KUNAR PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN

Briana Stark

My fourteen year old body sat down as I stretched in my stretch book. I had begged my parents to let me go with Dad for his weapons' demonstration. Though it's not easy to stretch when the vehicle you're in is shaking from the bumpy road.

"I feel like you're all taking me to a court-martial. This is crazy. What did I do? I feel like you're going to pull over and snuff me. What, you're not allowed to talk?" He glances over to the soldier on the left side of us, "Hey Forrest!"

"We can talk, sir."

"Oh, I see. So it's personal?"

"No, you intimidate them." A female voice says in front of us.

I look up from my sketchbook and Dad's head snap towards the front of the vehicle.

""Good god! You're a woman! I honestly...I wouldn't have called that. I mean, I'd apologize but isn't that what we're going for here? I thought of you as a soldier first."

The soldier smirks as she says, "I'm an airmen."

I went back to my sketching while Dad continues to break the ice with the soldiers. I was so busy sketching my latest creation, or invention you may say, that I didn't even notice that Dad was getting a picture with one of the soldiers.

Till the truck in front of us exploded.

For a second, all I felt was panic as the truck bursts into fire and debris. The next thing that there is gunfire. I barely hear one of the soldiers yell out, "Jimmy, stay with the Starks!" because of the gunfire going around outside.

"Stay down!"

The gunfire doesn't show any signs of stopping as it just continues to go, slamming back into the windshield. The other trucks are exploding, going up in flames. The camo-dresses men and women shoot back at our attackers, but there's still blood everywhere.

Just as I snapped back to reality, a storm of bullets pierce the only soldier, Jimmy's body. The next thing I know is that Dad suddenly throws the side door of the truck open and dragging me out with him. We hid behind a large rock for shelter as the gunfire continues and I peek out from the rock to see the fight. Debris rains down from the sky.

There's a sudden thud beside us and I felt the life in me stopped, already knowing what landed beside us. I don't want to think but I still look over my shoulder, my face full of dread, and only five feet from us lies a large bomb with the name 'Stark' written across us. Before either one of us can move, the bomb explodes.

There's a ringing in my ears but I can barely hear the gunfire still going on. I see blood on the ground but I don't know if it's mine or Dad's. Dad lays a few feet from me, his hands pull back his chest as he watches a strange red liquid begin to infest and grow upon his blue shirt. He tears it open to look down at the blood before his eyes flutter close, his head falls back.

I try to go over to him but I can't get my body to move. The gunfire starts to zone out like its far away, and then everything goes black.

Iron Man belongs to Marvel

Briana belongs to me