When I woke up the following morning, I was half expecting a world filled with darkness, and the black spots in my eyes almost made my heart drop. But as my brain booted up some more, I immediately calmed down and slowly stirred to a sitting position. The sun wasn't up yet, and the sky was full of clouds, obstructing the moonlight, but I could still make out the soldiers in their sleeping bags, and the one guy who was supposed to be sitting watch was snoring. I pushed myself up and silently made my way toward him.
"GA-"
"Hush."
He then made some noises that I thought was swears, it was quiet but his half scream earlier was enough to woke the other two. the one who spoke on the transceiver the night before immediately grabbed his gun and pointed at me, while the other fumbled around a little before finding his gun and also pointed it at me. Everything was frozen for a few seconds before radio guy said something, probably cussing night watch guy, and linguistic guy just dropped his hands down and let out a few curse that I can understand.
Since everyone was up, they decided to start moving immediately after packing and clearing their tracks. In the cover of night, we unsurprisingly moved very slowly, even if it was very much brighter than the absolute darkness there, it was still too dark to see properly. After several hours of traveling, the sky finally lit up albeit by a little. We ended up traveling for the entire day out of town, and my weak body couldn't even hold itself up properly after that. That continued for a few more days, getting dangerously close to the fallout zone of one of the nukes where it seemed like they had secured a small village as their outpost. There they transferred me to another group to "escort" me to their refugee camp. Then I got to ride on a helicopter for the first time and was taught their language, otherwise it was pretty uneventful. By the time I was dropped off at the camp via a Humvee two weeks later, I could hold a very simple conversation with one of the soldiers. But it was also when my mind recovered enough to have the hatred of them for starting a war on my homeland to return, I almost lashed out and got detained. I think that just happened in my head? Anyways, I was settled into a small room with a family of five. I definitely blamed the Collaboratists for this stupid arrangement. The mother had to comfort me while I'm not even her child!
The following week was very blurry, probably because I was too busy acting depressed and generally not bothering to interact with anyone for more than ten seconds.
Then on the eighth day I was jolted awake in the middle of the night with a weirdly uneasy feeling.
The next moment I felt a prick on my neck and everything turned pitch black-
-I was ducking and there was a tranquilizer dart on the ceiling. I frantically looked around and discovered the small gap in the windows, exactly where the dart would've came from based on the positioning of my neck and the dart's position. Realizing the situation I was in, I quickly grabbed the cloak, as it was my only possession left, and dashed through the door. I made it to the gate of the building before something bashed me hard on the back of my neck-
-narrowly dodging a bash from a soldier, then promptly got knocked out by something hitting the back of my head-
- ducked and felt something passed above me. Suddenly, out of nowhere the entire building lit up with the bright light and shrill hissing of several stun grenades going off at the same time.
The next time I came to, I was sitting on a chair, tied onto it, in fact, in a huge plain room with no furniture other than a mirror on my left, a table, and two chairs in the center of the room. When I turned my head all the way to the right, I could barely make out a door somewhere on the wall behind me. I tried shifting in hope of freeing myself, but the sleek black bindings wouldn't budge. I just sat there awkwardly for sometimes, waiting for something to happen while I started tapping my fingers at some point. I was deep in thought about how my life had flipped outside in in less than one year. The longer I was thinking, the hatred at the Collaboratists seemed less and less justifiable. Sure, it was them who started the war, but so did the other two, and the Compatriotists were the ones who dropped the first nuke.
The Collaboratists, they were responsible for my mom's and brother's death, but it was definitely a stray missile, I saw it got deflected by some kind of-
That...
It didn't got deflected.
The world spun, reality folded in onto itself, and after an eternal moment of nauseating shifting sea of color, I opened my eyes to a bright white light on a similarly white ceiling. I grabbed the EEG wires over my head and yanked hard and sat up. I was in a state of half asleep, my senses were dulled, but I remember the personnels freaking out over something. Though it felt like being in a vivid dream, I just couldn't care. I moved around, they shot at me, but none hit me, I think. I walked through their place, which to be honest, looked exactly like the secret organization base I saw on movies, but a little impractical. Some doors were already opened or just opened up when I fumbled around with the screen next to it. I didn't know how long I walked, but after a few weird back and forth stair, long twisty hallways and several fake doors, I finally opened a door that led outside.
I was in the desert.
Just plain white sand for as far as my eyes can see, and there were a bunch of Humvees heading my way. They arrived and some soldiers with guns entered the base behind me with their guns up while some covered me and escorted me to their vehicles. Immediately after my body made contact with the seats, I blacked out for the nth time within one day of conscious time.
