Requiem for a Soldier (Requiem #1)

Chapter 13: Unmasked

April 11

Tayja

This time, I'm the one who wakes in the middle of the night to my housemate's nightmare. When I first heard the crash that came from outside the bedroom door, I assumed that the man who haunts my nightmares had found me. But when I heard Ryan's yelling, I realized something entirely different was going on. Most of his words were unintelligible, but then I heard him yell for Jeremy. That was the name of his best friend, the one he told me had died in the explosion that injured Ryan. If he's yelling for Jeremy, that must mean he thinks he's still in Afghanistan.

It's been about a week since he woke me up from my recurring nightmare and told me about the ones that plague him. I've heard stories about soldiers with PTSD holding their wives at knifepoint, thinking they're back on the battlefield, not recognizing the frantic cries of their loved one.

I'm afraid to leave the bedroom at first. If a man could mistake his wife for an enemy soldier, how would Ryan react to me, a girl he's only known for a few weeks? Ryan yells for Jeremy again and I hear the fear in his voice. I remember the terror I feel in my nightmares. I can't do nothing. I can't listen to him relive his worst nightmare and do nothing about it.

I step into the doorway between the bedroom and the rest of the cabin. The light from the dancing auroras in the sky dimly illuminates the room with a greenish hue. Despite the darkness, I can clearly see the source of the crash that woke me. The kitchen table is lying on its side and Ryan is crouched on the floor behind it. I'm relieved to see that he's not holding a knife, one of the guns, or any other sort of weapon.

In the darkness, a few moments pass before it dawns on me that Ryan's not wearing his mask. Uh oh. His right side is angled toward me, but I can't make out much of his face. His long, dark hair is hiding it from view.

"Ryan?" My voice sounds as unsure as I feel. He's not going to be happy with me when he wakes up from this.

Ryan jerks at the sound of his name and spins to look at me, still crouched behind the table. "Get down!" he nearly screams as he drops completely to the floor, covering his head with his arms.

I stare at his huddled form. I don't know how to wake him up from this. I should have stayed in the bedroom. The immediate cause for alarm must end after a moment because he scrambles back to a crouch and shouts at me again.

"I said get down! Can't you hear the mortars? Crawl over here, I'll cover you."

It seems that my refusal to move from a standing position is agitating him, so I decide to obey him. I lower myself to my hands and knees and awkwardly shuffle over as he pops up to peer over the table.

"Where's my gun?" he asks, sounding horrified.

I can't play along with this. I need to snap him out of this and get him to calm down. "It's locked in the gun safe, Ryan. You don't need it. We're safe." Now I finally understand why he insists on locking them away each night. And why he didn't seem to like explaining why.

He crouches next to me and looks at me, his face inches from mine. I bite my lip to keep from crying out. The right side of his face is... it's destroyed. From his hairline clear down across his forehead, cheek, jaw, neck, and disappearing under his flannel shirt, the skin is mutilated. The scarring is the worst I've ever seen. It looks like half of his face was burned off. His right eye is just as blue as his left but somehow lacks the clarity. It's dim and unseeing. That's why the mask only has one eyehole. His right eye is blind. Or maybe it's not even real. I can't see how far toward the back of his head the scarring continues, his long hair obscuring it.