War Stories

 

 

Myrand heard the muffle of his door rubbing the carpet as it swung open. He remained at rest on the floor, eyes shut, brushing against trapped heat pockets within his confines. Plump cotton, synthetic micro fiber sheets, and lace covered him head to toe in a weighted heap. He imagined the pile like a small mountain, steep cliffs and shallow comforting valleys. Foot falls filtered through his mountain. Closer they came until the weight from these feet dipped the carpet around his proximity, a muffled sniffing above.

 

            "Myrand?" Rix went on sniffing. "Are you under there?"

 

   The man said nothing, hands waiting for his curious friend's snout. In seconds a wet thing pressed against his nose, wiggled its slime through the sheet, probing for a soft spot. It left then pulled away the sheet. Myrand opened his eyes. Sunlight swathed through his cocoon in a dull elephant-wash tint, but bright enough for his eyes to see the walls around him. Within the folds of one wall, a narrow Calico maw jutted into the air space, nose furiously investigating.

 

            "Are you okay?"

 

   Myrand snapped upwards. His hands wrenched forward, wrapping an arm around Rix's neck while keeping the other balled up with covers. Muffled, Rix yelped in surprise, weight caught off balance and tumbled against this assaulting mountain. Myrand laid the cover-ball over his head tousling the fur and keeping him disoriented. They landed on the floor, bounced against the carpet like spoiled children do when they're upset. Myrand let his partner's head emerge from the sheets and scratched him between the ears.

 

            "You were fine all this time weren't you?" Rix said. "Here I thought you were in serious trouble, thinking a wild digimon attacked you or something."

 

   Myrand chuckled. "Well I couldn't decide what comforter you wanted so I staged this little 'avalanche'. Besides, I didn't want to leave the impression that being a soldier is all seriousness and restrictions, relax and get settled in."

 

   Rix eyed him for a moment. Once in a while he'd break away and collect a single comforter from the pile. Myrand watched him plow into the fabric face first, literally shoving his head through the comforter. The digimon then kneaded or fluffed it with his claws planting himself upon the fluff, relocating and repeating, sometimes improvised using his feet. When he felt done with it he picked up another. The process continued for what seemed like hours, testing and kneading, the two of them talking in between, the pile of comforters slimming down until Rix curled around an embroidered Rose comforter.

 

   Myrand hugged him while still scratching between the ears. "Is that your final verict?" Rix nodded, somehow perking that maw into a smile. "You're such a trip."

 

            "What's being a soldier like?" Myrand asked what Rix meant. "How do you see a battle through your eyes?"

 

            "War is war." Myrand said baldly. "Fought men and digimon alike; none of them worth talking about. Some looked like ants on the horizon, others I could see the fear in their eyes before the bullet killed them, and moved onto the next living target. When the enemy lies dead or dying you get a pat on the back and a free ride back to base. Eventually it all leads to sleeping back in the same goose feathered mattress and silk sheets waiting for tomorrow to come."

 

            "What happened tomorrow?"

 

            "War began again."

 

   Rix closed his eyes, briefly absorbing the gentle scratches. "You must be a strong warrior to keep fighting every day."

 

   Myrand peered into Rix's eyes. Behind the solid mint irises, he could see an inexperience growing deep inside the pupils, but it needed no rebuke. It was an eager stupidity, itching to brawl into a fight. He remembered it better years ago in a mirror at training camp.  Before calisthenics and after prayer it always greeted him, swelled inside his pupils with anticipation ticking down the days before the first big fight. Strength didn't help him then, hell if he had it now.

 

  Wrapping an arm around the digimon's shoulders, Myrand leveled his eyes. "You could call it that, strength, it's more experience in my opinion. A soldier always thinks here," He pointed at Rix's heart, "As well as up here." He said, scratching between the big ears again. "After every battle or so it becomes monotonous and eventually becomes routine."

 

            "So someday I'll be a strong warrior too."

 

            "Even stronger."

 

   Rix smiled. "When's our first mission as Tamer and Partner?"

 

            "Well, I'm not sure. Lots of speculation surfaced around what happened at the lab. My command thinks it's a familiar faction we've fought before, specifically cultists. Yamaki won't shut up about the possibility of digimon aggression. Another outside source thinks it's a simple terrorist group operating within Shinjuku, and currently is in favor, yet we're keeping the options open."

 

            "Guess then."

 

            "Let's see; first I need to get extra gear—check on mission debriefs—get money out of the bank, this weekend's our best bet."

 

            "An entire week?"

 

            "Keep your fur on now, just relax and get settled. Maybe we can use this time teaching you the workings of human appliances like a microwave."

 

   Rix looked at him. "Microwave? It sounds kind of small, I think I can handle it."

 

            "One step at a time." Myrand chuckled, "One step at a time."

 

   They rose from the floor. Myrand folded the discarded comforters and handed them for Rix to place them in the closet cubby. When the digimon shoved his last comforter snug inside, he closed the closet door and rejoined his partner at the bedroom threshold. Myrand handed him his comforter and trudged for downstairs. Outside, dusk settled across Shinjuku's skyline, a scarlet hash of light turning the room to a boil.

 

   Kiyra sprawled out on the couch. She pulled Myrand's comforter over herself, head against the armrest as if watching TV. Myrand strode between her and the television to find her eyes closed. On the dining room table their dinner plates were gone, dried rings on the coasters, and the dishes piled in the sink had disappeared. The dishwasher droned on full cycle in the kitchen. He smiled, stroking her ears back along her head. Rix moved past him, swung a leg over the sleeping hulk careful not to kick her awake, softly laying atop, and Myrand drew the comforter over him.

 

   She uttered a low, rocky growl. "Took you long enough." Her eyelids parted. "I fell asleep waiting for you."

 

            "I'm sorry Kiyra, we were talking about some stuff and I guess time just ran away from us."

 

            "The dishwasher's on full Myrand, it should be done in a couple hours." The female Renamon hugged Rix through her comforter, watching Myrand. "You should really get some rest, you've been awake since yesterday morning."

 

            "Yea should get some shut-eye."

 

   Myrand laid supine on the opposite couch end. The arm his head rested on felt too narrow, lacking support, so he grabbed a decorative pillow and stuffed it on the arm's edge. Moment's after doing this the effect's from past events rushed his body. First went the feeling in the legs, a pins and needles wave building up at the ankles then cresting up to his hips, eddied for seconds until floating into his gut. His mouth opened to speak, yet uttered a content sigh.

 

   In earshot Kiyra and Rix sounded unsettled. Rix cooed a low whispering song for a minute, the occasional shift in comforters, in pausing; Kiyra mixed a growl in with something not heard before—a blending bark and yip. The sound worried Myrand. Anything coming from her sounding that high pitched was estranged, even when excited her voice always cleft a low chuckle. His worry grew as more musical noises echoed in the living room.

 

   Despite the annoyance, sleep encroached the beleaguered soldier, weighing his eyelids to droop half-mast over his eyes. They continued to fall. Almost completely closed until feeling a dip in the cushions curled his feet, seeing a hint of Kiyra's fur color pan across view. Then at one time, a large mass collapsed on top of him, furred paws and sleek bodies greeting his with company of comforters bringing up the rear, wet noses kissing his cheek, and curious whimpers easing those ending eyelids open.

 

   Rix and Kiyra curled atop him. They unraveled a comforter overtop of him first, then each Renamon snuggled for purchase. Where's a pistol when you need it? Myrand sighed, realizing he left it upstairs inside the closet, holstered to a gun belt. His eyes wandered between both of them, noticed vigor in their eyes.

 

            "May I help you two?"

 

   Kiyra answered first, wiggling along side him. "Can you tell us a war story?"

 

            "W-War story? I thought you said I needed some rest!"

 

            "Yea but not before a good bed time story."

 

            "We can't sleep," Rix chimed above her. "Too excited that I'm going to be fighting bad guys with guns and all that. Maybe a bedtime story will put us down—I bet you got some good ones with your travels."

 

   Myrand yawned. "All right, all right, if that's what it takes to get you two asleep. Get comfortable."

 

   Both digimon snuggled closer to him. "Let's see, good war story … war story. Okay I got one." Myrand said, "Couple years ago I'm assigned over to the Mediterranean Sea with about thirty Egyptian soldiers, to help them recapture a smugglers barge. And I remember being on the helicopter, watching the waves crush each other on the sea's face, until spotting the freighter in the expanse. It was mere flea from up there. When the chopper tilted and dived towards the landing pad, the main deck of this flea expanded and nearly engulfed my sense of distance. Stepping onto the deck, I realized that she was better left neglected. Oak floorboard splintered with an occasional step in the right direction.  The windows above me, ones belonging to the navigation deck, were shattered into jagged pieces. Even though the sea remained calm, you could feel the ship lisp."

 

   Kiyra flicked her tail. "What was the ship called?"  

 

            "The Egyptians called it 'Amurar' or 'The Armor' in plain English. It was an old World War II frigate that ferried the British 7^th Armor Supplies to Italy and Egypt at some points, then the British disbanded it from military action and put it up for auction. Once bought, the frigate passed through several hands during the decades. In the early 90's a man called Nakita Ashurman won it at a poker game and owned the ship when we arrived. Ashurman was on the Egyptians wanted list. My command wanted me to find out who sent the S.O.S.

 

            "What I didn't know," Myrand leaned closer to her, whispering in ear. "That something else was on the ship." Kiyra squirmed in her place. "A mysterious presence, like you're being watched from the shadows."

 

            "The Egyptians split into groups of two. One group searched below decks and the container compartment; the second the living quarters. I chose to search the navigations deck."

 

   A whisper barely cut the pause in his sentence. "What did you find?" Rix asked.

 

            "Emptiness." Myrand smiled. "Not a single person, just dust and echoes between the computer terminals. Someone had left the radio on blaring the S.O.S and must've evacuated afterwards. As I turned it off, my mind started wondering about the captain, whose honor keeps his feet cemented on this deck no matter the dangers. The steering wheel tilted, leaned against the push of the waves far below. I remember grabbing eleven o'clock and two to hold the ship steady, when my ear piece whispered."

 

   Before continuing, his eyes lost their focus, all the hard textures melting into fuzziness. "It was a steel voice, cold beyond numbing, like old dock bells swaying in their places in a winter chill. Tone so hallow you'd swear it's an echo. 'Irgheshia, the ignorance comes.'"

 

            "What happened?"

 

            "I saw it. A shadow, more like a shadow in daylight—solid and thick. It stood on the forward deck near the prow's railing. The thing wore armor like mine, segmented along the extremities, but it's head, a helmet my eyes never seen before. The visor was small, fit directly where the eyes would be. Where the mouth and nose was located, Grace's sake, I couldn't tell. In their place was a large re-breather mask that would fit over the nose and cheeks with two hoses snaking from the masks device into his backpack. In its hands brandished a sub-machine gun."

 

   The grip on his shoulder tightened. "He didn’t see me, not yet." Myrand continued. "The windows were too high and his field of vision shortened. Suddenly, the floorboards below my feet thumped. After a few seconds the thump returned, harder this time. The source eluded me until a scream pierced the silence. My heart prattled worse than a rust-bucket car. Grace's sake, for all I knew everyone was dead or dying below deck, and me standing on the bridge like some buffoon, watching the damn enemy do it. Despite the odds, a Jade Dragoon never tires or retreats. My scope never fails me. With most of my body pressed against the wall mortar, I shimmied a good portion of the rifle barrel out the window, waited until the scope sighted the main deck."

 

   One of the two yawned. An intense whisper pushed into his ear. "Then what?"

 

            "The scope slides locked onto his helmet. It still kept me a little puzzled, even biding him some fateful seconds, then pulled the trigger."

 

            "You killed him?"

 

   Myrand nodded. "I ain't seen anything absorb a .36 Caliber yet. Soon as my finger pressed the trigger, the rifle kicked. This mysterious soldier's head snapped back in a spray of scarlet mist and body collapsing against the railing, hung there precariously until flipping off the boat. Didn't see another one though. Reinforcements were called in and I was hauled out.

 

            "Apparently some idiot blew a whole in the ships bow and the compartments took water with impressive speed. And combined with those mysterious soldiers, three Egyptians managed to emerge from the bowels, but those who checked the living quarters didn't return. They tallied at least thirty casualties both friendly and hostile. The crew of forty-five were considered dead. Mr. Ashurman was arrested soon after the Egyptian taskforce returned to Cairo.

 

            "I didn’t know what to call the enemy. The Egyptians labeled them as simple terrorists, but I knew something else amidst the foul wreckage, they were there for more than terrorism. My command looked into it and gave them a real epithet: The Black Illuminati, and now I think they're back here in Japan."

 

   Myrand glanced towards his guests to find their eyelids shut. Gentle snores stroked around him, a quiet purring of the washing machine in the background. In the last streaks of angry dusk light, he scratched around Rix's ears, watching the digimon slumber atop his girlfriend. Indeed a weird one, maybe all digimon were weird as hell—he didn't know, but as Rix snuggled closer towards him and Kiyra, he smiled. Out of all those strange little critters Rix made the most sense. Well in Myrand's sense anyway. After dusk drained from the window so did Myrand's eyes, lofted asleep for a well deserved nap.