Author's Note: I've been thinking of putting this one up for awhile, but I'm still not quite sure if I'm happy with what I've got. Anyway, please R+R - all comments and critiques welcome.

DREAM

“Madison! Get down!”
Gunfire echoes through the night…
“Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!”
Bullets whistle past our ears… Shit, that one was close.
“Case! Stay the fuck down!”
I hear the ugly sound of a bullet tearing through flesh…
“CASE!”
I dive toward him…
“Help! HELP! Medic! I need a medic here now!”
Gurgling, I can hear gurgling… Blood in the lungs… Oh shit, there’s blood in the lungs…
“Case! CASE! Stay with me Case!”
I hold his hand and squeeze it tight… Oh God Case, why did you have to be so stupid?
“I don’t wanna die Maddy! Maddy! Don’t let me die!”
The panic’s choking me, I can’t handle the helplessness… God, why can’t I save him? “You’re not gonna die! Just hold on!”
I’m losing him… How is that possible? Oh God, he’s dying and I can’t save him…
“Maddy, Maddy! MADDY! Maddy…”
Listen to that eerie silence… That deathly silence… It’s so quiet…
“Case?”
His body’s gone limp… But… How? He can’t be… It’s not possible, he just can’t…
“Case… Wake up…”
I shake him gently, he doesn’t move… Why isn’t he moving?
“C’mon Case, stop messing…”
Why won’t he wake up? WHY WON’T HE WAKE UP?!
“Case! CASE! For fuck’s sake Case, open your fucking eyes!”
Oh shit, he’s gone… He’s… Case is… Why can’t I stop crying? Why can’t he hear me?
…Why can’t he hear me?

“Maddy, wake up.”

I woke with a start and sprung off my bunk into darkness. I blindly stumbled around and tried to keep my balance. Strong hands reached out from nowhere and grabbed my arms. The dark silhouette of a young man standing next to me invaded my vision. Where was I? Where was Case? What the…? Was all that a dream? Shit, what a nightmare…

“Case!” I almost gasped.

“Whoa, easy there girl,” Case told me. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“What?”

“A ghost, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I said nothing, shaking my head and rubbing my sleep-clogged eyes. I gathered up my stuff from the foot of my bunk and quickly threw on what items of my uniform I didn’t have on already - my helmet and my jacket. In the darkest hours of the war, it was easier to sleep in uniform and be ready to fight than to waste time getting ready while watching comrades die ‘cos you were worried about your own safety.

“You ready?” Case asked me, handing me my rifle.

I nodded uncertainly, staring nervously at my friend. That weird dream chewed viciously at my brain, and I still wasn’t sure if what I was seeing was Case or some twisted illusion playing mean games with my mind.

Xavier Case was my best friend in the whole world. We’d grown up together in a small town called Autumn Bay. Don’t let the name fool you, that town used to be one of the sunniest places on earth. But for some reason, the leaves on the trees were always brown as if winter was coming, no matter what time of year it was. Winter was always coming in Autumn Bay, but it never snowed.

At eighteen, Case and me had enlisted in the army together. Well, Case had enlisted in the army as a way to get out of Autumn Bay – he didn’t want to be stuck in a small town in a dead-shit job for the rest of his life. Neither of us had the brains to become anything more than factory workers or minors. Joining the army solved this problem and got us out of town, despite the oh-so wonderful perks of watching fellow soldiers’ guts spill out all over the ground on a daily basis. I had only enlisted so that I could stay with Case. I loved him like he was my own brother, and wherever he would go, I would follow. I would follow him anywhere. Including war. Which was exactly what we were caught in the middle of on that freezing cold night.

“Let’s go,” I grunted.

We headed out of the room and up a flight of stairs from the safety of the basement to the ground floor. A small group of men were already waiting for us, shuffling nervously about and smoking cigarettes to keep warm. We’d run out of coffee two weeks earlier, and so now cigarettes were all that was left to keep us from freezing our asses off.

“Madison Willkens, Xavier Case, what took you so long?” Captain Talbert growled upon our arrival.

“I uh –“

“Willkens thought she saw a ghost,” Case interuppted.

Lame excuse as it was, it was better than nothing I guess. A couple of the men sniggered at the comment, making some crude remark about ‘the prissie princess letting the men do the fighting’. I was too upset to challenge them, as I usually would’ve. I hated being treated like ‘the girl’ just ‘cos I was the only member of the opposite sex to them in our platoon. I ignored them completely and shot a thankful glance at Case.

“Sorry sir, won’t happen again sir,” I muttered to Talbert.

“Right, does everyone know what we’re about to do?” the Captain asked us.

“Yessir,” we all replied in unison.

“Good, ‘cos I don’t have time to be explaining it to all y’all all over again.” Talbert spun towards the door and threw it open. “Move out.”

As the men began to trudge their way out the door, I reached over and gave Case’s arm a hard tug, pulling him backwards. All I could think about was that dream, and now that I was back in reality, I didn’t want Case to go. The surprisingly bright light of the moon flooded through the door and fell onto Case’s face. His pale skin was covered in dirt and grime – typical of any footsoldier, and his dark blonde hair was all scruffled and bushy. Still, he managed to look kinda angelic in the moonlight, almost like a cherub with his child-like features. He was always an angel in my eyes, no matter how much dirt covered his face or how many men he’d shot dead. But tonight he looked particularly beautiful in the moonlight, so much so that my heart skipped a beat at the thought that the vision wouldn’t remain, and neither would he if he went with us.

“Don’t go,” I whispered, watching the others disappear outside.

“What?”

“I said ‘don’t go’,” I told him. “I got a feeling something real bad’s gonna happen to you if you go with us.”

“Maddy, I can’t just not go, we got orders –“

“Fuck orders, just don’t go.”

Case sighed and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He gave me an annoyed look but in his eyes, I could see that he was slightly worried. He knew something was up. He knew I wouldn’t be asking him to bail out of this one unless I had a reason, and one hell of a good one too.

“What’s wrong?” he groaned.

“I had a dream…” Not wanting to go into details, since most of our squad were already out the door, I skipped to the important part. “…You died.”

Case looked a little taken aback by what I’d just said, and I knew from the look on his face that he would’ve changed his mind about going… if given the chance. It didn’t matter though, like he said, he had orders. He couldn’t just disobey them, that kind of thing can get you in all kinds of shit.

It’s not like I was some kind of psychic who could see the future or anything, but a creepy dream about someone dying is bound to cause anyone to have second thoughts about rushing into a potential battle. I would’ve tied him down to a chair and left him behind if I had any rope. I was even considering shooting him in the foot, but that could’ve done any ammount of damage.

“Maddy, it’s only a dream,” he told me distantly.

I could hear it in his voice that he wasn’t so sure whether or not he believed what he’d just told me. I think he was deciding whether or not to sneak back to the basement and wait until the squad returned, but at the same time I knew he wouldn’t go against orders. Case was no coward, and he hadn’t joined the army to run away from a fight just ‘cos someone had had a nasty dream about him. No, he wouldn’t go against orders – he didn’t want to be a chicken-shit.

“It’s only a dream, okay?” he continued.

Who was he trying to convince though? Me? Or himself? I didn’t know.

“C’mon, the squad’s waiting.”

I felt my gut churn suddenly as I followed Case out the door. Fuckin’ hell, I didn’t want him to go. I swallowed down my frustration, clenching my fists so I wouldn’t slap him for not bailing out. I didn’t give a shit about whether or not he’d get in trouble or if the rest of our squad would brand him a coward. Case not going was better than him getting killed - that was for sure. God, I wanted to slap some sense into that bastard!

“I’ll be alright,” he whispered loudly to me over his shoulder with a smile, as if sensing my annoyance. “You’ll see.”

I shook my head as we caught up with the rest of our squad. It was a dark and bitterly cold night, the air sitting still on the town and the moon and stars shining brightly above. It was the calm of the night that brought about an unsettling feeling that this plan was not going to play out well. I felt shivers running up and down my spine, but that wasn’t from the iciness. My gut still churned, and I wanted nothing more than to drag Case back to the basement where nice warm beds, hot food, cigarettes and above all, safety, awaited.

I could see the town pretty clearly, including the river sitting off to the Eastern side. Just beyond the river lay the forest, scarred by war. Trees balanced precariously on one another, charred and blackened by fire and bombs. Not far into these woods, we knew the enemy had set up a small base, and were leading their pitiful attacks on the town we had taken just days earlier from there. There were probably only a few of them left, I was guessing maybe fifty or so, but they’d managed to kill a couple of our own and it was starting to become a bit of a nuisance. They weren’t prepared to let us have the town without one hell of a fight, and even I admitted that they really were giving us just that – one hell of a fight.

Our orders were clear. Under the cover of darkness, our squad was to sneak out and get as much intel on what was left of them as possible. Where they were hiding, how many of them there were, what supplies they had, everything. It sounded fairly simple. After all, they were running out of ammo and we had plenty. We outnumbered them, and they were running out of food – if we didn’t manage to get all of ‘em then it wouldn’t be long before they chose to surrender and get fed than freeze and starve to death in the middle of nowhere. It would just be a case of picking poisons.

It sounded so simple that the lot of us were all betting on how many of them we would find. There was a good hundred or so bucks riding on this one, and whoever had the guess closest to the number we counted was going to walk away with some good spare cash to blow.

At the same time, the lot of us knew all too well that our move could be met with disaster at any second. Anything could happen, and it was common knowledge to all of us that there was no such thing as a perfect plan – something always went wrong. It could’ve been something small like… I dunno… a couple of the bastards spotted us, and we’d have to pick ‘em off before they could get back and warn the rest. Or it could be something much worse like the enemy could anticipate our move and be waiting for us, and then it could all turn into a slaughter.

It quickly turned into the latter – a complete and utter slaughter.

Whether or not they knew we were coming, we didn’t know. But we’d soon find out, and either way, they were better prepared than we had anticipated, and we were about to pay for our blatant mistake.

We hadn’t even made it to the edge of town before the first bullets began to whizz past our ears. They had been watching us from the woods all that time, waiting for us to fuck-up and come straight within their range so they could blow us to kingdom come. We’d fucked it up royally – of course they would’ve been watching. If it was our side stuck in their position, we would’ve been watching them like hawks just as eagerly.

I heard the first of the bullets singing as it whizzed straight past my ears. It had come so close that I swear, I felt the whoosh of its movement on the side of my face and the heat of the hot metal radiating outwards. I probably would’ve shit myself if I hadn’t ducked instead.

“Shit!” I shrieked.

I grabbed at my cheek instinctively, rubbing away the heat and trying to rub away the fear. As I ducked low, I dived behind the first thing that looked like it would hold out against a few bullets. I was curled up behind a tiny, busted-old, broken brick wall as more gunshots began to ring out. It was lousy cover, and I had no way of knowing how long it would hold out for. If I didn’t haul ass to a safer location, I was completely screwed. And if I did move out, I’d probably end up being the next fucking bullet magnet.

I saw the others diving for cover behind anything they could scramble behind. Most of them had better cover behind sacks piled up as makeshift walls and behind the corners of buildings. I think only a couple of them had been dumb enough to hide behind a couple empty barrels – no fucking way would that deflect bullets.

Shitt, we were in some real trouble now!

I fumbled around with my rifle, my frozen fingers trying to flick off the safety so I could defend myself. I swallowed my fear and peeked over the tiny brick wall, taking aim with my rifle. I couldn’t see fuck all in this darkness, even with the moon and stars above and the flashes from the muzzles of firing guns below. Those bastards were well hidden in the woods, and they knew exactly where I was. The bullets slammed into the wall, cracking away my cover and sending small splinters flying up into my face.

Fuckin’ hell…

I fired random shots out into the night, hoping that I would hit one of those bastards and dreading the idea that I could accidentally hit and kill one of my own. That was always one thing you worried about in the middle of a fight at night, wounding someone from your side. It’d happened before, and it was a little more common than you might think.

After emptying my rifle of its rounds, and a split second before I was about to reload, I saw movement in the woods. It was risky for them; I knew they’d be shot down any second. It was just a shame they’d get shot down a little later than I would’ve hoped. I saw the glint of a large RPG Launcher being lifted onto a shoulder. My heart leapt to my throat and my eyes widened.

“Oh shit!”

It was an instinctive reaction; I leapt from the safety of the wall out into the open and landed on my gut. An instant later, the wall was blown to smithereens, leaving me without any cover whatsoever. I screamed as the force of the explosion washed over me and sent crumbled brick everywhere. I covered my head with my arms, feeling my heartrate go through the roof. My heart pounded as a hail of bullets flew out over the battlefield. I screamed at the sound, panicking at the idea that I had no idea what I should do now.

“Maddy!”

I looked up at the sound of my name and clumsily rose to my feet, sloppily running toward the nearest still-standing brick wall in sight.

“Madison! Get down!”

I was within a few steps of the shelter when I felt a body leap in at me and throw me to the ground. Gunfire screamed in every direction. There was no escape.

“Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!” I grunted.

Bullets whistled past our ears. I glanced to my side to see where Case was. The familiarity of the situation was more terrifying than the situation itself. And just like in the dream, Case was on his feet, exactly how he shouldn’t have been, trying to get me to my feet so we could move toward the wall.

“Case! Stay down!” I cried in desperation.
An ugly sound of hot lead tearing through flesh echoed to me above the sounds of gunfire itself. The battlefield suddenly seemed to fall silent, though the war went on. Everything seemed quiet; I could hear my own heart beating as I watched in shock as Case fell to the ground.

“CASE!”

I scrambled toward my friend, the sounds of battle returning to my ears. Case lay on his back, trembling and grabbing at his chest. I made it to him and knelt down at his side, keeping my head low as bullets zinged about. I felt along his chest, hearing him cry out in pain and feeling something slippery on my fingers. I stared at the wound. How could so much blood, too much blood, come out of such a small hole? How could anyone die from such a tiny wound? Case shouldn’t have been lying there dying of something so miniscule! It shouldn’t have been more than a scratch! So why couldn’t he breathe properly?

“Oh God… Help!” I began to shriek. “Help! Medic! I need a medic here now!”

I could hear a revolting gurgling sound coming from Case. I shuddered at the sound, knowing there was blood in the lungs. But it was just such a small wound! How could anyone die from something like that? Why was he gurgling like that? Why had something so small caused so much damage? Case couldn’t die… Not Case.

“I don’t wanna die Maddy!” Case gasped.

He was starting to panic.

“Case! Case! Stay with me Case!”

I heard footsteps rushing towards us. Hutchinson and Everett – neither of them were medics.

“Where the fuck is the medic?” I shouted before remembering our medic had been killed a couple days earlier.

There was no medic with us.

I grabbed Case’s hand and squeezed it tight. I had never felt so helpless – I wanted nothing more than to save him. I couldn’t accept that he was already dead.

“Shit, what happened?” one of the other men asked as they reached us.

“He got hit,” I told him.

“Let’s get him out of here.”

One of the pair lifted Case up and hoisted him over his shoulder. I squeezed Case’s hand as tight as I could as we began to run back the way we had come. Gunfire was everywhere – it was amazing that none of us got hit in the fiasco. Case screamed in pain, I fought back panicky tears and ducked my head low, screaming in fear and fighting back the tears. Case’s helmet fell from his head. I tore my own from the top of my head and placed it on his, holding it in place as the three of us ran with the dying man to safety.

We raced to the nearest building where we knew a medic would be. We hurried inside and took a violently shaking Case down into the basement. Case was dropped onto the floor, where Hutchinson and me tried hard to hold him down. Everett raced back upstairs to find someone, anyone who could help Case would be. Case shook too violently, panic having set in long ago. He fought against us to grab at his chest, I couldn’t fight back the tears as I watched my best friend struggle in such agony.

I shouted at Hutchinson to do something as he shouted back at me. I could see his distress at Case’s condition, and I knew he wanted to be able to save him, but because he didn’t know what to do I wanted to slap him. I wanted to blame him as much as I blamed myself for where Case was at. It wasn’t his fault, but I wanted it to be.

“I don’t wanna die Maddy! Maddy! Don’t let me die!” Case begged me as he writhed about.

I felt so helpless, so useless. My best friend was lying there dying and there was nothing I could do to save him.

“You’re not gonna die! Just hang on!” I almost believed it. “Where the fuck is the medic?”

I heard footsteps on the stairs, and knew the medic wasn’t far away. I also knew that there was no point in hoping the medic could save him – Case wasn’t going to make it.

“Maddy, Maddy! Maddy! Maddy…”

Silence ensued. A deathly silence. Life was gone… All gone.

“No…” I whimpered. “Case, no… Case… Wake up…”

More tears began to come russhing out from my eyes, I couldn’t comprehend the idea that my best friend was lying on the floor. It just wasn’t possible.

“No… No…”

I began to scream, trying to scream it all away.

Dawn saw Case’s body begin taken from the basement where he had died to the truck that would eventually be taking him back home to Autumn Bay. The events of the night before had long since ended, and it was time for Xavier to go home. I would be staying though, no matter how bad I now wanted out.

It was a cold morning, the sky having clouded over bringing with it the threat of rain. I could smell rain in the air, as if the sky was crying for Case too. I felt poetry swimming in my head at the thought of the sky – the sky wept for its lost angel. I would’ve had that engraved on his gravestone if I could.

I was sitting on a large pile of rubble smoking a cigarette watching the sky. I felt the loss of Case almost as bitterly as I had felt it the night before, but now I had fallen into a state of numbness and unfeeling. I had no more tears left to cry for Case, but I knew that they were taking the time to rebuild their reserves. I hadn’t done all the howling for Case that I knew I would do eventually. The idea of eating a bullet was still sounding like a good one, I had spent most of last night with my .45 in hand pointing the way that drill seargeants usually said was the wrong way to aim… Bullet in the brain, and I’m dead. Bullet in the brain, and the sky cries alone…

I looked away from the skies when they took the stretcher past. A blanket covered his body; I couldn’t see his face.

I let a drag of smoke flow out through my nose and watched them pass me by. It occurred to me that I was never going to see Case again. If I ever made it home to the Bay, I would find myself sitting beside his gravestone smoking a cigarette and talking to the body hidden under six feet of dirt.

“Wait,” I called, leaping off the rubble.

The men stopped walking and looked up at me. I made my way toward them, taking one last drag of my cigarette before flicking the butt aside.

“I wanna say goodbye.”

The two men glanced uncertainly at one another before nodding at me and setting the strether down on the ground. Off they went, lighting up cigarettes and muttering about how the lot of us were about to be moving out. They didn’t care; they weren’t his best friends. You don’t care if they’re getting killed off from your own side if you’re not good friends with them. I knelt down beside Case’s body and pulled back the blanket covering his face. He wasn’t sleeping and he wasn’t going to be waking up anytime soon. It was just his body, lying still.

“Hey X,” I greeted. “I guess you’re going home now.”

I looked away from Case’s face and began to concentrate on fighting back the tears stinging my eyes. I felt so empty, and yet so full of sorrow. Oh the irony…

“I gotta stay here for a little while longer, okay?” I sniffed. “I gotta stay here, but you go home. You tell everyone that I’m okay, and-and-and… And that I said ‘hi’. And you tell them I’m fighting hard, I’m fighting hard and I’m making them proud, real proud.”

I saw his dogtags hanging around his neck and remembered the ring on his finger. I reached over and slowly slipped the tags off from over his head. I looked down at them and fiddled with them in my hands. I reached under the blanket and slipped the ring off his finger. Tears were stinging at my eyes and the lump in my throat was choking me as I stared at the ring. The thick, gold ring… His dad had given it to him the day we were shipped out. The blood-red oval jewel in the centre stared back at me, reminding me of the colours I had seen on Case’s uniform the night before. Case was so proud the day he got it. I knew I should’ve left it with Case – his Dad would be wondering where it was when the body got home. But if I left it alone, someone would’ve stolen it – someone always does.

“I’ll look after these for you,” I told him, slipping the ring onto the chain with his tags. “I’ll give them back when I get home, okay?”

Tears were rolling down my cheeks. I didn’t want to accept that Case was gone. I stared down at the ring and the tags, fiddling with them, unable to look down at Case’s dead body. I couldn’t look at him like that, not when he wasn’t in his own skin.

“Willkens.”

I felt a comforting hand come down on my shoulder. I looked up at Taylor.

“We have to take the body now,” he told me gently.

I nodded and sniffed. I wrapped the chain with Case’s tags and his ring a couple times around my wrist, dropping my arms to my side and looking up at the sky. A raindrop splashed against my cheek where my tears were, the sad sky sharing my pain for the lost soldier. The two men draped the blanket back over Case’s head, lifted the stretcher up, and carried Case toward the truck. I rose to my feet and flicked at the tags, watching as Case’s body was loaded onto the back of the truck. I shivered as I watched, feeling so alone and helpless. The cold bit at me, straight through my uniform, just like it always did. I wrapped my arms around my lonely self.

The engine started and the truck rollwed away down the road, carrying Case back toward home. I flicked at the tags around my wrist, and with every shudder, shook more tears. I was alone.

Sometime later I received a letter from home. It was snowing in Autumn Bay.