The sun lies low in the sky, and my Company is crowded around a few dilapidated buildings which lie amidst a great expanse of jungle. Of key importance is the one building I’m currently standing in - an old, discreet-looking medium-sized warehouse with a single entrance, a tall and wide portal with its rolling steel door half-open - because the basement of this warehouse leads deep into the ground, ultimately leading to a single, locked, steel door which gives access to a network of tunnels that contain something of grave importance, something the likes of which me or my lowly Company would never have to know about. We are here to defend that door, those tunnels, with our lives.

I sit behind the cover of a large box that stands by the mouth of the warehouse, waiting for the sun to set…. and the inevitable attack by the enemy, which lurked deep in the palms and fronds of the jungle that encircled us. Every night the enemy came without fail, in increasing numbers, to open fire at us from the farthest range of their weapons, never once coming closer than a hundred or two meters. Besieged, we fired back, not knowing who they were or where they came from. We held them off for a week already, but after our nightly firefights were over, none of their bodies were to be found - just gore-splattered trees and undergrowth. Every day, while the sun was up, our scouting teams combed the jungle in various vectors, but invariably came back none the wiser: we hadn’t the slightest idea who it was we were up against.

The sun falls deeper into the horizon, and the darkening sky mirrors the mood of the Company. Preparations for the impending assault are done, and the men take cover behind crates and sandbags that litter the mouth of the warehouse. I load and cock my rifle, and tap at the extra magazines hidden in my combat webbing in anticipation. I look around and see, in the dim light of the warehouse, the dark silhouettes of my comrades, prone or crouching, grasping their rifles tightly and looking intently into the darkness.

Then it begins - shots are fired, and deep in the shadows I see vague silhouettes illuminated by tracer rounds and muzzle flashes. Pressing myself hard against the crate, I take aim and pull the trigger again and again. This night, the enemy comes in larger numbers; and, instead of hanging back in the shadows of the undergrowth, they creep closer in a line formation, hellfire spewing forth from their rifles as they run and crawl at us.

Under the cover of my crate, I pull the trigger again and again, in two-round bursts, and assailant after assailant falls to my hand. A bullet impacts the crate, inches from my face, and I get desperate; I fear that I’ll never see the sun rise again, that the tunnel network has already been infiltrated and the enemy will emerge from the massive door behind us and cut us down from both directions. As more and more of the enemy get closer, the firefight gets increasingly dire and bloody. Putting a fresh magazine in the rifle, I scream a war cry and let loose more fire at the lurking terror in the darkness, as they claw closer and closer and closer.

I wake up much later than usual. It’s Good Friday and - cliche alert! - that was all just a dream. A vivid one, however… I look at my face in the mirror and am surprised to see the absence of camouflage cream. Shaken, but intent to write it all down before wakefulness distorts the memory of dream, I sit down at the computer and start typing.