A waking nightmare

An Aerial View

A short story I wrote a while back, when I saw DICE was looking to work with a narrative designer, who ideally had some military background / experience for the same.

My curiosity was certainly piqued and this was a different and interesting story to write. As all of the knowledge I had was second hand (googling, stories I’ve heard from people, etc), I decided to stick with writing a short story and looked to elements that would build it all up.

Once I had my words, and a general character overview in mind, I thought about how I wanted to present the story. While typical script writing requires a certain structure, I wanted to write in a structure where the reader had to try to identify what was happening, as they followed character’s confused dream to waking state.

Readers caution: Themes of death and war.
Note: This was not part of a prompt or writing assignment.

A waking nightmare

‘Unit Alpha’ *static* ‘Unit Alpha respond!’

‘They’re coming this way!’
Damnit.

‘There’s no response from Alpha. There’s no way for us to hold this post.’

‘We can’t abandon our post. What if Alpha makes it back in time?’

‘Tactical retreat. Fallback to point Gamma.’
We could hold out for longer. One woman could delay them.

‘Unit Alpha responding’ *static* ‘Come in’

‘Alpha what’s your status?’ *click*

‘Throw it! They’ve homed in -‘
It hurts. Stay low. I need to stay low.

‘Survivors?’
No. Just me. Shit. Now what?

Why are they so slow … ?
That click. Shit. I need to get up. Radio in. Hold the post.

Quick. Move. MOVE!

‘All units radio silence! Code Echo’ *click*
This is it. Please work!

Did it work? it’s … dark. Dark, and cold.

“Miss.”

I missed? No, no I couldn’t have. I staked everything on it!

“Amara?”

A bright light on my lids had me snapping awake. A constant beep in the background.

“Amara? Do you know where you are?”

A nurse stood before the window, where the sunlight filtered in. Right. It’s over. It’s been over for a long time.

“People’s Hospital.”

“Good, it looks like you’re doing better. Did you have a bad dream?”

“No. I’ve just been finding it difficult to sleep.”