammo?” She asked warily, she was worried that someone from the camps had been nearby and taken his ammo and informed the camp. One of them replied “I don’t know, don’t think so, if there is none on him!” Izzy nodded and said for two of them to carry the body.
    They eventually found a little cave in the cliff side for them to camp out in, whilst waiting for backup. She radioed the General to tell them where they were. He told them to sit tight and wait for them to come.
    They followed the orders happily, ad told many stories, as the day went by, closer and closer, it was getting to the time the backup would get here and they would fight.
    They were half way through a story being told by one of the soldiers when, a bullet went right through his chest. “Oh sh**!” Izzy exclaimed, “Get out of the cave, were trapped in here! Get out, Get out!” She was right o say so, the next thing that came was another bullet, it went right through her leg, and then a grenade came, “RUN!” she yelled, and she saw them running as she limped to the entrance of the cave.
    Her life flashed before her eyes as the grenade when off, and she remembered that day when she had written what would be her life in four years time, it had only been three, so she would be dead by then. She thought she would never have the life she had wanted; she had become a killer, something she had never seen herself doing.
    Izzy opened her eyes, to see a white figure above her, was it an angel? She wouldn’t know for she slipped back into unconsciousness. When she came too again, she saw the figure once more, but as her vision got better, she realized it was a doctor. As her hearing got better she heard someone calling her name “Sarge., Sarge., Izzy, Izzy, Izzy.” She looked to the bed next to her and there was Rookie smiling at her. “But how?” she tried to say, but the words came out as a hoarse grumble. She realized she had a tube sticking out of her neck. She stretched her arm out towards Rookie and he took her hand in his, she smiled and mouthed “Hi.” He said “Hi.” back. She then thought of Bucky “Bucky?” she mouthed. He nodded to the bed on the opposite side of her. She looked over to find him unconscious. She then realsied the nurse, looking at her charts at the bottom, of her bed, she wiggled her good toes to get the nurses attention. It didn’t works, so instead she thumped her good leg up and flopped it back down, making a bit of a ‘whooshing’ sound the nurse looked at her then came over to sit on the stool next to her. “Bucky?” she said hoarsely with worried eyes nodding to the bed on the other side of the nurse. The nurse looked behind her and understood. She said “I’m afraid that he is in a critical state.”
    “How long?” Izzy mouthed back.
    “A day at the most.” She replied looked deeply depressed. Izzy got up and nodded to the nurse’s stool, the nurse got off and moved the stool over to Bucky’s bed side, and helped Izzy limp over to it. Izzy sat down and took his hand, squeezing it a little, there was no squeeze back. She lowered her face. And a frown appeared on it.
    A few weeks later the day before the funeral
    It finally came to Izzy, and she turned to Rookie or Barry as she now called him since they had been relieved of service, “How did we get out? How did I get out? How did we make it back to base?” Barry smiled at her, he knew these questions would be coming soon, “The backup came and helped us.” Izzy frowned “What about me? How did I make it out, you were all near the exit, I wasn’t?” Barry smiled again “Bucky saved you, he went back for you and ran out with you, and when the grenade went off he covered your body with his.” Izzy’s eyes widened and she fell to the floor. She cried and cried. It was the first time she had mourned over the loss of her friend, it felt as if she would never be able to stop crying.
    When she finally stopped all she could say was “Why? Why did he come back for me?”
    Bucky helped her up and said calmly “Because,” he paused, “you would have done it for him Sarge.”
    The end.

    *Sai Kang- an army term for sh** job.