Why Didn’t She Die?

I
	Ruined.  Absolutely ruined.

	“How can they destroy things this way?” my teammate said as he nudged my ribs.
Neither of us looked at each other.  I was concentrating on the scene before my team and 
me.
	We were on a cliff; the apocalypse lay before us.  The largest city in this region 
didn’t exist anymore.  Broken buildings scattered the ground in all directions like pebbles
 and rocks in a dry riverbed.  There was cloud cover, and a cold wind whipped my rank ribbons
 across my back.  That didn’t help the situation much.  I wasn’t looking forward to picking 
my way through the battered plaster, broken glass, and crunched metal.  But I knew those 
were my orders.  I waved my squadron on, and we started down the cliff.
	Name and rank: Ry’kel Cal’istit, second corporal of the 21st division of Maltha National 
Special Forces.  I know, it’s not very high ranking, but that doesn’t bother me.  I’m not that much 
into gaining ranks here.  Anyway, there’s this ridiculous group going around destroying cities, but 
I’ve never seen anything as devastated as this one.  We’ve never been able to catch up with them, 
why I don’t know, so all we can do is search for clues where they’ve been.  That’s today’s orders.
	I skidded down to the end of the cliff.  I’m going to have to wash my uniform, even though 
it’s supposed to repel contaminants.  I guess dirt doesn’t qualify.  I was only meters from the wreckages 
now.  The rest of my division spread out and I knew the same thing was going on all around the perimeter 
with the other thirty divisions involved.  I was holding a gas mask that someone probably gave to me, 
so I put it on.  There could be open gas pipes, so I was glad I looked like a freak.  Finally I decided 
to enter.
	The place was horrible.  The whole city looked like it was cooked on a gas stove too long.  
Water was pouring out of the only pipes that weren’t melted.  Buildings that might have been white 
were only burnt toast, but even worse were the inhabitants.  Charred and broken bodies scattered the 
walkways and I really wished I wasn’t there.  It had been the same in all the other cities I’d been in.  
We’re supposed to look for survivors, but there were never any.
	Suddenly a note pierced the air.
	“A girl’s scream!” I thought.  “Survivors?”
	I rushed between two buildings to a side street.  I could barely climb over an excuse for a 
car as I searched for the source of the scream.
	There she was.  Out in the middle of the street a girl with a short dress and shorter hair 
was panicking.  Her arms were drawn up so her hands covered her face, and her movement was erratic.  
I took off my gas mask so I wouldn’t scare her and walked slowly over to her.  When she caught sight 
of me she ran over to me and stretched out her arms.  Her face was tear-stained and drawn together in 
a look of terror.  She grabbed hold of my red uniform and frantically asked questions.
	“What happened?  What happened?  Ev-everyone’s dead!  What happened?!”
	She was almost as tall as me and looked around seventeen.  I tried to calm her down as best I 
could.
	“You’ll be fine, fine.  Tell me, are you the only survivor?”
	She only continued to cry.  I couldn’t blame her, though.
	“Please, miss, are there any other survivors?”
	She shook her head violently and released my shirt to cover her face.
	“It’s alright.  Come on, I’ll take you with me out of here,” I assured her.  Suddenly she leaned 
forward against me, and I noticed she’d fallen asleep.  Steadying her, I checked my GPS unit to see where 
to head, then I picked her up as gently as I could, put her over my shoulder, and headed out of the city.  
I left the gas mask on the ground.

II
	She slept all the way back to the temporary HQ, where one of my superior officers was residing.  
He called over a medical team.
	“But sir,” I started, “while I was carrying her I noticed she had no cuts or bruises…she was 
walking fine…”
	He turned around sharply and concentrated on me.  This guy was about five years older than me, 
so he’s twenty-four, and already he’s a captain.  Shows you what kind of guy he must be.
	“Did you not consider organ damage?” he more or less snarled.  “Internal bleeding?  Maybe she 
didn’t notice it while she was awake, but there could be complications!  I’m sending her for a physical.”
	“Duh…internal damage…” I thought.
	“Permission to leave, sir?” I said.
	“Permission granted.  Take the rest of the day off.”
	I checked my watch.  It was only 1000, and my mission had started at 0800.  I headed back to my 
tent for a nap.
	Not much happened in the days that followed.  I had more reconnaissance missions, but it was the 
same depressing scene as the other cities.  Then one day I decided to go see how that girl was doing.  
That’d be courteous.
	I walked into the medical tent and asked the nurse there about her.
	“Oh her?  Her physical was perfect.  Absolutely nothing was wrong with her, aside from being 
traumatized from whatever happened,” she responded.  She paused and took out a data sheet.  “She said 
her name was Lin-Jun Katha, age seventeen.  We sent her to HQ for questioning.”
	There was nothing I could do.
	“Thank you,” I said, and returned to my tent.

III
About two weeks later the temporary HQ was disassembled and we returned to our real headquarters about 
300 kilometers west.
	“Home again,” I sighed.  Well, it had been for the past three years; I got enrolled when I was 
fifteen.  But that’s not important.
	I was on my way to the mess hall when I recognized a familiar face.
	“Lin-Jun!” I shouted.  I saw her face light up, and I was glad she remembered me.  She ran over, 
and I noticed she was in a nurse’s uniform, with a small white hat crowning her sea green hair.
	“Hi!” she announced.  “…Ry’kel!”  She had to look at my dog tag.  “Thank you for everything you did for me.”
	I had to smile.  “That’s my job.  How have you been?”
	She rocked back and forth on her feet.
	“As good as I could be right now, I guess.  I’m a nurse in training.  Let’s go sit down!”
	The line was moving fast and we got a table.
	We talked about her questioning, and she said that she didn’t know anything.  The attack 
had been during the night.  Everyone died in his or her sleep.
	Suddenly my knife slipped.
	“Ow!”  My thumb went in my mouth.
	“Oh dear!  Let me take care of that…”  She pulled my hand away with one arm and reached into her medical 
sling with the other.
	But I couldn’t believe my eyes.  There was no more blood on my hand, not even a scar.
	“What the-!” I exclaimed as I retracted my arm.  Lin-Jun looked up from rummaging.
	“What?  What?”
	I showed her my hand.
	“There’s nothing there anymore!  When you took my hand, I guess…but…”
	Lin-Jun raised her hands in front of her and looked worried.
	“I…don’t know…”  She quickly hid her hands beneath the table.
	“Look,” I said, because I didn’t want her to feel like she was odd or strange, 
“I think you’ll be a great nurse.”
	Lin-Jun’s golden eyes shined.

IV
It was 0600.  It was the most important day the MSF has seen.  We had a lock on their location, and it was raid time.  
All our forces were rushed to all-terrain trucks and combat vehicles covered in stealth material.  We had to move out 
right away.  Their new HQ was about three days away.  I sat with my division in the back of a truck and we prepared 
ourselves, even though we had three days.  Orders.
	It was the evening of the third day that we arrived at the site.  Our orders were to raid immediately, as 
soon as we stepped off the truck.
	The fighting was already going on because our truck was near the back.  Only in the flashes of bombs and 
gunfire could I see the unnamed terrorists’ headquarters, a walled encampment.  Then I put on my night-vision goggles.  
I saw blurs of green moving and firing.  I saw the whole of the encampment.  There was a large, strange building in the 
middle of it.  I didn’t linger any longer, and jumped into the fray.
	The enemy wasn’t as numerous as expected, but some were firing from the walls with guns or shells.  Teammates ran 
past me.  Wounded ran behind me with nurses and doctors.
	I was about to engage when something went wrong with my goggles.  The strange building now looked aflame, and a 
weird shape filled my vision.  I took them off.
	“Holy-!” I screamed, as others around me did.
	The building was aflame.  Flames leapt up higher than I could imagine.  A shape was silhouetted in front of them.  
It was a dog, a dog 300 meters tall.  I saw a demon canine of three heads.  And its fire made it as bright as day.
	People were running every which way in panic.  Amid the chaos I saw Lin-Jun collapse from her standing position.  
I could only stare as a seemingly writhing beam of light strove upwards from her body.  In the air it solidified into an 
angel among snakes.  In the firelight, a shining green body and magnificent golden wings were one.
	“Lin-Jun!” I called as my feet remembered themselves and ran to her.  I knelt down.
	She was out like a light.  I had to get her out of this surreal battle.  I picked her up in both arms and started 
running toward the trucks behind me.
	By now almost the whole battlefield was deserted, except for those dead and those too scared to move.  I kept 
checking over my shoulder as I clumsily ran with Lin-Jun in my arms.
	For some reason the two strange beings were fighting, and they wrestled.  Three snapping heads clambered to 
grasp the twisting backbone of the snake.  I was glad we were moving farther and farther away.  The two paid no heed to 
the tiny ants fleeing at their feet.  Plaster and brick, wood and bone smashed under the weight of the bodies.  The snake 
and its wings were scorched from the dog’s fire, and each of the heads was being choked by a lissome body.
	Finally I reached a truck, but nobody was moving.  Everyone was watching the esoteric struggle of the two beings.  
Something happened that ended it.  The dog started flickering, its flames, rather.  It lost its balance, and I saw it fall, 
almost as if it was in slow motion, onto its right side.  We all stared as we noticed where the snake’s head was.  Crushed. 
 Crimson blood and broken wings could be seen under the giant canine’s figure.  They had ultimately destroyed themselves.
	As I remember this now, I wonder why I called it to memory.  Nothing had ever been seen of the likes of this; it 
was an acquaintance with the abnormal.  The last thing I remember of this scene was seeing Lin-Jun sit up, and in the 
dying and flickering firelight, noticing a bleeding cut on her cheek.