The First Moment
Copyright© 2026 by TMax
Chapter 8: Rest
Alice held my hand a little too tight as she pulled me down the concrete hallway. Her words reverberated off the walls and the ceiling. “We need to get you a phone, which only fucking works to call each other and some staff, but it’s needed for ordering food and reserving rooms and shit. You know, the important stuff.”
We turned a corner, and a trio of soldiers almost knocked us down. We fell backward into the wall, Alice slightly behind me as if I could protect her. They looked Eastern or Northern European.
The tallest soldier, the one in the middle, with a shaved head and a cigarette in his mouth, yelled something in a foreign language at us. The other two soldiers laughed. The one on the left leered at Alice. The one on the right reached forward to grab Alice’s arm. Fear erupted inside my heart as I stared at their black machine guns.
“Fuck off,” I yelled, which caused the leader to smash me in the face with the butt of his gun. Blood splattered the wall, and I collapsed onto the floor. The dirt and concrete cut my hand and scraped skin off my palm. Blood filled the back of my throat as I growled at the soldiers. What a great way to join my family in defense of an innocent.
Behind us, a group of soldiers yelled in a different language. The trio raised their guns. Four soldiers in forest green uniforms, who looked Chinese or Japanese, raised their guns at the other end of the hallway. The soldiers yelled at each other, while Alice and I pressed up against the wall in an attempt to avoid the bullets if they started to fire.
Blood dripped off my chin while I held Alice’s hand. Just the thought that I might die between these soldiers, hired or brought here to protect us, made me angry, and I almost attacked the European soldiers, but Alice’s presence made me pause. While I didn’t care if I lived, I couldn’t allow Alice to die.
The toxic smoke from the soldier tickled my nostrils and almost caused me to sneeze, but thankfully, I stayed in control of my body. I didn’t even mind the smoke because it helped cover the scent of blood.
The groups yelled at each other until the Asian group lowered their weapons. The smoking soldier flicked his cigarette to the floor, where it sparked and continued to burn. He rolled his gun while the soldier to his right lowered his. The left soldier paused, glanced at his fellow soldiers, scowled, then slowly lowered his weapon. They stared at each other as they backed up. Alice and I held hands as we listened to the two groups of footsteps disappear in the concrete corridors.
“I hate them so much. Fucking bastards,” Alice said and hugged me.
I hugged her back. It felt good, too good, so I pulled away and asked, “What just happened?”
Alice tapped on her phone as she said, “Fucking soldiers are getting bored. There’s already been a couple of rapes, but no deaths, thank God.”
How can Alice just offhand comment about that? Rape. The worst kind of assault. Some claim that they would rather die than get raped. I agreed with them.
“What are you doing?”
“Reporting this, because fuck them right!” Alice said as her thumbs typed on her phone. Movement sounds echoed in the hallways while a warm breeze ruffled my hair. My hand throbbed from the cuts on my palm, and I wished I had taken some painkillers or something, or even that I had eaten enough to satisfy my empty stomach.
To help calm the situation, I said, “Fucking soldiers are like clouds. Everyone cheers when they leave.”
“A beautiful day. Haven’t seen one of those in months,” Alice said with a frown. I put my hand on her shoulder to comfort her until she added, “Thank goodness, because I don’t miss fucking mosquitoes.”
And I laughed. Stupid, because nothing Alice had said sounded funny, but I guess the release of tension can even make stupid jokes funny. Strangely, I wanted to clean up my blood on the walls and the floor, like I wanted or needed to erase the encounter. But with a touch of Alice-like bravado, I mentally said ‘fuck it’ and ignored the red concrete.
Through another set of blue doors, down a deserted hallway, to a vending machine with dusty glass, filled with phones, snack food from all over the world, three styles of headphones, and other items that a corner store would contain. I definitely would not eat any of the sushi or sandwiches.
“It’s all free, just press your finger on the screen, touch the number of what you want, and out it comes,” Alice said, as if I hadn’t ever used a vending machine. I went into a bit of selection shock, unable to find and then decide between the different options.
Eventually, after Alice sighed three times and made the hurry-up motion with her hand twice, I pressed the small screen, selected a white phone, then selected a dental hygiene package that contained an orange toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, and, most important, mouthwash. Before I did anything else, I ripped the hard plastic apart, grabbed the mouthwash, and swirled it around to get the horrible taste out. My mouth tingled with the mint flavor as I realized that I had no place to spit out the mouthwash.
“Bathroom’s right here,” Alice said as she pointed to a red door about ten feet away.
I rushed over and spat out the too-strong stuff in the sink. As I stood in the small bathroom with my cut-up face, bloody upper lip and chin, messy hair, and stubbled chin staring at me from the mirror, I realized two things. I looked horrible, worse than ever, and I needed to pee.
I washed the blood off my face, then stumbled, almost as if my legs didn’t fully remember how to walk, into the cubicle, and as I unzipped and began to pee, Alice walked in and said, “So, no pressure, but I reserved a king-sized room for tonight if you want to join me.”
Do women not understand that you don’t talk in the washroom? My wife used to do the same thing. She would talk about her day, doing her makeup, while I sat on the shitter and tried not to make any noises. Eventually, I gave up and even laughed when I drove her from the washroom with my stink. The memory caused my eyes to tear and my throat to contract.
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