#jonas blane

It is a desert scape.

One they recognize from three years ago, exact location both undisclosed and redacted. Sweat pooling in their clothes, a scarf pulled over their mouths, there is just the sensation of grit on their skin, the suffocating heat stale in their lungs.

It might as well be real.

There is an objective here. With a surveillance camera in each corner of the room, one wall a mirror, no doubt a one way, five beds, and equipment that puts them into a slumber.

The last of it they remember is Colonel Ryan telling them that anything goes.

"They’re really going for the realism this time.” Hector says, and out of the peripherals of his eyes, the air around them is distorted, looking like they are caught in the midst of a heat wave.

“You don’t say.” Charlie kicks up the sand at his feet with a furrow to his brows, only glancing up at Mack when recollection comes to him. “I hated this one.”

“Didn’t you get shot?” Bob asks, feeling that same unease and it is infectious given how his fingers itch.

Mack points at his shoulder, the one that he can dislocate for a ten dollar bet in the bars. “Fuckin’ nightmare really.”

In principle, they understand the objective. 

Jonas doubts that will do them any good. They are lying on top of the covers, mattress thin beneath their backs, movement rapid under their eyelids, fingers twitching against the scratchy sheets.

“Tell me about it.”

There are no live rounds, there are no guns.

There are just the five of them in one dream.