Her legs pound the earth and jolt her jaw. The heavy backpack bounces, threatening to tilt her off-balance, as the long grasses whip by and slash at her exposed face. The grey sky, formless, moves in slow parallax to her frenzied retreat through the plain. The birds are chattering like mad clerics in the sky.
Where is Mayfield? Where is the squad? She comes to a stumbling halt, mud splashing up her fatigues, and she has to plant a hand in the ground to stop herself bowling over. She calls their names into the radio, hardly able to whisper between her heavy breaths. Please answer. But there is only the sound of her own lungs, heeing and hawing, and the chittering rustle of the wind through the grasses.
The adrenaline burns a numbing path through her veins, up to her buzzing fingertips. She can feel the thick beat of blood in her jugular.
What were those things?
She pulls the rifle close to her chest. She needs to orient herself and make her way back to camp. Then she notices that all the birds have fallen silent and something is crying in the grasses.
Paddy Dobson
2nd January 2021