Time/Date Error (Damned of the 2/19th-Book Six) - Done

Warm Water, Life & Tears

2/19th SWG Barracks
2/19th Special Weapons Group Area
Secure Area, Alfenwehr
West Germany
28 October, 1987
0630

"Are you going to help me?" I asked. I hated the whining sound of my voice. My words were slurred, my lips swelling up like balloons, my missing teeth giving me a lisp.

Stillwater just shrugged. "Sorry," was all he said.

I felt a twinge in my chest. My back burned where the skin had been stripped off by the cold of the floor.

"Help me," I begged him reaching out to him with my left hand. My pinky was still crooked. That was a problem. I was left handed.

He shook his head. "Sorry," He said again, then took a long drink off the bottle, "Can't."

I started crying. "Please, Stillwater, I'm hurt."

Another head shake. "Life is pain, Cromwell, get used to it."

I coughed, sharp stabbing pains in my ribs making me cry out.

A sudden realization made my blood run cold. I was already crying in pain and frustration.

"You're dead, aren't you?" I asked. I sobbed. "Am I going to die? Alone? In your shower?"

Another shrug, "Maybe. I'm not sure about me."

"Me? Am I going to die?"

He nodded slowly. "We all die, Cromwell. Some easier than others, but there's no good way to go. We all die alone."

I wrapped my arms around myself, hugging myself, as I started shuddering. "I don't want to die," I told him.

"We don't all get what we want," He told me, then chuckled, a harsh, bitter sound, "I wanted to be a normal boy, a normal person, with a job and a little house with a white picket fence." He pointed at his chest with the cigarette then took another drag. "Instead, I'm this."

"I'm in shock, aren't I?" I lisped. There was a glow-stick on the floor, a chem-light. I cracked it, shook it, and dropped it, painting the room in green.

He nodded again, "You were hypothermic. You turned the water up too high, warmed yourself up too face. Combined with your injuries, it sent you into shock." He took another drink off the bottle of Wild Turkey then set it down.

The glass was cold and slick with condensation when I wrapped my hand around it. I took a drink, staring at Stillwater. The alcohol burned its way into my stomach, making my bruised and battered guts clench. I coughed and took another drink, setting it down as I went through another coughing fit. My ribs flared with agony, but the booze made it easier to handle.

Stillwater picked up the bottle and took a long drink, then another drag off of his cigarette. I pulled myself half out of the shower, pulling the curtain over my back, and reached for the pack of cigarettes and the lighter on the floor by his boot.

I wiped my hands on his cold pants leg before pulling out a cigarette and lighting it.

My hands shook.

The nicotine felt good, the smoke filling my lungs. The first drag made me cough. The second made me dizzy. The third was just fine.

Everything but my arms below my neck was still in the hot water from the shower.

When I looked up, Stillwater was gone.

I laid my face on the cold tile and wept, smoking the cigarette. The bottle of Wild Turkey was still in reach. Blood was all over the bottle, and I could see my own handprint on it. There was blood streaks on the floor where it had rolled into the room. The pack of cigarettes had been in the middle of a frozen pool of blood that the heat from the shower had thawed.