Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

The night is dark, cool, and calm. I linger at the point of sleep, half in consciousness, but in a state like a dream. Emm, is asleep upstairs, and I, once again, occupy the couch downstairs.
As sleep almost overcomes me, I am startled to full awareness as gunfire cracks out in the distance. It sounds low, powerful, like the short round bursts of a large automatic weapon.
"Thomas," I say under my breath.
Spending so much time around my new soldiers granted me the ability to identify any one of them by the simple sound of his gun firing. Every gun, every soldier, had a sound, a style, a tactic personality that was distinctly his own. It was Thomas, the sound of his gun matching him, big, powerful, and accurately succinct.
I quickly retrieve my M-9 beside me and rush outside. The gunfire is now clearer and I rush towards the sound, readying my gun in stride. I skid around the corner of a building to find Thomas standing tall, S.A.W. aimed towards the tree line several hundred feet in front of him, the barrel smoking.
"Thomas, what is it?"
"Sir, there was a figure looking into my home....He looked armed. I followed him out to here, but I considered that I would be unwise to pursue him once he got into the trees."
"Did you see his face," I question.
"No sir. It was as if it were just a shadow...."
"Rally the men, it's not safe here. We need to move out tonight."
"Sir?"
"I've seen this before, the town could be in danger, we need to leave. Move!"
"Yes Sir!"
As Thomas darts away into the town, my mind turns to that beautiful woman who has been so good to me. How could I tell her that I am leaving already? I told her three days. Her heart will be broken. However, whatever creature or person this is that has come now twice while I have been in this town, it will come again, and who knows what it is and what it can do. I couldn't put her in danger...I just couldn't...