INTERIM · BEN PARISH | ✓

Five

"LAUREN!" I SCREAM myself awake, hyperventilating as I sit straight up. Calm down. It was just a dream. Caaaalm dooooown.

"It was just a dream," I tell myself. And I collapse in tears. I haven't cried in over five months, and tonight I broke my record.

Someone is right next to me, cradling me in their arms. I don't stop them.

"She killed herself. My best friend killed herself," I whisper, and my tears reach down to my chin. "She killed herself!" I shriek loudly this time.

"Shh. It was just a dream," the warm voice says to me.

"She's alive, Musket, she has to be."

"And she is, she's just probably in hiding. Now go back to sleep. You've got around twenty minutes or so." He releases me and pulls the covers back over my shoulder.

But I can't sleep. I only pretend to so he can finally get off my back, but I can't pretend that I've got a shield over me at all times forever. At some point I crack. Just a little bit.

And I cracked this morning.

Reznik is down when we finish for inspection. He scans the premises, spits on the floor, and yells at a young private to clean it up or they'd be scrubbing the barracks with their own toothbrush (again). The kid cleans it in one swipe of his jacket.

He steps down and walks closer. "I heard a little scream come down from Barracks 10 bout an hour ago. Which one of you sorry wusses woke me up?" He walks to one squad. "Was it you, Private Bramble?"

"Sir, no sir!"

"You?"

"Sir, no sir!" Squad 23's leader replies.

"Or was it you, Private Red?" he sneers, leaning in closer. He smells like smoke and about a hundred other disgusting things I shouldn't even be imagining right now.

"Sir, Private Red did sir!" I say back at him.

"So squad 19's shitty leader decides it's a great idea to wake up the senior drill instructor in the middle of the night?"

I don't respond. I can't; my throat's closing up.

"Huh, Private Red? You on your period or something? That why you cried yourself awake? That why you're named Red?"

God, he's gonna punch me. Anywhere I'll handle, but not my face.

He goes for the stomach, knocking the air out. I can't breathe at all for that one second.

"That oughtta toughen you up. You're a sorry ass bitch with no control over your own fucking emotions! Lazy, weak, pathetic."

"Yes, sir."

"Bet that's why they called you Red. Period or some shit. Isn't that right?"

"Sir, yes sir," my lower lip trembles. Some people smirk, others stare straight ahead. Zombie looks at me with wide eyes, as if he can't believe what he's hearing from Reznik.

"Louder, I CAN'T FUCKING HEAR YOU!"

"Sir, yes sir!"

"You're Red because you were unstable, weak, so insecure, lame. You were acting like a little baby girl."

"Sir, yes sir!"

"Red because you were bleeding. You bleed for this country, not for your private parts' content! This little squad leader is a pathetic excuse for a successor."

"Sir, the squad leader is a pathetic excuse for a successor!" I can't believe what I'm even repeating.

After five more minutes on commenting period jokes and more cursing on how I'm one of the lowest life forms in this planet and I'm a girl, he finally leaves and every squad in the barracks heads out for three laps in the freezing, five AM weather.