My life wasn’t always the best, my parents were druggies and they got off on hitting me whenever they felt like they had an excuse to. My dad and mother wouldn’t just hit me, they would burn me with cigarettes, hit me with metal poles, put me in the woods alone, and make me drink my own piss and would always make me find food because they wouldn’t provide it for me even though we had enough.
It wasn’t always like this you know, there was a short period of time where it was happy for awhile. My dad, before he became an addict, was a respectable lieutenant in the marines. He would be away fighting a war I barely understood because I was so young and innocent. My mother would hold me in her arms and read me bedtime stories before I went to sleep. Those were the only days I really felt love.
Things went bad when my father came home from war, he drank a lot, smoked a lot and yelled a lot. I could only imagine it was from the things he saw while away. One night my father came into my bedroom and started throwing things around and screaming at me. My mother being the caring person she used to be, stood up to my father, but that only got her a hit to the face a bunch of wooden stairs hitting her body as she fell down them. That was the first time I had ever seen my father hit my mother.
There were many and when I say many there was plenty of times where he hit her non stop some nights. Soon my mother stopped loving me, holding me, reading me stories and she even stopped talking to me. Instead of all of those things she should have been doing… She joined my father in hitting me and torturing me. I felt betrayed and of course in doing this she stopped getting hit herself. Eventually I turned 15 years of age and that day I will remember forever.
My father came into my room drunk and gave me 15 burns and “wished my happy birthday” My mother just watched. That night I packed up my things and left and went to my friend Tommy’s house. His parents were always more of a family to me then my actual one. If I could even call it that. I explained to Tommy and his parents I could no longer stay at my, well… hell hole. They said I could stay as long as I needed. They showed me care and kindness when nobody did and life got easier as it rolled along. One day Tommy’s parents adopted me and I was so exhilarated to become apart of something I never had. I family.
A month later after the adoption we turned on the television to see what was on. We were just flipping through channels one at a time and then we flipped past a news story I didn’t think much of it but when I saw my mother and father’s names with the caption saying, “Two shot dead in drug deal gone wrong” and then, both my parents names were both shown with pictures of them. The lady that was doing the report, her words never went through my ears as I sat there shocked. “Hey son, it is okay we are here for you,” my new father said. “Yea man if you ever never need to talk let us know,” Tommy said looking at me with concern. “It is fine you guys, they were terrible people anyway, I think I am just going to bed. Goodnight you guys.” I went up to my room and sat down. Those people were horrible to me and yet I still felt sad. Eventually sometime after crying I fell asleep.
Fast forward a few years later and I was sitting at a bar in the middle of town with my brother Tommy. We were having a conversation about if we should join the special forces. At the time we were both 21. The conversation went a little like this, “Tommy I have a brilliant idea, what if we joined the special forces?” “You are crazy man! You know how much they go through just for training? We would never survive.” “But what if we did? Think about it, secret missions, advanced training, getting stronger, dealing with weapons and etc.” “You know what? I agree! Let’s do it” and with that we tried special forces training a year later. The training was hard, we ran up to 20-35 miles a week, we had to run 4 miles in under 35 minutes, swim in frigid waters, and much more intense training.
As soon as all our training was complete, we had a week to see if we made it on the special forces. Tommy and I were sitting in our tent on the base. “You think we will make it?” he asked excitedly. “I hope so or all those long days of training were nothing,” I said. “We should get some rest,” he suggested, and I agreed. The next day a handful of people were brought to a room on the base, the general was there and along with other military officials as well. “You!” the general pointed to me. “You have been selected to lead these fine young men to recover data from an outpost in Russia. Do you accept?” I was confused it came out of nowhere and I didn’t even know if I made it into the special forces yet.
Tommy looked just as confused as I was. “Well?” he pressed me more. “I will take the mission sir. Does this mean we made it onto the special forces?” I asked. “What do you think it means? Everyone go get ready for the trip, we leave tomorrow be up at 3 a.m. sharp. Dismissed.” The general sent us back to our tents to get ready. The flight was long but me and Tommy slept most the way. It was about 15 minutes before we were supposed to deploy when the general came in to explain the mission. “Alright everyone this is your squad leader,” he gestured towards me. “You will listen to him, we are dropping you off two and a half days away from your target because we don’t want the Russians to expect a thing.”
I was nervous at hearing this. Almost 3 days away from our target, and we have to travel through snowy mountains, just great. After he was done explaining everything we grabbed out parachutes and one by one, everyone deployed. I was the last and Tommy was the first. We had fifteen people was in our squad and each with the bravest and fearsome personality I had ever seen. It was fine the first day and half the second day, sure there were a few things off and we didn’t take much notice to them. For example, animals didn’t run from us even as we got close to them, temperatures would range from -30 to all of the sudden be 40 degrees. It was odd but it didn’t matter.
It wasn’t until the second half of the second day when things got weird. The men started getting restless and one of them even tried to bite another man. One tried to hop off a cliff on the snowy mountain side, a few started mumbling to themselves as if they had gone completely mad. Tommy took as much notice as I did and he stood close to me as we carried on. When night came around, we set up camp and Tommy and I shared a tent. As normal, we had dinner, started a fire and when we were done, put it out. It was around 4 in the morning when I randomly woke up and I immediately took notice that Tommy and I weren’t the only ones in the room. I quickly turned around and saw one of the 13 other men standing there.
I will never forget this moment. He stared at me with his eyes practically wider than a human could open them, his pupils were black and his smile went all the way up to his face. He had a knife in his hand. I thought this was it. Then I heard him talk, only his voice was a deep, dark tone. “Leave us, or you will join us in the snow,” and with that, the man stabbed himself repeatedly till he bled out, but he still had the same expression on his face, even when he died. That is what haunted me the most.
The next day we awoke early after burying the man who died. It was a long hike and it started to get very stormy, we saw our target on a mountain and we rejoiced at seeing it. We continued. I heard Tommy’s voice from behind me. “Hey! Two of the men disappeared. We think they fell behind!” he yelled because the snow storm started to get worse and worse by the minute. “Let’s go check it out!” I yelled, “I am sure we will find them.” We walked about a mile before we discovered that there was blood on the snow. “What the hell happened to them?” one man said. “WHAT THE F**K IS THIS S**T?” a man screamed and I rushed over to the man and by his feat there were words saying, “LEAVE! OR JOIN US IN THE SNOW.” But that isn’t what he screamed at. There was a snow hill and in front of it were the two men with blood in there dark pupil-led eyes and inhuman smiles. Just like the last men.
It has been a few hours at Tommy and I are the only ones left. Each hour we found one more man dead and ended up like the others. The storm only got worse. A few hours ago Tommy’s eyes started to become all black and started getting an unforgettable smile, I couldn’t bare it so I shot him in the head where he stood. It is just me now, the storm his worse and I am now starting to notice that I am to, starting to get a long smile, and black eyes. I am sending this transmission out to anyone that can find and hear me. Do not go up into Russia’s mountains or you will end up like me… In the snow… with them.