Chapter Text
Now
John's lungs burn as if they're on fire, and the cold mountain air isn't helping anything. But at least he seems to have slipped his pursuers, finally. This area is honeycombed with caves and piles of rock; he ducks into one and huddles down, making himself as still and small as possible, listening for footsteps. Listening for any sound.
All that he can hear is the whistling of the wind as it winds its way around the rocks. Dusk has fallen, and far in the east the first stars are coming out, bright and almost painfully sharp. For a second John imagines that the land itself is singing to him. Yes, if this part of Afghanistan could sing it would sound something like that, all high and wailing and thin, three reedy notes in a dissonant chord. Life barely hanging on amongst the cliffs and rocks. The voice of the desert, crying out...
John shakes his head. This is not the time for whimsy or sentiment. He still feels lightheaded, almost dizzy from running for his life, running for what felt like hours in full body armor, with a heavy pack. He doesn't know how far he's come, doesn't know exactly where he is now.
Doesn't know where any of his squadron-mates are, either. They'd all taken off together when the ambush struck, but then John foolishly stopped to kneel at Dominic's side, frantically checking his vital signs. He'd still been alive, but only just, and John knew that there was nothing he could do. He heard William shouting his name angrily, shouting at him to get his arse up and run, and not be such a bloody idiot.
Then he looked up and saw the Taliban fighters racing towards him. He cursed and stumbled off to the side, narrowly avoiding a volley of rifle shots. He tried to take cover, several of them followed, and he ran. And ran, and ran, and ended up cut off from the rest of the group, and now John is lost in potentially hostile land.
Which is brilliant, just wonderful.
Well, he could be dead, or worse. And of course he has his GPS around his arm, so it's not like he won't be able to find the base, provided he can continue to evade the hostile force.
He knows better than to hope for rescue. The never-ending Afghan War isn't going so well that the Coalition forces can afford to waste resources on non-strategic goals, like rescuing a single soldier who's foolishly managed to get himself lost. Even if he is a capable and highly-regarded Medical Support Officer.
After he catches his breath, John takes a few careful swallows of water, not allowing himself to indulge his thirst too much. He doesn't remember seeing any water source, although he wasn't really focused on the task; so he has no idea how long his supplies will have to last. He decides to wait a bit longer before radioing base, just in case his pursuers are still lurking about.
While he waits, John studies what he can see of the landscape around him, part of his mind automatically analyzing it for escape routes, points of cover, and high ground. Luckily for him the moon is full tonight, and the area is bathed in pale white light.
As he examines the view, the hollows and outcrops of stone that he originally took to be natural suddenly form themselves into squares and cubes. Architecture. There, that's clearly a wall and the edge of a roof, and are those columns? John frowns. Some kind of ruins, perhaps?
Well, it's entirely possible. Bamyan province was an ancient center of trade along the silk road, and remnants of that culture can still be found. Many of them are undocumented, and lie abandoned to the wind and sand. John had thought that most of them lay further north, but this could easily be one such remnant. Lucky for him, too, since the fallen rocks and half-crumbled walls provide many excellent places to hide.
John thinks he sees a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, and instantly jumps to full alert, his eyes scanning the area, looking for anything out of place. But there is nothing moving now amongst the piles of grey rock, no flash of color or light. Nothing out of place.
After a moment, he relaxes. It must have been the wind kicking up dust, moving gravel.
Then it happens again.
John Watson would swear to the fact that he saw movement this time, a sharp blur of it catching his peripheral vision, far too much to be an errant leaf or rock. No, this was a form, and a fairly large one at that. He could swear that it had been the size and shape of a tall man. But when he watches, squinting and holding his breath, willing himself perfectly ready and still... once again, there is nothing. No movement, no sound. Except...
What is that, some kind of statue? Odd that he didn't notice it before. It's fairly far away, and he doesn't want to risk reaching for his binoculars to get a better look just yet, but the grey shape has sharp lines and a humanoid outline. It's obviously more than just a pile of rock. The silhouette widens and lifts out at the shoulders, in a way that is almost suggestive of wings.
John frowns. He didn't think that the ancient cultures of this area had any winged deities or spirits, but he's certainly no expert. For all he knows, it could be simply art, a sculpture carved a thousand years ago to adorn some merchant's house.
Weird, though, that it has stayed intact, while the buildings around it crumbled into dust. It appears, so far as he can tell under the washed-out moonlight, to be made of the same grey stone as the surrounding walls and ruins. But perhaps that's an illusion; maybe it is carved out of some much stronger stuff, thus surviving the elements for centuries. John is possessed by the sudden urge to go over and find out.
For a second, he allows himself to be distracted by idle fantasies of making a great archaeological find, and selling the statue to the British Museum for a large sum of cash. Which is nonsense, of course; even if the Coalition would spare the resources to bring the statue out, which is ludicrous on the face of it, it would then belong to the current government of Afghanistan. Which of course is just as incompetent and corrupt as the previous five incarnations had been.
They would probably set it up on the lawn of the new President's Mansion in Kandahar, and let the pigeons cover it with shit. (He tries hard not to stretch that thought into a larger metaphor.)
Some subconscious timer in John's brain ticks over, and informs him that he's been looking for 5 minutes straight. No sign of movement. He allows himself to relax a little more, and risks looking down to dig around in his belt pouch, seeking binoculars. He wants to get a better look at that statue, see if he can make out more details of its form.
Before he has time to get the zipper fully open, John Watson feels a searing pain in his left shoulder. It's worse than anything he's ever felt before, worse than when he broke his arm as a child, worse even than that time a napalm bullet grazed his thigh. It steals away his breath, and robs his mind of thought. His shoulder burns as if stabbed with a white hot poker, and at the same time freezes as if submerged in liquid nitrogen.
He has time to notice only a snarling face, with eyes of a cold and featureless grey. Then John Watson screams, and the world falls away.