A continuously moving story. No breaks allowed.
A glass pane shattered. My hand reached up protectively to shield my face, despite the splintering occurring across the deserted office room. I gathered my bearings for a moment before continuing to crouch through the building, clutching at my helmet and rifle. I knew each minute I spent deliberating was another minute I ventured closer to death.
“…hôm nay… ngày 29 tháng 10, trời nắng…”
A staticky intercom buzzed through the air as live, exposed wires flailed and crackled through the ceiling. I moved to an open interface to attempt to transmit my message. Examining the open map pinned nearby, I hoped it would disprove what I already knew was true. And it did so. The nearest military base was two hours south.
“The liberation front has arrived! Requesting aid!” I shouted in Vietnamese into a worn microphone.
I would just have to hope they had a translator on site. Even if the message got through, the route would be rough. Loc Ninh was a small town. The only transportation that occurred between our sites was due to restocking, and there wasn’t much priority in making that quicker. Going by land, it would be difficult to arrive here before the break of dawn.
Outside, the sounds of the initial bombardment and invasion up north echoed loudly in my skull. Shouting and screams came from inhabitants I knew all too well. Mortar fire and gunshots periodically rang out. I despaired at the thought of their purpose and target.
What could be the purpose of this invasion? There was nothing of interest here. The only remnant of a war occurring in this part of the country was the building I worked in, the district headquarters, as it acted as a midway for communication between the larger bases and towns.
I went down the flight of stairs, deliberating my options.
As cowardly as it may seem, surrender was my first thought. This would likely end in death. The Viet Cong were uneducated, brutes. They were so obsessed with winning this losing war that they’d resort to sacrificing dozens of men just to send a message. This was a general sentiment I’d heard, and it felt proven true at their decision to invade this small, countryside village. There were only a couple of American soldiers stationed here. I had heard them begging earlier at the hands of their foreign captors. The silence that followed told me all I needed to know about how feasible surrendering was. The question was how they would treat me, a native operative. I stood on the bottommost floor hallway, exit directly in front of me. It was bleak at best.
My rifle clacked at my waist side upon opening the headquarter doors. Running out onto the dark street, another thought passed by in my head. I could stand my ground and confront the dissidents. It would leave me a hero if I succeeded, and offered a better possibility of staying alive when compared to surrendering. This would be a very real possibility if it weren’t for the fact that my armament wasn’t real. Only American soldiers get rounds for their rifles. The object dangling from my side was really just a toy. No matter how I framed the situation with my rifle, it would likely end in death. Mine, specifically. The only use it had would be pretending it was real to frighten off anyone I got the jump on. Other than that, I couldn’t see how I could purpose it for anything. More shots reverbed in the air, lighting up the dark veil of the night now that I was outside with flashes of white and red. Hopefully, the bullets being unloaded onto the streets were mainly from our soldiers and not our opposition.
I heard the marching of steps coming from around the bend of the pathway I was lurking through. I looked back. There was no possibility of retreating back and out of sight. I only had one option. I pressed my back as tightly as I could into the stone wall and became still, wishing no more than to become a living extension of it. My eyes shut and I held my breath. Their strides hit a peak before quickly falling away into a hush. I waited until I could no longer hear their noise before opening my eyes. They had left. I had no clue what side the men that passed me lay on, and I wasn’t eager to find out. Anxiously, I kept moving south.
Sticking close to walls and settlements, I contemplated one more option. I could bluff and pose myself as a citizen. This would most likely end in death too, but it would be the least likely out of all of the other options. How would these barbarians treat civilians? I could pretend to be a villager who has no idea of what is going on and turn myself in. However, if anyone spotted me leaving the district headquarters, or identifies me as an operative working with the Army of the Republic, I would be, at best, tortured for all of my information. I waited for a moment at a crossroads, thinking about the best route I could take to avoid major conflict while still making it past the town borders. The enemy would stoop low enough to offer rewards for identifying key figures like me.
The only decision left was to flee.
“Hey, you there.”
I froze in my tracks.
“Turn around with your hands up. Drop your rifle.”
Slowly, I did as instructed, fearing that any sudden actions would end my escape instantly. A man in a black, cloth uniform aimed his beat-up rifle at my head. It was too dark for me to make out any of his key features. All I needed to know was that there was a barrel pointed at me. My heart was pounding out of my chest as, carefully, I undid the strap over my shoulder and allowed the prop stick to fall to the ground in a puff of dust.
Suddenly, two explosions deafened us both as my captor and I crouched for cover, turning around to see the district headquarters from which I came engulfed in flame. The force of the blast carried all the way to where we were, and we shielded ourselves against it with our arms. However, I wasn’t going to take this opportunity for granted. This was an unimaginable stroke of luck on my end, and I was not planning to squander it. Quickly, I sprang onto my feet and bolted around the bend. I ran, ears pounding. I couldn’t hear the steps of the man chasing after me but I did not want to take chances.
As I continued moving, I shed personal identifiers, like my helmet and armband, tossing them onto the ground or over household walls. I didn’t gather anything to replace them but thought that it would be just as fine not to be recognized as I was before.
It felt like the houses and settlements I passed by were already deserted. Seeing as though there were no bodies laying around in this part of town, I hoped that they had used the guise of the night and the warnings of the north to flee from their homestead. I could see inside their homes that they left most of their belongings behind, save for their key items. Most inhabitants have traversed here far from where they were born already due to the war. The experience should prove useful in their plight.
In a moment, I had made it to the border of the town. I felt as though my legs would give out. The distance I traveled had been short, but the journey I traversed had been nothing but fraught with danger, destruction, and death. As I exited an alleyway, I stumbled over some crates of fruit that had been left outside. I spilled onto my knees in the middle of the street, extending my hands out to catch my tumultuous descent.
I looked up to see a Viet Cong.
His barrel exposed tufts of smoke. At his feet lay an unmoving American soldier.
We made eye contact with each other. The distance between us could be surmounted in two small strides. For a brief moment, there was stillness. Neither of us made the first move. In a foolhardy act of self-preservation, I scrambled up onto my feet.
The man quickly lifted his weapon. He wrapped both hands around it, tightening his grip.
I raised my hands. I couldn’t read his expression. I simply stood still and waited for whatever fate to befall me. There was nothing more I could do.
He pointed his rifle away from me. He stared at me with an expression I could not identify. Then, he turned away and began moving up north to venture further into the town.
I took some steps back slowly, then paused, not taking my eyes off of the soldier’s figure. I didn’t dare give him my back. Seeing as my movement didn’t provoke a response, I turned around and broke into a sprint, pushing past the town walls and into the woods heading south.
