"Escort Servicemen" - 08/22/2011

"Escort Servicemen"
08/22/2011 

Dream #1 

 I was a soldier during a modern war, and we men were going through some sort of archaic rite of passage, where we had to choose wives from a crowd of random women, and prove ourselves capable of being their protectors/providers by escorting them through this sort of 'bonding' exercise. That exercise consisted of leading them into a hostile area - which was, basically, a live-fire obstacle course - reaching a checkpoint at about 100 yards, and then escorting them back to our camp. 

The twist was that we men were given blast-resistant suits, and the women were made to remain in their civilian clothing. With our flack suits, we men had to shield our prospective women with our bodies, while escorting them across the killing field, constantly maneuvering ourselves to block the bullets and explosive blasts that were barreling in on us from all sides. The conditions were hellish, moving from cover to cover, while getting tagged by all kinds of ammunition, and staggering through the explosions with bullets zipping by our ladies' uncovered bodies. We did our best to traverse the field, but I watched many couples die in their attempts, either blown apart by ordinance or gunned down by shots to unprotected areas.

The smoke was blinding, and the explosions were disorienting, but my potential bride and I had finally made it to the end of the field. This area was like the hornets' nest, and the resistance greatly intensified. I don't even remember the moment at which we hit the checkpoint and began our way back, but we were soon huddling back toward camp, fighting off the continued barrage. The finish line wasn't too far away, when I noticed that I couldn't feel the woman in my padded arms anymore. Looking down at the hollow between my arms, I saw that she was nowhere to be found. Immediately, I knew what happened, stopping in place and turning back to face the checkpoint we had last passed. It was now being swarmed with enemy combatants, and I knew that I had somehow lost her in the fray. For a moment, I tried to muscle my way back toward the checkpoint, but I was getting hammered with heavy machine gun fire and RPG's; smoke trails streaming out from the 'hornets next' and detonating on and around my huge, cumbersome flack suit.

Finally, I caught a glimpse of her, through the smoke and flames, and she was being hanged. I can't remember if I actually saw her, or just a silhouette, but I remember the image of her dangling from the noose, before being cut down and then impaled on a spike, for good measure, as if to be propped up for show. At this point, I knew there was nothing I could do and I turned to make my way back to camp, feeling absolutely horrible about my failure...and still getting rocked by explosions and assaulted with gunfire. On the way back, I found another woman on the ground. Her protector had been killed in the chaos, ahead of her, and she was left down in the dirt, completely helpless. I lifted her to her feet and shielded her as I had done with the other woman, guiding her the rest of the way back to camp to meet up with the rest of the survivors. At this point, I didn't know or care whether or not saving someone else was 'allowed' in the trial, but I wasn't going to leave anyone else behind.

I don't remember anything that happened when I got there, though.