Chapter 1: Chapter 1: The Gateway

The world smelled of gunsmoke and gore. Wisps of grey smoke obscured Alex' view of the battlefield as he peered around the grey slab of concrete and rubble that used to be the northern wall of the small building his squad was hunkered down in. He could make out silhouettes of enemy combatants about 40 yards from their position as they scurried about to find flanking positions. "Martinez! Enemy contact incoming, trying to flank!" He leveled his M16 and fired a there round burst at one of the shadowy figures, dropping it. "Got it! Wilson, Davis, take out those guys!" Gunfire erupted from his right, harsh bursts of hellfire unleashed by his squadmates into the mass of blurry figures, inciting macabre dances of death in those they mowed down.

"Contact down! Goddamn all this fucking smoke, man, visibility is shit!" Wilson yelled in his typically gruff manner. "Can the narration, focus on getting us out of this shitshow," Martinez answered back. "Martin, any cover for us to move to?" Alex shook his head as he responded, "No boss, they've got us pinned. I can try to clear a path, but they're swarming like flies to shit out there." 

"Roger that. Just do your best, we'll try to fall back here shortly. Davis cut in, "Martinez, Martin, we've got a situation to the east, looks like reinforcements, and it's not just villagers with Russian AKs, either. We've got a tank."

"Fucking what?" Martinez responded. "Okay, new plan, we've gotta..." "Shit, RPG!" Wilson screamed, and the world went white.

Alex jerked awake, his mouth open in a scream. "Fuck! Fuck, calm down, man." His whole body was drenched in sweat, his arms shaking violently as he tried to calm himself down. After a long minute, he could finally sit up on the side of the bed, reaching for the bottle of anxiety meds the VA had pushed off on him as a stopgap. He threw three of them back, taking a sip of water as he did. He stood, his balance suspect, and he forced himself to stay until he was sure he could walk without faceplanting on the cold hardwood. 

Making his way into the bathroom, he took care of some business and threw on a white t-shirt and some camo pants, along with socks and boots. Old habits, he kept telling himself. He stared himself down in the mirror for a long minute, taking in his haunted blue eyes, close cut sandy blonde hair, and the burn scar that traveled from just below his cheekbone down until it disappeared beneath the neckline of his shirt. He opened a bottle of Pepto Bismol, gulping it down to ease the queasiness in his stomach. A year and a half later, he couldn't shake this shit. He felt like a failure of a soldier, and given his medical discharge, the Marines felt the same. The looks of pity on the faces of his superiors were almost as much of a nightmare to him as the combat that had claimed the lives of his squad.

He took his keyring off the shelf by the basement door, unlocked it, and headed downstairs to his workshop. Well, armory would have been a better word for it, really. Hanging racks of weapons lined three walls, with a long workbench with all the equipment needed to maintain and upgrade his babies spread across it. He even had the tools to machine his own ammo. You can take the soldier out of the war, but taking the war out of the soldier was apparently an impossible task.  

He took down an AR-15, the much derided civilian rifle used as a scapegoat by the anti-gun crowd, and field stripped it, beginning the maintenance routine that often helped calm his anxiety and silenced the voices that often told him what a failure he was for not dying with the rest of his squad. He had to chase those thoughts away before they consumed him. His hands worked on autopilot, repeating motions that had been ingrained in him for six years during his time as a Force Recon Marine. The task complete, he reassembled it, popping a full mag in and working the slide, chambering a round. 

He grabbed a belt with a holdster, fastening it around his waist, and slid his .45 into it. Then he slung his rifle across his shoulder by the strap and turned, thinking of partaking in some early morning target practice at his homemade firing range, and froze. Before him was a glowing blue portal, seemingly floating right in front of him. A voice came through the strange anomaly. "Please, anyone, help me," the feminine voice echoed, and Alex couldn't tell if it was in his mind or weakly coming through the opening."My village is under attack, my family... we'll all die if I can't..." the voice broke down, and he heard sobs. He felt a pull, a compulsion to follow this hauntingly distressed voice into the abyss beyond the glowing blue circle. He stopped, turning and getting his plate-reinforced kevlar vest from its hook, strapping it on, and heeded the call, stepping into the darkness beyond the portal.

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