I sat on the edge of the bed the next morning, my eyes burning with dark circles underneath.
I stared blankly at the wall, my body heavy with exhaustion.
I pulled my knees toward my chest.
“Twenty-four hours.” My hands shook slightly against my legs.
“Twenty-four actual hours, and I’ve barely made it through — what, eighteen of them?” I sat in complete silence, counting down the seconds in my head.
[DING.] I shut my eyes tight, burying my face in my forearms before the chapel could fully form in my mind.
When the two seconds passed and my vision cleared, I let out a long, ragged groan into the quiet room.
My hands had started shaking somewhere around hour fifteen, and they hadn’t stopped since.
I couldn’t tell anymore if it was hunger, the lack of sleep, or just the sheer indignity of being emotionally waterboarded by my own hallucination.
Whatever it was, sitting still had stopped being an option.
”I need to get out of this room,” I whispered, pushing myself off the mattress.
I needed to move.
I needed something, anything, to occupy my hands before my brain completely melted from the inside out.
I pulled on my boots, laced them up tightly and opened the door.
The morning air outside was crisp and biting.
Across the courtyard, Collins was standing near an open utility crate, checking a list against a set of supply boxes.
I marched straight down the path toward him, ignoring the way the sun was hurting my eyes.
“I’m coming with you.” Collins paused, holding a metal clip in midair.
He looked at my face, down to my bandaged right knee, and back up to my bloodshot eyes.
“No.” ”Why?” ”Because you’re injured,” he said, tapping his thumb against his clipboard.
“And you look like you haven’t slept in three days.” ”I can walk fine,” I insisted, planting my good foot firmly into the dirt.
”That’s not the same thing as being fit for perimeter detail, ma’am,” Collins replied, shaking his head.
I folded my arms tightly over my chest, glaring at him.
“I am this close to losing my mind being cooped up inside.
Let me tag along.
Please?” Collins looked at my desperate expression.
A flicker of genuine sympathy crossed his face, though he clearly didn’t understand the floating blue torture device driving me to the brink of madness.
”I’m not making that call,” Collins said, turning his body toward the central command post.
Dylan was standing near the main table, scrolling through something on his tablet.
Collins caught his eye and made a subtle gesture in my direction.
I prepared myself for a full argument, puffing out my chest as Dylan walked over.
Dylan stopped in front of us, his sharp eyes sweeping over my exhausted face.
“You stay within the cleared compound zone.
No approaching the outer fence.
No touching weapon crates.” I blinked, taken aback by how easily he gave in.
“Fine.
Agreed.” ”Keep an eye on her, Collins,” Dylan added, turning back toward his command tent.
“Don’t let her climb anything.” ”I am not going to climb anything!” I yelled at his back, but he was already walking away.
Collins let out a breath and gestured down the row of supply tents.
“Alright.
Follow me, but stay out of trouble please.” I walked beside him, soaking in the cool morning air.
Anything was better than staring at the walls and waiting for punishment to resume.
Around us, uniformed personnel were moving with practiced efficiency, checking vehicle engines, tallying crate numbers, and sorting stacks of paper logs near the central mess tent.
Near the logistics counter, three large stacks of faded yellow ledgers were sitting on a folding table, blowing violently in the wind.
A young corporal was hastily tapping numbers into a tablet while paper sheets fluttered into the dirt.
I slowed my pace, my eyes locking onto the disarray.
Collins stopped and looked back at me.
“Don’t.” I looked over at him, keeping my face completely blank.
“Don’t what?
I haven’t even done anything.” ”Whatever you’re thinking,” Collins said, narrowing his eyes.
“That’s quartermaster business.” I offered him a sweet, innocent smile.
“I’m thinking nothing.” I immediately turned on my heel and walked straight over to the table.
Collins let out a long sigh behind me.
“I shouldn’t have brought you out here.” I ignored him, reaching down to grab the top yellow ledger.
The cover was stained with grease, and the handwriting inside looked like it had been scrawled by a panicked child using a blunt crayon.
Someone had crossed out an entire column and rewritten it sideways in the margin, like giving up halfway through counting was an acceptable system.
I flipped through the first five pages anyway, my mind automatically organizing the columns of digits into structured lines despite myself.
“This is hideous,” I muttered.
Collins leaned over my shoulder.
“It’s just standard field inventory.” ”No, it isn’t,” I said, flipping to the back section.
“This is a crime against arithmetic.” I grabbed an unused pencil from the table and pulled a blank sheet of paper toward me.
I checked the diesel fuel delivery numbers on page four, then cross-referenced them with the generator operating logs on page twelve.
I ran the basic subtraction twice in my head.
My eyebrows pulled together.
“Who maintains these?” ”Quartermaster unit out of Sector Four,” Collins answered, shifting his weight.
“Why?” ”There’s a discrepancy,” I said, pointing the tip of the pencil at two conflicting columns.
“A very stupid discrepancy.” Collins leaned down further, peering at the pages.
“Where?” ”Look at the fuel receipts from Tuesday,” I instructed, tracing the line with my fingernail.
“They logged eighty gallons drawn for the northern heaters.
But the medical unit logs state they only received forty gallons to run the field sterilizers, and the generator main tank wasn’t topped off until Wednesday morning.
Where did the other forty gallons go?”