~Raiden~
I’d only been sleeping for about an hour when I hear Weston mumbling somewhere to my left. My ears perk up only slightly, making sure nothing’s wrong. A habit I’ve become accustomed to, being alert no matter if you’re sleeping, awake, doesn’t matter. You have to be on your A game at every moment over here, or you end up dead. Period.
The only problem is it sounds like West is having a bad dream. He normally doesn’t talk or mumble in his sleep but I can hear him loud and clear and it sounds like he’s warring with something in his dreams.
I sit up slowly, rubbing my exhausted eyes and turn his way. He’s tossing around on his cot, and even from my side of the tent, I can see he’s covered in a thick sheen of sweat.
I slip my feet into my boots and pad over to him, reaching out a tentative hand to his shoulder.
He comes up swinging when I make contact, but thankfully I was planning on something like this so I jumped back before he hit me.
His eyes shoot open and he turns every which way looking bewildered.
He lets out a frustrated growl, “Raiden what the fuck?!”
I can’t help but to scowl at him, but quickly soothe my expression knowing he was just having a nightmare.
“You were talking in your sleep man, you good?”
I stare hard at him, and then soften again showing my genuine concern.
“Yeah, yeah man, I’m good.”
He scrubs his hands down his face and then lays back and rolls over, turning away from me.
I go back to my own cot and sit down, my elbows on my knees, my fists propping my head up under my chin.
I wonder what he was dreaming about, I can only guess, but I’m thinking he’s reliving something. We’ve been fortunate enough in the tours we’ve had together that we haven’t lost many of the brothers fighting along with us but that doesn’t mean we haven’t seen some heavy shit. I haven’t had many nightmares where I relive something we’ve gone through but when I do… it fucking blows. You feel helpless seeing such carnage and terror, not being able to put a stop to it, save a civilian… anything.
That’s honestly the worst part about the nightmares, that you can’t do anything to stop it. I can’t imagine if something happened in the field and you had that weighing on your conscience, so when you dreamt, you had nightmares of that. I don’t know what it’s like to lose a brother in the same battle I’m in and I hope against hope I’ll never experience it. Like I said, we’ve been lucky. As concerned as I am for my best friend I can’t help that my thoughts turn to Elli. I slide my boots back off and lay back down on my cot, my arms going to rest behind my head, my eyes scanning the ceiling of our tent.
I wonder if something like that happened to Garrett in the field.
Maybe he lost one of his buddies and it weighed too heavy on his mind, couldn’t escape it. I still can’t figure out how he could leave that sweet woman behind, leave this world in such a way and have her find him.
I close my eyes, a grimace on my face. I wish she wouldn’t have gone through that, I know it had fucked her up in the head. Not in a way that she can’t recover but I can just imagine she’s struggling with how I’ve been to her. Calling her sweet girl, flirting.
She said it’s been two years since he died and she’s still wearing her widow shroud.
Is it bad I want to rescue her?
Take her away from all the pain she forces herself to live in every day?
I sigh, heavy and burdened. Realizing I won’t be getting back to sleep anytime soon, I sit up again and don my boots, heading over to the comm tent.
All I want to do is talk to her, reach out to her, get some stuff off my own chest.
I just hope she’ll listen to what I’m saying, and more importantly that I won’t scare her off.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Can’t Sleep
Hey sweet girl,
My buddy Weston woke me up after barely getting any sleep in the first place. He’s having nightmares and I have to be honest… it’s worrying me.
I asked him if he’s good and he said he was, so I won’t press it but it still weighs on me. How are you?
Tell me about you Elli.
I want to know you.
I want you to take my mind away from this place, take me back to California.
I’ll tell you more about me too, so it’s fair.
My middle name is Edward. Raiden Edward Michaels.
I am twenty-eight years old and basically live with my mama, don’t laugh I have my own place but don’t stay at it often.
My favorite color is blue and even though I don’t always get to, I like to read. Something interesting about that is I like to read about history. You can probably guess I like reading about wars in the past, but it’s just tactics I study. What they could have done, what they did and didn’t do.
I know I’m rambling through this email but I just needed to send you something.
I said before, I’m glad you emailed me the first time and I am, because Elli, I think I needed someone to talk to as well.
Will you do me a favor?
Listen to “The Light” by Disturbed. I think you’ll like it. Really listen to the words.
Yours, Raid.
I click send, not really sure if that even made sense.
There’s something about this girl, this incredible woman.
I just feel the constant aching need to reach out to her.
Throwing in the song suggestion at the end was impromptu but I think she’ll get something out of it, maybe understand what I already know about her and what she needs to know about herself.