Gunfire cleared his mind. Muzzle flashes in the darkness, a night full of moonlight and stars. Meli stood in the window and shot at fleeting shadows. He didn't know who the attackers were. He didn't care. He had been ordered to return fire, so he returned fire.

He would have given anything for a bullet to find a home in his head. Bad few days of convulsions and terrifying visions of demons rending the world apart. He couldn't take any more. He wanted it to end.

But the cowards couldn't help him. Their shots pounded the concrete window frame. Bullets whizzed by, seemingly to bend away from his face before impact. The firefight lasted both forever and less than a few minutes and they didn't grant his wish. The C.O. ordered the guards who were still standing to pull back and regroup. So he did what he was told.

They had to get out of there, the C.O. said. They were easy targets penned in like this, he said. Follow him, he said. Meli took a quick look around. There were three other guards with them, one with his hand pressed against his side. The man fought to breathe. The five-man team burst from the building in a wedge, guns blazing. Meli supposed that, in the confusion, he could be shooting at his comrades. He supposed that, in the confusion, they could be shooting at him. So it goes.

The C.O. led them across the broken pavement and around a building corner, kicking a rickety door and falling forwarding through the opening. Meli heard an explosion and was shoved from behind. He ducked inside as the commander called for them to set themselves in a defensive formation, ordering them to report. When all the other men had finished shouting their names, Meli shouted his. With roll taken, it was quiet except for the commander repeating to stay on guard and watch the door.

Meli stayed on guard. He watched the door.

Minutes passed. Weeks even, maybe a year. The firefight seemed like it had happened to someone else. A lifetime ago. This group had always been standing there, breathing raggedly, watching a black rectangle in a wall that lead somewhere else, waiting for something to happen. But nothing ever did.

"Give me a light," the commander whispered. "But keep it covered."

And then there was light. And then that they discovered that they were not alone. The boy stood silently just a few feet before them, silent, his shirt hanging from him, scorched and torn. His eyes glittered green like a cat's in the dim lighting. He trembled.

Someone, or more than one, screamed, but not Meli. Then someone--definitely more than one==opened fire. But not Meli.

The boy spun twice and fell facedown in a cloud of dust. The commander cursed and ordered them to watch the door, watch the door, watch the goddamned door. The holder of the light no longer held it. It too had fallen.

Just as before, they waited for someone or something to happen with that door. But nothing did. Besides, Meli doubted any of them were really watching the door anyway. Meli wasn't. He didn't like disobeying orders but he couldn't help it. He was watching the twitching, shuddering form of the boy pulling himself up to lean on his hands. Then he brought up his knees. Then he stood and walked back over to them. Like everyone else, that's what Meli was watching. It was more interesting than watching that black rectangular hole with nothing on the other side. This boy? He was something to look at.

A palm-sized flap of skin hung down over the boy's right ear and his slight body was wracked with shuddering. The scene, Meli supposed, would have looked ridiculous had anyone come through that oft-mentioned door. Four men, guns drawn, pointing them at a shivering young boy who looked like he'd just been run through a meat grinder.

The twitches turned into convulsions. His feet shuffled beneath him. His limbs spasmed. His face was wet, but with fluid what Meli couldn't guess. Something wet. Then his teeth began to chatter. It echoed in that tiny hollow space. Meli did not like that chattering. Not one bit. It set his nerves on end. The boy had a new splotch on his shirt, or maybe Meli hadn't seen it before. Regardless, it was there now on his chest. Below his chattering chin and his sunken, lost, little boy eyes.

Meli lowered his weapon. As he approached the boy he heard the commander hiss something. "Stop" or something like it. Meli pretended he didn't hear. Easier to do that than willingly disobery. Besides, all he heard was that chattering. His mind had been sucked into the vacuum of those dark little boy eyes.

Meli wrapped his arms arond the boy and held him tight. The boy went still, then juddered again.

Meli hugged tighter.