Army Girl Down (Patreon)

The forest was too quiet. Sergeant Wanda stood on the mossy rock with her hands on her belt, scanning the treetops. The radio had been silent for twenty minutes, and she knew something was wrong.

The shot came from somewhere far up the ridge. She never heard it. The bullet crossed the distance in a fraction of a second, passing between the trees and a gap in the branches before it found her. It struck just below her left collarbone, tore through the turtleneck and the skin, and went between the third and fourth ribs. It crossed the thin wall of the pericardium and entered the left ventricle, the strongest chamber of her heart, the one that had pumped her blood with every step through this forest.

For one heartbeat she felt only a hard, hot punch. Then the pain spread through her chest like a fist closing around her ribs. She gasped, pressed her palm to her left breast and felt something warm soak through the fabric under her fingers.

Under her hand, her heart was still fighting. It beat once, twice, hard and wild, pushing blood out through the hole instead of into her body. The beats came weaker, farther apart. She felt it fluttering against her palm like a bird trapped in her chest, and then she felt it slow down. Her pulse faded from her fingertips, her ears and her throat. Her legs turned cold. Her vision narrowed into a tunnel of grey sky and bare branches.

She staggered back against the stone, and behind her footsteps crunched through the dry leaves. She turned, wide-eyed, but saw no one. Her heart gave one last weak beat against her hand, and then it stopped being hers at all.

Her knees gave way. She slid into the leaves, and the world went silent. Her weapon stayed on her belt, the radio stayed dead, and the branches swayed above her.

She lay motionless as the forest covered her in leaves, as if it wanted to hide her. Far away, the echo of the shot faded into the hills.

The army is searching for her. But will someone else find her first?