Chapter 8 – Solo Survival

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I fear no evil, for You are with me;

Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

Psalm 23:4

Farewell to Comrades

Wade clenched his jaw, a grim smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth as he recalled the final instructions Staff Sergeant Reyes had issued with typical gruffness:

“Listen up, Maggots. From this point on, you are released for solo survival in the Zoo. You are to fend for yourself. Your objective is to reach the Ramsey Station in one piece. You don’t have to worry about the Skravak, you killed them all. Your new enemy is the planet. You have four days to navigate your way back to the station without any assistance from cadre or your fellow Marines. If you are caught fraternizing with anyone but Carthis 7, you’ll be immediately washed out. If you get into trouble, you can call for evac and we’ll come and get you. But you will be disqualified from any further training as a Ranger. You’ll be allowed two quarts of water, purification tabs, and one protein bar. Don’t eat anything from the wild, no matter how good it looks. It will kill you. Don’t drink any liquid without first purifying it, it too will kill you. You have your coordinates and routes. If there are no questions, see ya in four days!”

Reyes had paused then, allowing his piercing gaze to settle on each of them. The few that were left that is. They entered the gates of the Zoo seven days earlier with a company of 123 Marine recruits. Many had been injured or outright killed. A few had even quit and were shipped out to who knows where. Staff Sergeant Reyes was looking at the remnant of 24 survivors.

“Alright then, four days of bootcamp remaining. It will seem like a lifetime. Let’s see who can hack it.” the Staff Sergeant had growled. “You’re on your own. Move out!”

With that parting challenge lingering in the air, Wade, Alex, and Briggs exchanged the warrior’s gesture of farewell. They each grasped the other’s hand firmly, pulling their armored bodies together in a firm but reverent bump that made a hollow thud as their breastplates met. They nodded with assurance and parted ways.

Forward

Wade squared his shoulders with the savage landscape stretching before him, a desolate expanse of shattered terrain and lurking perils. Jagged outcroppings of rock jutted from the ground like the teeth of some ancient, slumbering beast, while deep crevasses crisscrossed the land, their depths obscured by shadow. The air was thick with the tang of sulfur, and the distant horizon shimmered in a haze of scorching heat.

Wade’s world narrowed to the steady rhythm of his breathing, the sweat stinging his eyes, and the endless march of desolation that awaited him. Yet his gaze never wavered, his spirit never splintered. He cast his mind forward, allowing the singular objective to burn away the encroaching doubts and phantoms: he would reach the Ramsey Station, no matter the cost.

As the first day drew to a close, Wade’s canteens ran dry, the last precious drops of water long since consumed. Up ahead, a glimmer of hope materialized in the form of a twisted, alien structure. It rose from the ground like a misshapen monolith, its surface rippling with an iridescent sheen. Tendrils of vapor coiled from its apex, curling and dissipating in the arid air.

Cautiously, Wade approached, his throat burning with thirst. As he drew closer, he saw that the structure was composed of intricately woven strands, each one pulsing with a faint, bio-luminescent glow. At its base, a pool of viscous liquid had collected, its surface undulating gently. Kneeling beside the pool, Wade dipped his hand into the liquid, recoiling at its viscous texture and the sharp, metallic scent that assailed his nostrils.

He rummaged through his kit, his heart sinking as he realized his purification tabs were missing, lost somewhere along the day’s march behind him. But his thirst was overwhelming, and with a grimace, he submerged his canteens, filling them to the brim with the alien liquid.

He knew the risk he was taking so he fought back the urge to drink the putrid juice, but after two more days of trudging beneath the relentless glare of Carthis 7’s twin suns, the temptation became too great. His lips cracked and bleeding, his tongue swollen in his mouth, Wade succumbed, raising the canteen to his lips and drinking deeply of the contaminated water.

Once he got past the smell, the liquid was surprisingly sweet to the taste. But it didn’t take long until Wade vomited the entire contents of his stomach. He crumpled to his knees with dry heaves wrenching until it felt like his intestines were in his throat. He lay with his face in the dust drooling and wishing he was dead. Finally, after an hour, he will himself to stand and stumble forward.

The Edge of Sanity

Wade prayed. “God, if you’re up there, I need your help! I’ve really messed this up. I really need your help. If you get me through this, I’ll change my ways. I’ll go to church and try to be a better person…just get me through this Hell.” Wade had never addressed God in a way that didn’t resemble a curse word before this moment but he was a desperate man.

Wade stumbled onwards, every step a monumental effort as he crested the barren ridge overlooking the final rally point. His vision blurred and narrowed, the arid landscape seeming to spin in dizzying arcs around him. Waves of nausea roiled through his gut, the bitter taste of vomit lingering on his cracked lips.

He was dying. Deep down, he knew the truth – whatever foul microbes had tainted the stagnant pool he’d desperately drunk from were now ravaging his body from within. If he didn’t find relief soon, didn’t receive medical treatment…

A ragged cough racked Wade’s frame as he pressed on, boots scuffing across the parched earth. There, in the valley below – he could make out the shapes of armored vehicles and field tents erected around a makeshift command hub. He was so close, yet the distance may as well have been an eternity for how his body was rapidly failing him.

Through the encroaching haze gripping his mind, Wade became aware of figures in the distance waving him down. A burst of adrenaline lent him a final surge as he lurched the remaining meters into the perimeter, collapsing in a boneless heap at the feet of the silhouettes.

“Stay with me, son,” Sergeant Reyes’ gruff timbre cut through the fog as the grizzled DI knelt beside him. “We’ve got a corpsman inbound. Just keep breathing.”

Wade managed a feeble nod, his throat feeling as though it was being shredded with each shallow gasp. Dark spots began creeping across his vision, the edges of reality blurring and receding.

He was distantly aware of being loaded onto a stretcher, of urgent voices echoing around him. Then a familiar presence burned through the gathering murk, vibrant and anchoring in a way that transcended his faltering physicality.

“You’re one tough son of a gun, Wade.”

The voice was warm, comforting as a favorite blanket in its familiarity. He turned his head, blinking away the creeping darkness to find none other than Mike manifesting beside him with a crooked grin.

“Mike?” Wade rasped, confusion warring with elation at seeing his brother’s visage. “But how…?”

The ghostly vision seemed to consider him for a long moment before chuckling softly. “I’m here, man. Doesn’t really matter how, just that I’ve got you.”

Wade sagged against the stretcher as coherent thought began slipping away. “I…I don’t know if I can keep going, Mike. This trial, everything we’ve endured…” Images of the last harrowing days flashed across his mindscape – blood and viscera, the screams of the dying echoing like accusatory shrieks ripped from the maws of doomed souls.

“It’s too much,” he wheezed, despair weighing heavily upon his every syllable. “I’m not strong enough for this.”

Mike’s expression softened further as he reached out, his essence feeling impossibly solid yet ethereal as he gripped Wade’s trembling hand. He offered that signature grin, the one that had buoyed Wade’s spirits through so many seemingly insurmountable challenges.

Wade could only stare, transfixed, as the world around them seemed to flicker and contort. Abruptly the blasted terrain of the Zoo materialized in vivid, lurid detail. The stench of char and death hung thick in the air as the specters of their fallen comrades rose around them in silent accusation.

As abruptly as the waking dream had manifested, it imploded upon itself in a swirling vortex of darkness. When Wade’s vision cleared, he found himself sprawled in the dirt. He was hallucinating. Every fiber still ached with an intensity bordering on the metaphysical, yet…something profound had shifted within his core. Something immutable, an iron reserve of determination hardened by the scorching trials he had endured.

Endurance from Above

Channeling what tattered scraps of vigor remained, Wade forced himself into a sitting position. Hours had passed. His mouth felt as dry as the scorched battlefields beyond their sanctuary, but he managed to croak out a single word.

“Water.”

Wade managed to stand and press onwards, his boots leaving a solitary trail of prints scored into the parched earth. The setting suns cast harsh shadows that danced and distorted across the ravaged terrain, mocking figments that could almost be mistaken for spectral sentries keeping vigil.

He walked until his feet were scoured raw with blisters. His face, a chapped, peeling mess by the stinging winds whipping across the badlands. He walked until the sweat and salt stains etched patterns in his t-shirt as he dragged his chest armor and weapon behind him like a sled. Dehydration tugging at the edges of his consciousness once more.

At times, Wade couldn’t be certain if the shapes flickering at the periphery of his vision were heat-spawned mirages or the harbingers of fresh torments conjured to test his mettle. Shadows took on ominous forms that seemed to swell and shift in time with his ragged breaths. More than once, he wheeled with his knife at the ready, eyes desperately searching for any hint of hostile movement only to find…nothing.

The phantoms stalked him through those scorched barrens. Lingering dementia gripped Wade’s mind, the veneer of reality wearing dangerously thin as hallucinations encroached upon his battered psyche. At one point he could have sworn Mike materialized beside him again, that familiar swagger and cocksure grin blazing with incandescent intensity before winking out like a snuffed candle flame.

The Gauntlet’s End

There was no distinction between the waking world and the realms of fevered delirium any longer. It was all one terrifying, unbroken continuum that threatened to unhinge Wade’s sanity by increments. He pressed on through the visions, through the shapes that may or may not have been the butchered remnants of his former squadmates, exhorting him to turn back from this nightmarish road while he still could.

Then, when his knees finally buckled and Wade slammed face-first into the gnarled, dusty earth, the pain blossomed with welcome lucidity. As the first rivulets of blood seeped through the gashes now creasing his brow and cheek, the hallucinations receded like routed specters fleeing from the brilliance of the truth.

Wade blinked, struggling to rise on limbs that burned with protest from the inside out. Lancing shards of clarity pierced the disorientation and delirium as he stared at the smears of crimson wicking into the ochre soil beneath his splayed palms.

This pain, as crippling as it was, anchored him in the Now. It was tangible, unrelenting…and eminently, unshakably real.

And there, cresting the ridge in the distance, the beacon from Ramsey Station’s water tower shone with celestial radiance through the swirling dust and thermals. Wade clawed his way upright, driven by that single incandescent lure.

His legs felt like twisted remnants dangling beneath him, tendons screaming in protest with each lurching stride. Yet he would not be deterred, not now – not when salvation blazed so tantalizingly close.

The pain… it was his talisman, his lifeline keeping him moored as the dregs of madness threatened to subsume him once more. With every anguished gasp of superheated air searing his throat, Wade could feel the phantoms receding further into the realm of nightmare from whence they had crawled.

He was real. This agony was real. And through the torment of blood, sweat and shattered pride, he would find his way to deliverance.

In the distance, the silhouette of the outpost materialized, a stark contrast against the smoldering skyline. Wade squinted, his vision blurring, but there was no mistaking the harsh angles of the prefabricated structures, the glint of floodlights cutting through the encroaching darkness.

A renewed surge of adrenaline coursed through his veins, propelling him forward with a burst of speed. His lungs burned, his heart thundering in his ears, but still he pushed on, each ragged breath a defiant proclamation of his resilience.

As he drew nearer, the outlines of figures began to take shape, silhouetted against the harsh glare of the floodlights. He could make out the distinctive form of Sergeant Reyes, his imposing frame standing rigid, arms folded across his chest.

Beside him, a team of corpsmen waited, their medical kits at the ready.

Wade’s pace faltered, his legs threatening to give out beneath him, but he refused to surrender. With a final, herculean effort, he staggered across the threshold of the Ramsey Station, collapsing to his knees mere meters from Sergeant Reyes.

The burly Staff Sergeant regarded him impassively, his weathered features inscrutable. Then, with a curt nod, he glanced at his wristwatch, the seconds ticking down inexorably.

“Cutting it close, Marine,” he rumbled, his voice carrying a hint of grudging respect.

The corpsmen surged forward, their hands steadying Wade as the world tilted precariously around him. He could taste the bitter tang of the alien liquid on his tongue, his stomach roiling with each shallow breath.

But he had made it. As the final seconds of the fourth day bled away, Wade felt a sense of grim triumph wash over him. He had conquered the savage expanse of Carthis 7, his indomitable spirit prevailing against the relentless onslaught of the alien world.

As the corpsmen worked frantically inserting IVs and cutting away his clothes to tend to his wounds, Wade allowed himself a bloodied, supremely weary smile. He simply prayed, “Thanks God.” He had walked through the valley of shadow and death, steeled his soul against the disintegration of his very sanity…

…and he had emerged victorious, unbroken,

a Marine.