"It's okay." I said, having a quick flashback of the terrible time I had dealing with his death. The nightmares, lack of sleep, all of it. But I was fine now and he was in a better place. That's all that mattered. "But no. I don't know the last place she was at. I'm sure she's fine though. She's a tough cookie.... Plus, she writes to my parents so I know she's fine." I gave him a small smile. Though my sister and I didn't exactly get along, I did wonder if she was okay. A big part of my knew she was. But there was always that chance that she wasn't. "How about you? Do you have any siblings?"

I nodded, wondering what it would be like to worry about someone like that, not knowing if someone in your family was alive or dead. "Uh, no. No siblings. Just me and my father, and we were never that close so it's easy not to worry about him. I know he's doing exactly what he always does every second of the day. There's not much to wonder about when it comes to him." I said, half sighing, half laughing, and wishing that maybe that could've been different.

I nodded, kind of knowing how that was. I wanted to be closer to my sister but she made that very hard. Her picking fights and getting us into loads of trouble a lot. "Have you been on any missions yet?" I switched the subject. I didn't want to continue on a topic that seemed a little difficult for the both of us to talk about. It didn't look like it was going in a positive direction.

I noticed the change in subject, quite thankful for it actually. I cleared my head and took a second before replying. "Missions? Uh, I've been on a few, but never as a part of the main attack group. You know? I'm more of the tag along, through some ideas through, a kind of engineer. I know more about bombs than guns, never was that good of a shot." I said looking down at my hands.
"I mean, I'd love to be able to be that first soldier sort of guy but I don't really think the skinny smart guy is the one for that job." I smiled at her. "What about you? Been on any missions?"

I smiled back at him. I didn't think he was that skinny. In my opinion, I felt Sam was built more like a baseball player. Slim but muscular in just the right places. That is from what I could see. "Just one. It wasn't that big of a mission. " I said thinking about it. "It was more like a raid. Just to jumble them up a bit and keep the enemy on their toes. I for one, thought it was stupid because we could've got hurt. Luckily, we all made it out fine."

"Wow, didn't think we did things like that. When was it?" I asked her with a slight frown, if missions like that were being carried out, missions with no purpose but to upset the other side, then what was the point of this war. We were supposed to be fighting for things, we were supposed to be the good side, who fought 'only to protect'. Not making matters worse, by provoking the other side.

"It was about a month or two ago. One of the soldiers in my building told us we had to go. So we went." I said with a small shrug. Now that I began to think about it, it didn't sound like an official mission. It could've just been one of the soldiers trying to stir up some trouble. We could've died just because some guy wanted to 'keep them on their toes'. "We took weapons and a few other things." I started to remember a few things.

“Hmm… That seems weird.” I said the concern clear on my face. “Oh well, I guess it was a while ago, and you guys all came back safe so I suppose that’s what matters. Right?” I asked relaxing, even though I still wasn't sure about any of it. If that happened once, it’s possible it could’ve happened again, and that wasn't good for our side. Then again, you can’t just ignore official orders.

I could feel the bus start to slow down. "Mhmm. Right." I nodded to Sam and looked out the window. We were here. Where ever 'here' was. I knew it was a new base. I mean, where else would they take us? From what I could see, this place was rinky dink and small. It would probably be crowded and cramped in the cabins. But at least we had somewhere safe to lay our heads down at night.

"Alright. When you get off the bus, go inside that building." The bus driver pointed to a big brick building with a dark blue door in the front. Soldiers from other buses were already filing in. "You'll get your orders there." The bus doors opened and people began to walk off. I'd stand up when most of the bus was cleared out so I wouldn't be standing in the isle the entire time.

I looked out the window towards the building the bus driver pointed at. The soldiers moving into the building looked tired and nervous, even on the bus we could hear their chattering as they gossiped about what might be happening next. "I guess that's us." I said looking over at Daisy, before standing up to follow the rest of our bus load off.
Some people were clearly injured as they limped into the brick building, some sort of hall was my first assumption. Others were covered in so much blood, it was difficult to know where it was coming from. These people shouldn't be filing into a building, they should be in the infirmary, getting patched up.

Stepping off of the bus, I immediately smelt something pungent, chemical related, the smell usually associated with some army bases these days. I wrinkled my nose in disgust and continued towards the building with the rest of the crowd.

Following Sam off of the bus, I stayed close by as I looked around at all the sad, nervous faces. I really hoped there was someone in here to fix up the wounded. They looked terrible. Walking through the blue door that lead into the building, I could see big fluorescent lights that gave off a faint buzzing sound lined up on the ceiling. People were filing into seats that faced a big stage. A prerecorded voice echoed through the building, directing the seriously wounded to go to the 'Infirmary Room' that was down some hall. I was happy to hear they'd be taken care of. But what was to happen to the rest of us?

Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that Daisy was right behind me so I gestured to some seats nearby. “Ladies first.” I said with a small smile, as I let her into the row of seats before me. Sitting down next to her, I looked around the room, waiting for something to happen as I watched the rest of the soldiers find their own seats. There certainly wasn’t everyone from our base here. Either they’d been left behind like I almost had been, or killed. Or both.

Majority of the room had taken a seat. Everyone was talking and asking about what was happening next. "Quiet!" A voice boomed through the room. A tall, muscular man stood on the stage, gripping the microphone. The entire room fell silent.
"Thank you." He nodded to us. "Now I understand what has happened to you all and I'm very sorry. I understand that not all of you made it. That some of your fellow comrades, some that you considered friends, have either been hurt or killed. I'm sorry." He was very sincere. "I'm General Jones and I'm in charge of this base. You will be given two sets of clothes and a place to stay. Due to the circumstances and the fact that we weren't prepared for this, the dorms you will be staying in are coed. You're all adults and I assume you know how to act. So if there is a woman in the bunk next to you or above you, I expect you to respect her. Vice-verse. Same for you ladies. Respect each other. You will be on a tight food schedule. Rations. We need enough to feed you all, so it might not be much but it'll be enough to keep you energized. Further instruction will be given to you when you reach your dorms."

I sighed as General Jones nodded at us all and left the stage, obviously feeling he’d said quite enough. Great, we had to ration food. It was tiring process and for the injured, wouldn’t give much support for their healing bodies. “Right, more instruction once we get to our dorms.” I said looking at Daisy. “So, where are those? These people aren't all that into detail are they.”

"Not really." I said, replying to his last comment. "Maybe there's a sign or something?" I looked at Sam and shrugged. "I don't know. We'll figure it out, I guess." I could hear tapping on the microphone.

"Is- Is this thing on? Hello?" A skinny woman with glasses was standing on the stage. "Sorry about that." She adjusted her glasses "I'm Janice. I'm in charge of a few things here." She smiled. "Dorms. When you exit the building, you will see a few wooden cabins down the walkway and to your left. We're not assigning anything to you. So first come, firsts serve. If you don't get lucky with getting a cabin, you'll be staying in tents until we can find a new base for you to be properly situated in. Once you're in your dorms, you'll be asked the size of your clothes, weight, name, and things like that so we'll know what to ration you and what size clothes to give you. Sorry about the inconvenience. Like Jones said, you'll be given further instruction in your dorms." She left the stage.

"Looks like we better get going then." I looked at Sam and stood up. I felt like this would be a race between everyone to get the to the cabins. No one wanted to sleep in the tents. We all knew they were poorly heated and very uncomfortable.

“I think so.” I said and stood up, quickly following her out along with everyone else in the hall. Once we reached the door, I held it open for Daisy. “Here.” I said as people pushed past us, eager to get a bed. Once out of the building, we made for the first left street we saw and immediately saw the cabins. There were five of them, and they were large but not big enough for our entire base to sleep in. As we neared them, I noticed one had already been occupied, and people were standing in the doorway giving their information to an official looking soldier in uniform who wrote everything down on a clipboard.

"Thank you." I smiled at Sam as he had the door open for me. Walking until we got to the cabins, I looked around, just as Sam was. "There's one. It doesn't look like it's too full." I said just loud enough for Sam to hear me. "We better get to it before the others notice." I tugged his arm to follow me. Casually, we walked over to the cabin to be greeted by a soldier in a uniform.

"So I see you two made it over here before the rest of them realized this wasn't full yet." The man smiled. "Information please." He had a pen in hand, ready to write down whatever I told him.

"Daisy Morris." I began. "I'm 18, size small. 5'5 and I weigh 120 pounds." I watched him write everything down. "Is that all you need?" I asked him and he nodded. I walked inside the cabin and took a look around. There were a lot of empty beds left. All I needed to do now was pick one.

Stepping up behind Daisy, I waited for her to finish and go inside before taking her place beside the soldier. “The names Samuel Pace and I’m 19.” I said listing all the things we were requested to tell them. ”Medium size, 5’8 and my weight is 160 pounds.”
“Thank you Samuel, head on in.” He said and I nodded at him in thanks before following Daisy inside. I was surprised there weren’t more people in here by now. With a small shrug to myself, I walked over to the back of the room where more of the empty beds stood. “So we just pick any one we want right?” I asked turning to look back at Daisy.

"Yeah, I think so." I gave him an unsure look. "No one is ordering us to a bed so we're on our own with picking one." I began to walk towards an empty bed towards the middle of the room and picked one. Taking off my hoodie, I tossed it on the bed of my choosing and plopped down. "Cozy." I said dramatically. The bed was kind of hard and the blankets looked thin. Hopefully this place got a little warmer at night so we wouldn't be cold all night.

I raised my eyebrows quickly before sizing up the beds. They were all exactly the same, small with thin sheets and one pillow that hardly qualified to be called what it was. Sitting myself on the bed beside Daisy’s, I watched as others claimed their beds, looking as impressed as we felt. “I guess luxury isn't on the cards for us.” I sighed as I glanced as Daisy.