I woke groggily as the alarm from my cellphone went off, blaring in my ear. I checked it, half awake and grumbling to myself. 0530. Same time as I’d always have to get up. This always sucks, though in a way it’s my fault for staying up until 0200 reading. At least I got one REM cycle’s worth of sleep.

I rolled out of bed, thankful I had at least thought to pre-stage my outfit for today. The though of digging through my wall-locker this early in the morning would have been enough to push me over the edge. Partially my fault for being habitually disorganized, but still. I still remember getting chewed out over it last Health and Comfort inspection...

The sounds of me rustling about with my clothes may have woken up my roommate, but the more likely culprit was the sound of her own phone going off. Much like I had done moments earlier, she stumbled to her wall locker to extract a fresh set of PT, physical training, gear.

“Morning.” I mumbled.

“Morning. You look like death warmed over. Did you stay up late reading again?” LCpl Thorne answered. She was a bit odd, but nice enough.

“I couldn’t find a good stopping point. You know how it goes. You just keep wanting to read the next chapter, and the chapter after that, and next thing you know it’s two in the morning.”

She let out a sigh, slightly muffled by the skivvie shirt she was pulling on over her head. “You know those bad habits are going to catch up to you some day. Shouldn’t you be getting ready for PT too?”

“I’m stuck as duty driver today. Sucks, but at least I don’t have to go to PT.”

“That does sound shitty. Duty on a Friday? Now how are you going to enjoy your exciting evening of buying out everything at the local Barnes and Noble?” She taunted jokingly as she tied her running shoes.

She stood, stretching as she checked to make sure the brown hair she had in a bun was firmly in place. It wasn’t that she was obsessed with her appearance. Far from it. There was potential there; long brown hair, decent sized chest, hell, she even had heterochromia, though you had to look kind of close past the heavy-framed issued glasses to notice it. She never even got new ones, still wearing the boot camp issued BCG’s, “birth control glasses.” They looked kind of cute on her, making her seem far more like a fantasy novel addict than I am.

She was the kind of girl to not want to stick out, however, despite having the kind of traits which makes her a shoe-in for a role as a fantasy story’s main character. Which is understandable. And don't even get her started on the heterochromia, she'll talk your ear off bitching about how difficult it made filling out paperwork when enlisting. And there was a lot of it. All the health documents, the 80+ page life story for job related stuff, the actual enlistment papers... Anyways, the main reason for making sure her bun was squared away was the ten kilo run for PT this morning. Having your hair pulling with every step as you run just sucks, like a weight on the back of your head bouncing about.

“I’ll manage. Have fun at PT.” I said, returning her taunt.

“Jokes on you, I like running.” And with that she bounded out the door.

Sighing, I began to dress myself. Nothing too exciting, it’s not as if there’s much variety in uniforms. Green silkies, sports bra, skivie shirt and boot socks, with desert trousers and a blouse over that. Sleeves rolled, of course. There was some fuck-fuck games with the current Commandant deciding for a while that we wouldn’t roll sleeves anymore, but that was changed a while afterwards. Though rolling sleeves is a hassle, it’s much nicer in summer even if most NCO’s are overly anal about how tightly they’re rolled. Last are the boots, bloused with the usual boot bands. An eight-point cover completes the look, as I step out the door and into the muggy, swampy morning.

I didn’t actually have to report in for my shift as duty driver until 0700, so I had plenty of time until then. I could go to the chow hall, but the thought of Sodexo so early in the morning made me die a little on the inside, even if the omelets were oddly amazing. Instead I trekked the half mile to the nearest PX, inwardly gloating at all the Marines exercising. The lack of sleep and humidity did little favors for my mood.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I hate being here. I wasn’t sure what direction I wanted to go after high school, and getting a degree payed for is an added bonus. That’s the main selling point of the military; free college and a paycheck. But man do I not like having to get up early. It’s probably bad habits built up from high school. I hated having to get up early too and half the time in my senior year I’d sleep through my first period class, having stayed up late reading.

Has anything really changed since then? Well, I guess I do get to enjoy the fun of living in a swamp. Half the year wearing green, living in a run-down building in a swamp... no one told me that the military was a shortcut to getting to LARP as Shrek. It could be worse. Having been to 29 Palms...now that place is a hellhole. Not a single bookstore within an hour of the base if I’m not mistaken, and mainside smells like the sewage treatment plant.

Speaking of things hazardous to your health, it’s time to pick up on provisions for today. Monster of course, several cans of it. Maybe some Hot Pockets? Nah, I have some in the freezer back in my barracks room. I’ll just grab a sandwich and a few bags of chips. And should I pick up cigarettes? I don’t really like smoking, but being able to take smoke-breaks is often a good out when things get too stupid. Monster Energy and cigarettes; the breakfast of champions. I’ll get a pack of Lucky Strikes. The PX is tax-free, so there’s none of those sin taxes to drive up the price.

This humidity really is hell. One think I’ve always noticed in most the fantasy novels I read is that no one there has to deal with humidity. It gets mentioned occasionally, but they still spend most the time running around in heavy wool or silk velvets. I do find myself wondering at times what it’d be like adventuring in a fantasy world, wearing neat old-fashioned outfits, fancy dresses, rough workers clothing. Fighting off enemies with a sword or magic, going on adventures, having excitement and mystery behind every corner. Maybe having a dashing prince or a brave adventurer in my party, leading to romance.

I’ll just ignore the nagging voice in the back of my head saying my life is plenty exciting enough already. Sure, maybe I’ve gotten to do one or two cool things recently, but it’s all kind of off, like it’s happening to someone else. I want to do something that feels real and bad-ass. Not this daily grind of getting up balls early. I definitely want a sword. I mean, if I get promoted I technically could wear a sword, with a dress uniform, but that’s kind of meh. It’d have to be a cool one, maybe with some sort of magic or curse on it. Cursed swords are always cool. Maybe like something from one of those animes Thorne likes watching, like-

thooooooong A loud noise rang out as I fell to the ground, having run into a street lamp. That fucking hurt. It’s really a bad habit I have getting distracted when I get lost in thought like that. Probably not the best trait, but I usually tend to keep my head about me when I’m actually working, I think. Dusting myself off, I picked up my cover that had fallen off my head and continued to the battalion headquarters to report in for a boring 24 hours as duty driver.

And that leads to where I’m at right now, watching anime with my roommate at 2330L in the evening.

All things considered, being stuck as duty driver was pretty chill. I was pretty much just there if someone needed to go somewhere on base of elsewhere due to reasons. I can’t recall the specific scenario’s, I just do what the tell me. But it wasn’t like today was completely made up of me skating out of work. We had some people need to go to Coaches course, training to be marksmanship coaches. Marksmanship coaching is like a thing you do for brownie points if you want to look good for promotion boards. You help out with rifle qualifications; since that's something everyone needs to do every year, they always need people to help out. And if you do coaches course, you technically rate wearing a pith helmet while working as a coach, which is neat I guess.

They have their own personal vehicles but you can’t really transport issued firearms in those, so I had to drive them from our armory to the one at the base-area-thingy whatchamacallit where the course was held. It’s really a long-ass drive, all the way across the river, no, bay. There were only two guys going through the course this time, so we just dropped the M9’s in the center council and left the rifles on the floor. It was a long drive, as I said, but not bad. Besides that I had to drive someone to the Naval Hospital for a routine check-up kind of thing, but that was a pretty good excuse to grab lunch there anyways; the food in the hospital’s galley is far better than the shit in the chow hall.

But it was all the usual duty shit. I mostly just sat in the S3 reading and waiting to be released. After the work-day was over I was allowed to stay in my room, since the Officer of the Day had my number to call if someone needed to be driven somewhere. I was supposed to go back at 0100 so the OOD could get a few hours of sleep, just waiting by the phone in case something important enough happened that they’d need to be woken up. But all in all it wasn’t anything exciting.

Mm-hm. But I’m not alone. You are always going to be with me, and so will everyone else. Because from now on, I’ll be everywhere for all time. Even if you can’t see me or hear me, I’ll be right there by your side…

“You know, this seems kind of gay...” I found myself saying. No idea why that slipped out.

“Who cares.” Thorne answered, tears in her eyes from the sheer emotion of the scene. Ave Maria payed mournfully from the TV over the dialogue as she continued. “And you of all people calling this gay?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I’m sure you’ll find out one day. But this series is a masterpiece. An absolute masterpiece. The fact that you aren’t in tears right now is a travesty in and of itself. I can’t wait for the movie to come out, although I don’t know how they’ll top the OG anime. Now, what should we watch next?”

“Weren’t you mocking me just this morning for spending my weekends reading? And here you are making me watch cartoons about magical girls.”

“This show’s a masterpiece. Now, what next? I have one about an electromagnetic psychic girl, or this one about a girl in a fancy school swordfighting people to become a prince.”

“Second one actually sounds pretty cool, but you realize I have to go back to battalion headquarters in an hour.”

“Railgun it is. It’s much lighter, and watching something too deep might be problematic, considering you’ll have to spend the wee hours of the morning in that spooky, haunted building over there.”

“Don’t be absurd. If you believe half the stories floating around, every building our battalion has is haunted.”

“I don’t think there’s any ghosts in the paraloft? And our armory is pretty new and spook-free. Well, spook free except the analyst from Charlie who got lent to them, but that's not like a ghost. ”

“Just put on the anime. Or better yet, save it on a thumb drive, I’ll need something to watch while trying to stay awake over there.”

“If you say so, Miss Prince. Someday you’ll make a lucky princess happy.”

“Not everything is gay. God, how did you even manage not to get kicked out before DADT was repealed?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

The battalion headquarters at night did have a certain ominous feeling to it. Like most of the buildings, it was aging, and probably filled with asbestos. The OOD had already racked out, sleeping in the small room with a cot behind the duty hut. I, meanwhile, had found a convenient outlet in the S-3 to plug my computer into, where I could keep an eye on the front door. All other doors into the headquarters were locked. I had went over each and every one with the Officer of the Day beforehand, though I needed to check each hour as part of my rounds.

I felt an uncomfortable prickling sensation on the back of my neck as I watched the flashy show on my laptop. I didn’t exactly understand what was going on, but it was better than I thought it would be. But that enjoyment was being soured by a feeling of wrongness. It was probably just my imagination. Sure, there were all sorts of stories of incidents involving ghosts. Phone-calls and voices from buildings we know damn well have no one in them with armed guards on the outside, weird glints in windows, furniture rearranged. But it’s still all probably my imagination getting to me.

Of course I’d be nervous if I was reminded of spooky stuff right before going over to the spooky old battalion headquarters. Of course I’d… Damn, it’s the top of the hour.

I make my way through the empty building with a flashlight, checking every door on the way to the end of the long, dark, hallway. The duty belt digs into my side, my cover is itching as it pulls at my hair, and I just want to return to the S-3 room with my chips and my Monster. No, I actually wish I could return to my rack, with my extra pillows and the dakimakura Thorne bought me as a joke. Say what you want but it’s pretty comfy. But no, A Marine on Duty has No Friends, after all.

The wrong feeling is getting stronger and stronger. I’m no stranger to uncomfortable feelings, but this one feels different than usual. Often I just feel odd, like everything’s fuzzy. I normally just attribute that feeling to stress. That gross feeling of disconnect is nothing new, but it’s more of a feeling deadened rather than this. It was sharp, a primal urge screaming that things were wrong.

Unfortunately I was responsible. Even if I know all the doors are locked, I can’t just leave them. The nagging voice in the back of my head saying to do the right thing wouldn’t let me rest if I didn’t do my job right. Besides, claiming I did my rounds in the duty logbook when I haven’t is technically perjury, legally speaking. So I checked the last door at the end of the hall. Locked. As it was last hour, and the hour before.

I started the long walk back down the hallway, when I realized the echo of my footsteps sounded odd. I stopped, flashing the light behind me. Nothing. I continued. The oddity of the echo began again. I stopped. The footsteps, however, continued.

At this, I took off in a sprint. I knew something was off here. As I ran, I wished with all my might that the thing chasing me would just fuck off. As I made this deep wish, an odd feeling of reassurance came over me. I stopped again, and shined the flashlight at the hallway. I caught the glimpse of something disappearing back into a doorway, one I had checked previously.

I hated this, I absolutely hated this. Walking up to the doorway, I shined my light into the room. Nothing. Empty, and no place for a figure to hide. I cursed under my breath as I continued back to the light of the S-3 office, my laptop, and the logbook where yet another weird entry about footsteps had to be entered.