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The sun hung high and its light bounced off the waves, turning the water a bright and seemingly endless blue. A warm breeze carried the salty scent of the sea, mixing with the occasional whiff of sunbaked sand and drying seaweed. The tide rolled in steady and slow, lapping at the shore in rhythmic bursts, almost like the crack of distant gunfire, but softer. Calming. Here, the sound wasn’t a warning or a call to take cover; it was steady, predictable. Something he could trust.
The sky stretched vast and cloudless, an unbroken dome of blue so pure it felt endless. Without a single wisp of white to interrupt it, the horizon curved ever so slightly, as if offering a glimpse at the true shape of the word. Not the distorted, evil version he saw daily. It was the kind of sky that made the earth feel round beneath a man’s feet - so wide, so open, that one could almost see where it bent away in the distance. The deep azure above met the shimmering line of the horizon in a perfect arc, and for a moment, it felt as though he was standing at the very edge of something vast and inevitable - something not shaped by artificial want or need, not forced upon him, but simply there. Stretching beyond him in a quiet, endless invitation.
If it weren’t for the crushing realization that the war continued on its merry way, it would’ve been a perfect summer day. Untouched sand, smooth and pristine, not scarred or stained like an OR floor where no matter how hard one scrubbed, the blood never fully vanished. No gunfire. No shelling. No gaping belly wounds. No desperate cries for relief or gloves. No tension hanging in the air. Just the steady sound of waves, the warmth of the sun and the quiet isolation of a beach untouched by everything happening beyond the horizon.
Suddenly a man was running. He was running. The sand that minutes before had been untouched, gave way just enough to soften each of the strange mans' steps.
His steps.
He wasn’t sure where the stranger was running to, only that he had to keep moving.
He had to keep moving.
Head tucked as if crossing an imaginary finish line, followed by a leap through the air, for a moment it felt like he was running along the curve of the earth itself.
Weightless.
Untethered.
Safe.
The wind rushed past the stranger, warm and salty.
Him .
The front brim of the strange man’s well-worn hat was being pushed back, flapping in the breeze.
His hat.
His breath came easy, effortless, as if the air itself wanted him to keep going. There was no urgency, no fear, just the pure sensation of movement - of muscles stretching, of lungs filling, of sand flicking up behind him in tiny bursts.
The world felt endless, as if he could run forever and never reach the edge. His footprints disappeared behind him, swallowed up by the tide, leaving no trace that he had ever been there at all.
That none of them had ever been there at all.
Off in the distance, just at the edge of sight, a man appeared to be juggling. A joker. Carefree. Laughing. The weight of the world temporarily removed from the tired man’s shoulders and left back in the depths of despair from which they came. His dark windswept hair and tattered shorts all but blurred out by the sun. Somehow, the carefully etched name on the man’s dog tag shimmered like a beacon - drawing him in slow and steady. Suddenly, and without warning, the joker was doing cartwheels. His feet barely touched the sand before lifting again, like gravity had loosened its grip just for him. It was like the man was performing for someone or something totally unseen. An unknown. Almost like he was afraid that if he stopped, terror and destruction would rain down on him.
He lifted a hand to wave, to call out - but the wind swallowed his voice. He blinked. The beach was empty and the landscape started to fade. The colors bled away first - golden sand fading to washed-out gray. The ocean dulled to a lifeless state. The air, once thick with salt and warmth, turned sharp, acrid, stinging the back of his throat like burnt rubber. The soft grains beneath his feet hardened, shaping themselves into something rigid, something wrong. He looked down - no longer sand, but cracked, threadbare fabric of an old bus seat. Frayed at the edges, damp with something that smelled of rust, sweat and blood.
The waves still crashed, but their rhythm had changed, breaking unevenly. Each swell pulled away more sound, more light. Then the water was gone, replaced by hushed, terrified whispers slithering through the darkness. Words he couldn’t quite make out but felt in his bones.
The last thing to vanish was the sky. Once vast and endless, now closing in…
smaller
tighter
until there was nothing left at all.
An isolated whisper - low, sharp, cutting through the heavy silence like a scalpel, came from the back of the bus. The air felt thick and wrong. The shadows stretched just a little too much, creating black grotesque portraits that tap danced along the bus walls. The whisper wasn’t meant to be heard, but it sounded deafening all the same.
He turned his head just enough to see, to confirm what he already knew. Another man was walking back, steps too quick, too sure, and then suddenly everything slowed. The silence became unbearable, pressing in on his ears, muffling his every breath, every heartbeat. He knew, even before he dared to fully look back, even before reality had fully caught up, that something irreversible had just happened.
Hawkeye didn’t know it yet. Not yet. But he would.
He reached out, fingers grasping at nothing but air. So close. He had to get to him. BJ had to get to Hawkeye.
The aisle stretched before him, impossibly long, suffocating in its stillness. Every step he took was silent, but somehow his heartbeat wasn’t. It pounded in his ears, in his skull, a steady and relentless drumbeat. He wasn’t sure if it was actually his own, or if it somehow belonged to the moment itself.
A breath.
A pause.
A hand, carefully placed on Hawkeye’s shoulder - light enough to not startle, but firm enough to ground. He leaned in, his own voice barely more than a breath. “Come on, Hawk.” The words barely left BJ’s mouth before everything seemed to shift. One moment, Hawkeye was there, solid, tangible, just a few inches away. His presence real. The next…
A flicker.
A blur.
Nothing.
BJ’s eyes darted, frantic, searching for any trace. Any sign. But Hawkeye was gone. Disappeared like smoke. Swallowed whole by the thickening and crushing shadows of the bus.
The space surrounding BJ, once so full, was now empty. Empty in a way that made the air colder, heavier. Empty in a way that made it harder to breathe - like he was suffocating at the ghostly hands of guilt and sorrow.
“BJ! Darling. You’re going to burn laying out like that!”
His eyes immediately snapped open at the sound of his name in that familiar angelic tone. Squinting, he quickly surveyed the beach, wondering if the joker was somewhere in the sea of people. So many faces with so many eyes glanced right through him as he took everything in. None of the faces were Hawkeye’s.
He then felt soft and delicate hands rubbing sunscreen on his bare shoulders. Peg. “What were you dreaming about, darling?” Before BJ could even begin to scrape together an answer, Erin was launching herself into his lap. Her pink plaid swimsuit damp from the sea and crusted with sand.
BJ finally turned his head to give Peg a very small smile and shrug. “Nothing, sweetheart. Just dozed off.”
Deep down, the reoccurring recognition and reminder that everything had changed began to simmer in his stomach. That guilt and terror, unlike he had ever experienced before, had wormed itself into his entire being - circulating through his bloodstream.
And as the family of three sat on the beach in silence - enjoying one another’s company, sun kissing their faces and shoulders, the physical absence of Hawkeye was more frightening than anything BJ’s unconscious state could ever produce.
It was the 4th of July.