Born from rejection, driven by confusion

He was battered by freezing rain and snow while heavy smoke obscured his push toward the crash site.  The Laguna Mountain range was buried under a week’s worth of storms.  Their height held the weather captive, unleashing historic snowfall.  The man fought against treacherous, lonely terrain with each step he took.  Five empty vials clinked in his pocket, reminding him of his purpose.  He followed the orange glow defining the wreckage, upwind of jet fuel’s burning scent.  His journey, a clear endpoint ahead, his path unsettled and arduous—yet familiar.

He emerged to a mournful scene: four Marines of weary and battered bodies lay searching for comfort and warmth.  Nearby, a fifth trembled in isolation, trapped within the helicopter’s sprawling wreckage.

Baying wind and distant calls of wilderness broke the silence, and echoes of pain and misery surrounded him.  He swept his gaze over the scene.  The man’s soul was chilled by the images before him, not the biting cold gnawing on his skin.  The wreckage was a twisted mass of metal and shattered dreams—a battleground now muted. 

The man ventured forward.  He observed the Marines as he walked above snow-muffled footsteps.  Drawing close, their eyes turned to him.  He saw expressions of hope, fear, and confusion.  The Marines were alone, fighting against the elements and awaiting a rescue that seemed a distant dream.  He paused again, absorbing their fate intently. 

The Marines attempted to communicate, to cry out, but the howling wind swallowed their words. Their voices now frostbitten, silent as they were once loud.  The man continued his approach, cutting loose the fifth Marine to join his comrades.

“Thank you, sir,” the Marine said.  His words stuttered through chattering teeth as he joined his four companions.  The group found a shred of comfort near a piece of burning debris.  The mysterious man knelt before the group.  His eyes met each Marine alone before he spoke.

“Don’t worry,” he began.  “Nothing will change.”

The Marines hesitated from the strange, unexpected assurance.  None dared a response.

“Everything will return to how it was before,” he said.  

“Are you here to rescue us?” one Marine asked, speaking with defiance and calmed demeanor.

An answer lingered, but first, the man dropped his gaze to the blanket of snow beneath them.  He tapped the pocket that cradled the five glass vials, then slowly withdrew them.  His methodical motions were ritualistic, rehearsed. 

“No,” he said, handing a vial to each.  “I’ve come for something else entirely—your blood.”

The Marines protested, confusion dominating their faces.  “I don’t under—” one said before being sharply cut off.

“Don’t speak,” the man commanded.  His authority brooked no argument.  “The time for your opinions has passed.”

He gestured toward the vials.  “Press them beneath your wounds; do not be shy about it.  Your blood is the ink I require.”

One Marine recoiled at the order.  “I won’t give you my—”

“Silence,” the man hissed.  Unnerved and unforgiving, he locked eyes with the Marine.  “You relinquished your voice the moment you gave me your life.  Now, fill the vial.”

“Our lives?” asked another Marine.

“Yes,” he said, his tone sinister.  “Please, the vials must be filled.  I only wish to document your fates—lessons written in blood for your replacements to heed.”

The atmosphere thickened with a palpable, unspoken tension.  An unseen force enveloped the Marines, compelling them toward actions they neither understood nor resisted.  The man, still kneeling among them, tracked every motion with a watchful eye.

The Marines allowed their blood to drip into the vials.  Each droplet carried the weight of loss and widowed hopes.  The ink—their lives—would craft a tale they now had no hand in writing.  Their narrative would be stripped of any agency—voiceless in shaping their legacies.

The man’s familiar presence cast a shadow over the scene.  It felt menacing and mesmeric.  He delivered instructions precisely, leaving no room for dissent or discussion.  

“Replacements?” a Marine queried.

“Yes,” he confirmed.  “Now, silence.  All will be made clear once I have what I need.”

The Marines complied one by one.  Each produced enough for a few lines of writing.

“I understand your confusion,” the man said with empathy.  “This isn’t my first time, and the questions are always the same.  Let me be blunt.”

The Marines waited for their revelation, their attention rapt.

“Do you see these surroundings?” he asked, gesturing to the harsh, unforgiving expanse.  “Take it all in—the gnarled trees, the sheer cliffs dropping into oblivion, the dense underbrush clinging to life in the cold, the ground undone in a suffocating layer of snow. This landscape, this frozen scene, marks the end of your journey. It’s the final chapter you’ll never write, the last vista your eyes will witness. You met your demise here amid a mission meant for lesser rewards—not to claim your lives. Yet, when your breaths ceased in this solitude, your existence shifted from your own to an existence we control.”

The man paused to let the gravity of his words sink in—deep into the marrow of their bones.

“This rugged terrain, with its unyielding earth and sky that merges with the horizon in an endless gray, is now your perpetual domain. You’ve become part of its lore, its silent guardians, forever watching over a place that claimed your spirits. The mistakes you’re accused of, and the errors we’ll inscribe into the annals of training protocols will be penned with the ink drawn from your veins. A testament, a warning, crafted from your sacrifice.”

His words, steadying, carried an undercurrent of punishment.

“Your families will receive the compensation owed; your children will not want for guidance, and your spouses will find comfort in the arms of those you called brothers. But you—your souls are tethered to this place. The story we weave for you will be one of caution, of lessons learned at the highest cost. Remember, though, in this orchestrated conclusion of your lives, nothing will truly change.”

His words hung in the air, a cruel epitaph to their stunted hopes.  A Marine started to object, but the man cut him off with a cold finality.

“No. You’ve lost the right to speak, to argue, to understand. You’ve lost everything. With your lives now in my possession, I claim the power to reshape your legacies as I see fit.”

His pronouncement was irrevocable.  His presence, a callous dismissal of any possibility of redemption.  Then, a heavy sigh undid his tightly sewn façade.

“I was once like you,” he said.  “Believing in the cause, in the sanctity of our mission. Until one operation, much like yours, went awry. Not due to lack of skill or courage, but because of decisions made far from the battlefield, in rooms filled with quotas and numbers, by those who see Marines as mere one-dimensional pieces in a grander scheme.”

He traced the vials with his fingers, reminding himself he was also compelled to tell his own story.

“My survival marked me, set me on a path that led me here, to you. Tasked with a mission beyond rescue or recovery, I collect not just your blood but your essence, your sacrifice, to serve as a reminder, a lesson written not just for those who follow in your footsteps but for those who command them.”

The Marines listened eagerly.  “Your stories, your lives, should not be forgotten nor used to perpetuate the cycle unchallenged. We share a commitment to change.”

He then stood and turned his back to them.  

“Perhaps,” he whispered, “there will come a day when this will no longer be necessary.”

The man walked away, fading into the landscape.  

“Wait!” a Marine shouted.  “Will any of it make a difference?”

The man left the question unanswered, ignoring it in the way the Marine’s sacrifice will be ignored.

A profound sense of panic unfurled within the Marines.  The newfound realization of their predicament immobilized them.  Their bodies were betrayed by an urgent need to act and a refusal to respond.  Emotions surged through them like a storm: betrayal, sharp as the wind; confusion, thick as the fog that shrouded the cliffs; anger, burning with an intensity that the snow could not quench; and frustration, a relentless pressure against which they were powerless.  Their emotions, however, were doomed to remain unheard, unseen, and unnoticed.  The living—doomed to remain unconcerned.  The man’s indifference defines their purgatory.