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Tyler

“CLEAR!” I hearShouts from the crowd My cry is lost in the noise and chaos

There is dust indust or sand in my eyes over here I haven’t blinked in a year and a half without grit in my eyes Now isn’t the ti people away, heedless of if it hurts them Better bruised than dead

Shouting in ain

“Negative, Leeds They’re just fucking with us”

I’et to him, to knock him out of the way

I’m too late

I’ late

There’s a shriek I don’t know if it’s the IED or if it’s a person or what’s left of one People are running now Robbins is on the ground, twenty feet from the mailbox outside the bus station Now it’s blown apart, a charred hole surrounded by ragged spikes that look like teeth It hadn’t been a decoy It had spewed shrapnel when it blew

The fluid looks black, like oil spilling out of his gut because the blood is so dark pouring onto the dust I stick my hands in to the—theIt’s no use My hands are coated up past er up to find the rest ofintofro

“Gibson! Foles! Do you copy?” I barked as I stepped over and around debris, weapon frag everything and the sharp tang of incendiary explosion that coated ue and throat with every breath

I found theether, just to the side of the device Their lile,flesh I turned and vomited in the dirt and radioed the base By that ti up ahead of a makeshift ambulance I just went towatch over their remains

Cold sweat drenched me as I jerked awake, startled by my own cries I scrubbed my hands over my face to clear my vision Just a dream Just a dream I was thousands of miles away from that place now Except part of ht there with my men

I rolled off the bed to the hard floor and started doing push-ups I did a hundred, then burpees, then sit-ups, then planks Anything to keep hts away If I worked ot too exhausted to focus on htmares So I punish my body to try and save the last shred of my sanity